Committee of Management

Club Appointments

The January General Meeting will be Friday 30th January  at the Community Hall on the corner of Todds Road and Ellis Street Lawnton commencing at
7:30 pm
The next working bee will be Sunday 1st February starting at 8:00AM.

President's Report
I would like to wish everyone well for the coming year and I would like to thank the tireless workers for the club, to name a few, Gordon Grant, Peter Tomkins, Dave Harper, Bob Moore, Dave Wherrett, Dave Anderson, Frank Grovenor. Without the efforts put in by these members we would not have a viable club.

This year should prove to be an interesting one for the club and we hope should bring some positive developments towards the proposed new flying field. The steering committee has been appointed and they are Col Parry, Dave Anderson and Dan Sawyer. They will be investigating all aspects of club amalgamation.

On another matter, regarding cold drinks from the club fridge. Due to the high number of drinks not being paid for particularly on weekends it has been decided that there will no longer be cold drinks available via the honour system on weekends. Drinks will have to purchased from the canteen during opening hours.

At the January club meeting we will be voting on a motion put forward at the October club meeting to hold club meetings at the flying field on a Sunday morning. Airwaves contains a proxy voting form for those not able to attend the January club meeting.

If club meetings were to be held at the flying field on a Sunday morning the field would have to be closed for the duration of the meeting. That would include no engines running also. Therefore the field would be closed for two Sunday mornings a month.

Also if the club is evicted from our present site due to circumstances beyond our control we would no longer have a venue for club meetings at a time when a club meeting place would be very important for the continuation of the club.

Over to you the members.

Peter Atkinson

Secretaries Report
2009 is kicking off as a very positive year with a number of exciting items already in the pipeline. The 2009 events calendar has been posted on the notice board and registered with MAAQ.

In this issue of Airwaves we have the proxy held over from the October General Meeting on the location and timing for club General Meetings.

It is extremely important that we hold the General Meetings at a location and time, which facilitates the greatest number of members being able to attend. Relocation of the meetings to the field will require the full and total closure of the field for the duration of the meetings.

One item that I am very excited about is the invite to address Pine Rivers Rotary Club on the 10th February. What a great opportunity to promote our club to some of the most influential business people throughout the region.

I am in search of old photos from the early days, especially before and after of the field together with other interesting aircraft or events. If you have anything please contact me.

Not a great deal has happened on the amalgamation front over the Christmas break but now that Council is back our sub committee will be full steam ahead. Should you have any thoughts on this matter please express those thoughts to the committee or sub committee.

Safe Flying & Few Heavy Landings.

Peter Tompkins

THANK YOU!
Bob Moore has asked that the following thanks be passed on: to Roger Harrison for the provision of a new vice now fitted to one of the benches. Please replace the cover after use.

Also thanks to Kerry Turton for the donation of a new battery for the ride-on mower.

Bob reckons he has no excuses now for not mowing! I believe we all owe Bob a huge thank you for the many hours he spends mowing at the field, especially during the recent wet weather. THANK YOU, Bob!

EDITORIAL
It has often been said that if we fail to learn from the mistakes of the past, we are bound to suffer the penalties of those mistakes again.

This lesson seems to have escaped those members who are proposing that we hold our monthly meeting at the flying field. As several of our long-serving members have testified, this has been tried at least twice in the past, and it DID NOT WORK! Each time meetings have had to be moved back to the hall in Lawnton. Nothing has changed since then….

It is an obvious fact that no matter where or when we hold our meetings, some members will be inconvenienced. However, over many years we have found that the current Friday night meetings work for the majority of members.

We have a lot of important business to conduct this year regarding the proposed amalgamation and new field at Uhlmann Rd. We can ill afford to have our meetings disrupted in any way, so I urge members to vote against the motion. If you are unable to attend the meeting on Jan 30th, please use the proxy form on the back of this newsletter and forward it to the secretary ASAP. Thank you.

Dave Harper

MINUTES OF PRAMS SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING
HELD AT LAWNTON COMMUNITY HALL ON NOV 28TH 2008.
Meeting opened: 7.33

Chairman: P Atkinson.

Members Present as per the Attendance Book.

Apologies: J Fagan, G Grant, J Boosten.

The president announced that this Special General Meeting would, as advised in Airwaves, be concerned solely with the proposed amalgamation of PRAMS and WMFC, in order to secure and develop the proposed flying field at Uhlmann Rd., Burpengary, and that all other business would be held over until the next General meeting in January 2009.

The secretary read the letter from Wamuran Model Fliers Club re the proposed amalgamation of WMFC and PRAMS.

Messrs W Sharpe and J Gibson from WMFC were introduced to the members and gave an overview of their progress on the Uhlmann Rd, Burpengary site.

