Minutes: January 21, 2007, Meeting of EAA Ultralight Squadron 110

Mike Ettl, President, convened the meeting at 1:30 pm, at the Wings of History Clubhouse, with 22 souls aboard.

Calendar: Mike introduced himself as our new President, and to our vision for the coming year, starting with the Yahoo Group and Calendar, posted there. During each month, starting in March through October, there will be at least one Club-sponsored event, or support going to another group’s event. We walked through the Calendar touching on each item.

EAA Insurance: John Gould showed how our EAA General Liability Insurance covers us in our participation and equipment as we represent EAA. The cost is $329 per year.

EAA Membership: Mike spoke to the importance of each of us being members of EAA, in support of the organization, and in light of the organization’s support back to us. He pointed out that each club member is required under EAA rules to be a member of EAA. One can choose however, to be a Supporting Guest, by contributing $25/ year to the Club, if not a member of EAA.

Wings of History: We discussed a similar, less formal relationship between our Club and Wings of History. Our policy is to show support of WOH by requesting our members to join and maintain membership in WOH. The cost of membership is $40 per year.

Flying Companion Seminar: Mary Doherty invited us to have friends and companions attend the seminar, on Feb. 24, sponsored by the Ninety-Nines. The event is at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education. Contact person is Theresa Levandoski-Byers, 831/728-5511.

Poker Run: Rich Grialou presented plans for the first Low and Slow Poker Run, on May 5. The event intends to expose local communities to ultralight and light sport flying. Three airports, Watsonville, Hollister, and Frazier Lake, will be holding cards for pilots to draw, with the final Texas Hold ‘Em showdown at a barbeque at South County. Gift donations are requested. Volunteers stepped up for these areas:

Advertising Steve White

Poker Game Rich Grialou

Food John Gould

Parking Mike Ettl

A second Poker Run is planned on August 4, 2007.

Financial Challenge: Mike Ettl pointed out that our current annual budget runs at about $800 per year, and this year we are looking at a more ambitious presence, and likely more expense. A number of ideas were discussed as possible fund-raising activities:

50-50 Raffle

Ask for money.

Rely on donations

Have a fund-raising event

Have lunch/dinner event coinciding with the meeting, charging for the food, at more than cost.

Ask for money at each event – donation jar?

Ask people with aircraft in the EAA hangar to contribute toward the insurance expense.

Stephen Mann spoke up about the value of this Club in his life and threw $40 on the table as a donation. This sparked further donations, and we ended up with $100 in spontaneous contributions.

It was concluded that we would try the “50-50” raffle idea, with sales of raffle tickets at the next meeting with half of the proceeds going to the lucky winner of the draw.

Announcements:

Jim Doherty’s Rolling Boneyard is working, under the auspices of EAA 119 (WVI) and it has entire airplanes waiting for adoption. Donations to the effort are tax-deductible.

Jim Carter, Founder of EAA 119 and 50-year member of EAA (his membership number has 4 digits, starting with “2”), passed out information on development of a fuel-cell powered electric aircraft.

Mike Ettl let members know that there is a new finance program available to EAA members, that can be used to finance your kit construction.

EAA has a weekly newsletter, “EAA e-Hotline” that is available to EAA members. You can subscribe by going to www.eaa.org and clicking the button in the left margin, called “eaa e-hotline” and filling out the form that comes up.

Mike Ettl briefly discussed the transition deadline of 1/31/07 for UL pilots to become LSA pilots.  Turns out this is not a major milestone, nor does it mean the transition is significantly more difficult.  A couple extra endorsements will be required post 1/31/07 to take the tests, and this will involve a little expense and nuisance, but you can still use properly logged UL flight time to qualify for LSA licensing.

Golden West Fly-In: We are planning that Harold Marchant will represent us at Golden West. The event is June 29 – July 1, 2007.

Barbeque and Fly-In at Hollister, Sep. 29: Steve White will head-up the barbeque event.

Jim Carter announced that there will soon be openings for 7,000 – 10,000 pilots per year as Baby Boomers hit retirement age. There will be more on this in the Round Robin.

The meeting was concluded, and we moved on to the Round Robin.

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Respectfully submitted, Vaughn McIlrath, 1-22-2007