Committee of Management

Club Appointments

The February General Meeting will be Friday 27th February 2009 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 March 2009 starting at 8:00AM.

President's Report
Planning is already under way for the Airshow and we are asking members to start thinking about what you can do to help make it a success. Whether you prefer to fly on the day or participate as a helper. As last years' Airshow was a washout it would be great to put on a good one this year and generate some funds for the new field as well as donating to a good cause.

Happy flying Peter Atkinson

Letter to the Editor
To the Editor, Airwaves.

The reason many club members give for not attending meetings is that they are TOO boring and old issues are forever being raised again and again. Okay, mundane stuff like committee reports are all part of the process and are necessary so that club members can be made aware of the club status. But so many finalized old issues have been raised lately that it is worrying. We are going around in circles and boring everyone to tears in the process. Most of the time this is caused by new members not being aware the particular issue they are raising is not new and has already been decided on. This is not their fault.

A case in point at the January meeting was the issue of using the 27Mhz band at the PRAMS field. This has come up 3 times in the last 2 years and each time it was decided that the risks associated with the use of 27Mhz did not justify its use at PRAMS. The members acted with caution and commonsense and so 27Mhz was banned. MAAQ will not become involved because of the problems that could occur with the use of 27Mhz. As we all know the 27Mhz band is not very well regulated and is subject to frequent misuse. Why should we take any risks?

The issue was raised on behalf of a person who is not even a member. Why? We have already decided 3 times not to allow the use of 27Mhz. Let's stick to our decision. We have more than enough bands, ergo 29Mhz, 36Mhz, 40Mhz and 2.4Ghz, so any new or potential member should be made aware of this, no exceptions. I am not aware of any other model aircraft club which allows the use of 27Mhz. It is our club and we make the rules, and you join agreeing to our rules or go somewhere else. Let's not open a pandora's box.

Barry Evans VH7956
(Editor's note: Thank you Barry. I think his comments also apply to the idea of holding meetings at the field…. Members are welcome to write to the editor if they feel they have something to pass on to members.)

MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING HELD ON JAN 30TH 2009
AT THE LAWNTON COMMUNITY HALL.

Meeting opened: 7.40PM

Chairman: P Atkinson

Members Present as per the Attendance Book.

Apologies: C Parry, E Pond

Confirmation of minutes of previous meeting:
moved: P Benson seconded: G Kennedy carried

Business arising from the minutes:
Canteen management: The Chairman reminded the members that F Grosvenor has been running the canteen since the November meeting on the conditions then agreed. It was moved by P Benson, seconded by B Evans that the canteen convenor be paid 50% of canteen profits or a stipend to cover his fuel costs, whichever is the greater.

It was moved by D Anderson, seconded by B Evans, that the motion be amended to read, instead of 'a stipend…' it should read'…should be paid $10 per day or 50% of the canteen profits, whichever is the greater, for a minimum of 3 hours opening.'
The amendment was carried, and the amended motion was then carried on a show of hands.

The Notice of Motion as advertised in Airwaves, 'that General Meetings be held at the flying field on the last Sunday of each month' was debated. When put to the vote the motion was defeated on a show of hands with 1 vote for, 25 votes against and 5 abstentions. Proxies were counted and showed 3 for and 9 against the motion. Therefore the motion was declared defeated.
(Note: Even counting the 20 proxies previously declared invalid, the motion would still have been defeated.)

The Treasurer commented that with the current complexity of maintaining the club accounts as required by the Auditors, he would recommend that a professional bookkeeper be retained to look after the books. The Treasurer has sought a suitable bookkeeper and suggested that one could be found to do the books for approx $45 per hour.

It was moved by D Harper, seconded by J McAllen, that the treasurer be authorized to place the clubs books in the hands of a professional bookkeeper until the end of the current financial year. The cost to be evaluated then before committing to further use of the bookkeeper. Carried.

President's Report:
As published in Airwaves.

Secretary's Report:
The secretary has been invited to give an address to the Pine Rivers Rotary Club about PRAMS.

Inward Correspondence:
As per the Correspondence Book

Outward Correspondence:
As per the Correspondence Book.

Treasurer's Report:
As circulated. A review of club assets is to be carried out and an Asset Register is to be created.

CFI Report:
The winners of the 2008 Club Championship were announced as follows: 1st: G Bartels. 2nd A Holloway, 3rd Amber DeGruen. The best Junior was Nadeen Lindner.

The first and second prizewinners each received a voucher for a powered glider flight, courtesy of T Mills. The third placegetter received a trophy.

Bronze wings were awarded to four members.

Members were reminded that 1" keys are not to be used in the frequency board, except as a guard key if required.

Unnsupervised children have been a problem recently. Members and visitors are to be asked to supervise their children at all times at the field.