The motion to proceed towards amalgamation of the two clubs was put by J McAllen and seconded by P Benson. The motion was carried, with one abstention.

It was further moved by P Tompkins, seconded by G Kennedy, that an amalgamation sub-committee be formed comprising two members from each club to be selected by the respective committees. Carried.

The visitors from WMFC were thanked by acclamation.

Meeting closed at: 8.09pm.

COMMITTEE BYLINES

At the recent committee meeting the following matters were discussed:

The treasurer suggested that a new assets register be drawn up and that club assets be revalued for insurance. Agreed that this will be done. It is also looking like we may have to start paying a professional bookkeeper to maintain the club financial records in a satisfactory state for the auditor. Any club member with bookkeeping experience is invited to help!

It seems that some bad diesel fuel was supplied for the tractor which has caused problems. The fuel system is to be drained and new fuel bought.

There seem to be problems with fuel stock takes as some anomalies have been found. Hopefully these problems will be sorted out shortly.

Three new DVDs have been ordered for the library (and now are to hand). Titles are Joe Nall 2008, Jet Engines for Model Aircraft and High Performance Thermal Soaring.

New Members: Applications from the following were approved: M Hughes, J Sykes, A Pollock and L Hubner. Several other applications were deemed to be incomplete and will be followed up by the secretary.

Dave Anderson reported that the new Honda generator has been installed and is running satisfactorily. Several minor modifications to the wiring still need to be made to complete the installation and approval was given for this work to be carried out. Thanks were given to Dave for the many hours he has spent on this project.

Uhlmann Rd field: we are still waiting to hear the outcome of the January meeting of Moreton Region Council on this matter. It has been noticed that there is a communication tower adjacent to the field - we will have to investigate whether this will cause any problems. The amalgamation sub-committee is still studying options for the amalgamation process. It was agreed that a letter be sent to each councillor outlining the history of the club and our plans for developing the field.
Charity Airshow - planning will get under way soon - the secretary has things in hand so far.

It was suggested that excerpts from the latest Airflow newsletter relevant to heavy models be reprinted in Airwaves. (see below).

HEAVY MODELS
The following is reprinted for the MAAQ newsletter Airflow for members' information:

Heavy Model Permits are your responsibility and is also part of the insurance cover conditions. It is usually a simple task to have an inspection done by an approved inspector and thus I recommend that if your model is over 7kg you arrange for an inspector to issue a permit to fly. Don't forget, a new inspection is required every 3 years. Forms can be obtained from me if your inspector has run out.

The insurance cover is also restricted to certified pilots of that model. That is, pilots who have flown the aircraft in front of a Heavy Model Inspector and who has signed off the appropriate flight envelope on the permit. No other person can fly that aircraft unless they are 'supervised' by a Pilot certified on the permit or a Heavy Model Inspector. Also remember there are two categories of Large Models. Heavy Models 7kg to 25kg and Giant Models 25.1kg to 50kg.

There are different rules for each level and they have their own class of inspectors.

While on Heavy Models,

I understand that there has been information distributed that Heavy Model Inspectors are no longer required to send in the yellow portion of the Permit to the State Secretary. THIS IS INCORRECT INFORMATION. Heavy Model Inspectors should be following MOP 015 where it is clearly stated that the yellow copy is to be sent to the State Body. This is for several reasons, but two important ones are:

a. A record of the permit is kept in case you have lost yours and there is an incident. This also protects the club, State and National Bodies in following the system.

b. Registers the Pilot on our data bank as a qualified person to fly that aircraft

CASA has a ruling that each State Body account for all Display, Heavy, Turbine, and Giant model permits and report on these each year. There are other areas that need filing and reporting to CASA such as breaches of CASA regulations etc.
PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU MAIL ME THE YELLOW COPY.

It has come to my attention that some members believe they are able to do a maiden or test flight on a heavy model without an inspector present 'just to iron out things' before they get the inspector. This is definitely incorrect and a very serious misuse of club facilities and perhaps a financial burden on club members in the event of a mishap..

Pylon Report Grafton State of Origin
The weekend was filled with mixed feelings.

Only Allan made the trip to Grafton, where the numbers were down for the meet. Still the racing was explosive with many races too close to call, some of the planes on display were piloted by 2 of the Australia team members hurling around the pylons at a unbelievable speed of in excess of 300ks. In my class we were just going around at about 180ks where 2nd place was achieved by yours truly. Not to be put off we all had fun and can't wait for the next meeting on Australia day at Bundaberg.

The trip home was just as much fun as I had to fight the storms that hit Brisbane later that day, and as I tried to get home the last couple of kms into Albany creek I found myself dodging trees and water and at times in 4wd to go over trees. Until the next report

Go hard turn left

Allan Taylor

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

See also the PRAMS 2009 Calender on the noticeboard at the field!