Monday, January 30, 2006

The Fly Paper - January 2006

The Fly Paper - January 2006

Welcome to 2006
Another new year and hopefully this will be the first of a regular monthly edition of th your newsletter. So to make it work I need people to contribute news and events so we can all share whats happening around the club. As I don't get to Horsham every week please contact me by phone or email, or pin a few notes to the club notice board. My home phone number is 03 5025 8997 and my email address is
mphogan@ncable.com.au

New Members
This month we welcome two new members and one returning member. Darcy Hogan and Mark Goodly have joined the club. Darcy and mark are also both members of GCV. Also this month we welcome back a returning member. Gerhard Schmidtmann has joined us for the summer as he has done for the past couple of years. Gerhard stays at the club in his motor home and exchanges the cold of Germany for the heat of the Wimmera. Welcome back Gerhard

Where's Joe
Many members will know that President Joe has been on a working holiday in England. Joe has been pursuing his own personal interests as well has doing some work at the Lasham Gliding Club. Joe has been in contact and will be returning to Australia on the 18th of February.

Hatched, Matched & Dispatched
Congratulation are extended by all club members to Viv Drew and Gary Allbutt who recently announced their engagement. Well done and best wishes to both of you. Alan Dickerson has just welcomed a new grand daughter to his family. Congratulations Alan. Also Alan is now the proud owner of a Jabiru which he will be hangaring at the club. I wonder which get the most pampering.

Next Monthly Meeting
As the February club meeting falls on the second Saturday of the Horsham Week competition the meeting has be been put back one week and will now be held on Saturday 18t February at 7.00PM. Please note the change of time. All are welcome at the monthly meeting. So take some time to get involved in the administration of your club.

Schools in early for PW and Mark
Peter Weissenfeld and Mark Griffin recently spent 10 days in Swan Hill attending an ultralight instructors course. Rob Johns and Tony Brand also took part. PW says they were up and flying by 8 in the morning and with classroom study sessions didn't finish until 8 each night. For some strange reason Mark and PW were a bit tied when they got back. So it looks like in the near future we will have plenty of qualified RAA instructors in the area. All we need now is some students for them to train.

The Pawnee's Summer Safari
TOJ has been away on holiday for most of January. Ron grant's annual gliding safari passed through Horsham just after Boxing Day and the Pawnee went with them. The safari of about seven glider from the Gliding Club of Victoria was heading to the Flinders Ranges via Horsham, Pinaroo, Waikerie and returned about ten days later via Burra, Waikerie, Mildura (where I found them up the street), Swan Hill and finally back to Benalla. The Pawnee was due to return to Horsham but continued on to Benalla where in is towing at the Club Class competition. Unfortunately as it went straight to Benalla a number of pilots missed out on a weekends flying when they expected it to be back in Horsham. TOJ is due day from the competition around the 28th of January. So its been a long summer holiday for TOJ.

Geelong GC's Summer Camp
At the same time that the Pawnee was leaving to go on holidays the Geelong Gliding Club arrived with their Pawnee for a Christmas camp at Horsham. They bought about seven or eight gliders and their tug and operated from the club until the second week of January. Some of our pilots were able to get in some spin training in their gliders. Launching was also available for our gliders.

Horsham Week 2006
The Horsham Week competition kicks on Saturday February 4th and goes through to the following Saturdays the 11th. The competition is again being run by a volunteer group from regular Horsham Week pilots. We provide the facilities. Lorelle is running the kitchen as she has for many years now and does need some helpers. So if you can help out come out to the club and see Lorelle. There is a wind-up dinner on Saturday 11th, so names and numbers attending would be greatly appreciated. As part of the preparations for Horsham Week we need to do a bit of tidying up around the club, mowing, cleaning and generally giving the place a bit of a spruce up. Our last opportunity to do this is this coming weekend. So if you have time to spare come out and give us a hand. There's always the chance to get in a bit of flying as well.

New Signs
Mark and I are still working on getting the new signs to replace the old Wimmera Soaring Club ones that face the road and the carpark.. We should have some progress in the next few weeks.

Thats the newsletter for this month. Until February. Safe flying.

Mike