Field Maintenance Report:
At the next working bee jobs to be done include tightening the shade cloth over the pit area, repairing fencing and cleaning out between the containers. Keith Berry was thanked for his efforts mowing with the tractor in the past week.

Fuel Report:
Premix to be available in 4 Lt containers. Prices may have to be raised shortly to cover increased costs.

PRO Report:
The calendar of events for 2009 is now available, and has been sent to MAAQ and Airborne magazine. Juniors day has been moved to 24th Feb.

Library and Airwaves Report:
Four new DVDs have been acquired for the library.

Moved that the reports be accepted: moved B Evans seconded D Thomas carried

General Business:
Mr Len Smith was introduced by Kerry Turton as the kind builder of the Memorial Board, Display Board and Trophy Cabinet in the clubhouse. Len then donated a large framed photo of an FA18 Hornet to the club. He was thanked by acclamation. (The photo has now been hung in the clubhouse).

We have heard that the Coolum Club is losing their flying field.

The advisability of allowing models to be operated using the 27Mhz band was discussed. It was agreed that models may only be flown if the transmitters have passed the mandatory bandwidth testing.

Meeting closed at: 9.20pm.

COMMITTEE BYLINES
At the recent committee meeting the following matter were discussed:

It seems that we should thank Doug Allen for the new battery for the ride-on mower.

New fuel prices to be displayed in the club room.

There has been another occasion when models have been in the air when the mosquito spraying chopper has flown over. There is to be a sign made saying 'Spraying chopper operating, no flying' to be kept in the TX pound. When any member sees the chopper operating this sign should be hung in front of the Tx pound so members are aware of what is going on. The sign to be removed after the chopper has given the all clear or has been gone for more than 45 mins.

It has also been reported that some members have been flying IC powered models before 8 am - please be aware of this rule as we don't want any complaints!

Col Parry has tendered his resignation from the Amalgamation Sub-committee. A replacement is being sought. Any volunteers?

There has been no progress on the Uhlmann Rd field as the subject wasn't discussed at the last Moreton Regional Council meeting.

It seems that a member has queried an instructor failing somebody on their wings test. The committee stands by the judgement of our instructors…

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR USERS OF 2.4GHZ RADIOS!
We have received some important information regarding proper setup of this new equipment via an article in the latest Silicon Chip magazine. There is too much to reprint here, but Danny will be including it in the email version of Airwaves. If this affects you, either buy a copy of Silicon Chip or check with a member who gets his Airwaves via email!

(Ed: It's not quite that earth shattering, but it does provide some good information that all users of 2.4GHz radios should read and understand)

LIBRARY NEWS
The latest DVDs are proving popular, so three more new titles have been ordered - the 2009 editions of The Tucson Shootout, Ballet of the Sky and Warbirds Over Delaware. They are in the mail!
It seems that I won't be at the field most Saturdays from now on, so Sundays will be when I'm available to book library stuff out. Darren Robinson can also book stuff out if I'm not there…anybody else want to volunteer to be an assistant librarian?

Dave Harper

Pylon Racing Report - Australia Day weekend at Bundaberg
The weekend started off wet with showers all day which made the humidity 90% so if you were not wet from rain the humidity got you. Most of the flyers elected to camp at the field. With all the facilities at the field we were in for a great weekend. Don, Andrew, Sven all electing not to race any more due to the travel involved, it was left to young Chris Stonley and myself to represent our club at the Australia Day weekend. The racing started off with our class of Q500 with 15 entries, it was going to be a good day racing between the storms. Chris was a bit rusty but was holding his own round the pylon course. Yours truly was flying a new light weight racer and was noticeably quicker than most. The racer I have scratch-built costing approx $50 plus hardware while flying against some of the commercial made aircraft at a cost of $700 for the air frame plus radio and so on. With all that in hand I was not too worried about a mid air, so I just kept my line when racing, that way hopefully I kept my time low to the point I came in 3rd. Chris was in the middle of the pack with tragedy to come.

After our race it was our turn to help on the pylons so I was allocated to the number one cage this sits off course but close enough to see the planes hurtling around number 1 pylon. The cage its self is a trailer covered with steel mesh and glad it was, as one of these planes went off the air and out of our sight until we heard the bang just behind us, we went for a little walk after that (change clothes and a good drink) even though you are very safe in the cage it's still scary when a racer goes in within meters of you at 300ks.

Tragedy to come for Chris: he has stepped up to the next class of racing but in the excitement his plane hit the dirt so it's back to the drawing board: radio damaged, engine okay but airframe destroyed.
Chris Callow from the Sunshine Coast who has been world champ a number of times , looks as if he is on track again as his class of plane was the quickest I have ever seen approx 320ks - it was hooting!

Our next meet is Rockhampton only a small 6hr drive in 6weeks time; until then go hard turn left

Allan Taylor

Forthcoming Events