AGM

As usual, the highlight of the Annual General Meeting of the Post Mills Soaring Club was the homemade breakfast we enjoyed before the meeting started. Thank you, Judy and Andy, for feeding this year's attendees:

Andrew, Andy, Andy, Andy, Bill, Christina, Christopher, Diane, Ella, Emma, Jane, Judy, Kevin, Lynne, Marsha, Mike, Moshe, Nancy, Paul, Penny, Rich, Rick, Skip, Sonny, Steve, Sue, Sue, Thomas, Tim, Tom, Zach

It was a good turnout. You should have been there, Evan.

After breakfast, a subset of the horde listed above took care of business. We discussed the towplane, finances, officers, membership, the fleet, the airport, our new website, encampments, the upcoming FIRC, and safety matters. Decisions will show up in the minutes, in due course.

The hours of daylight are getting noticeably longer.The AGM seems to mark the boundary between seasons. Spring fever has replaced cabin fever, finally.

Name That Club Member

And location.

MWSA Patch

The Mount Washington Soaring Association has a new embroidered patch.

To buy one, click on Buy Now and enter your mailing address on the PayPal form. A PayPal account isn't necessary if you have a credit card.

Quantity

One $4.00 USDTwo $8.00 USDThree $12.00 USD

New PMSC website

Our club website, which has been growing simultaneously stale and difficult to maintain, has finally been tossed overboard.

The new website (at the same url as the old one) went live a few days ago, after a lot of work by Andy. You should thank him for his efforts, make suggestions, and help him with content.

Reminder: all official club information, including rosters, documents, and schedules, are on the club website. Nothing on PMSC News is official.

The club website will become more useful as time goes on. This one will stay about the same.

Convention floor

Source

Breakfast turnover

A different crowd every week.

Glider pilot optimism

Australians are optimistic, especially the ones who fly gliders. Following a miserable forecast at Narromine, they moved their national championships to Tocumwal, a six hour trip by car. After only four days' notice the entire crowd (probably in excess of 100 people) was ready to start racing today. This morning they were greeted with this:


It must be difficult to remain optimistic, even for the Aussies!

This reminds me of an experience I had once.

Earth Science Picture of the Day

This photograph is very small. This is intentional. It makes you want to click on it and read about it, doesn't it?

Belly up

TV Breakfast

The 2012 PMSC Sunday breakfast schedule is not actually a secret, we just haven't published the calendar yet. The member in charge of the schedule claims she was busy with an appearance on national TV. I thought supermodels could do anything. I guess I was wrong about that.

Anyway, the first two breakfasts were successful, and the third one will be on Sunday
at the Crossroads Cafe in White River Junction at 10amat the Farmer's Diner in Quechee at 9am. If you show up early, you might catch a glimpse of a TV star.

Pampas

The idea of a Continental Gliding Championships has been around for a long time, but until recently, the only continent to stage such an event has been Europe.

The Third South American Gliding Championships started yesterday in the lowland plains near Buenos Aires. The contest is also serving as the practice contest for the upcoming World Championships at the same site, in December 2012.

The US Team is there. Sarah Arnold, Peter Deane, Francois Pin, and Tom McKnight are racing around the pampas, not too concerned, apparently, by the finer points of field selection:


So far, SoaringSpot has been a better source of results than the contest website, and at least one competitor is keeping a blog (the source of the photo above).

Sarah came in second yesterday!

Continuing education

EAA is offering a series of webinars over the next few months. At least two of them look to be interesting to glider pilots. The first is about emergency parachutes and will be given by our friend Allen Silver in less than two weeks, on January 19. The other one is on radio communications, scheduled for February 22. Both take place on weekday evenings at 8pm.

The webinars are free, and you don't have to be a member of EAA to attend, You must pre-register, however.