21 January, 1995

May was an exciting month with more club and SSA activity than I really needed. First we had a most enjoyable “encampment” with the Air Force Academy. They came down with all their beautiful equipment and they managed to get in two weeks of very rewarding flying. If you think that the youth of today are not worth “the powder to blow them away” then you missed a wonderful experience of being around these great guys and gals.

The second “big” event was the trek several of our members took to Taos to enjoy four days of flying (it really was three days as the first day was weathered out.). Fifteen of our OLC contributors took to the airways at Taos and got enough kilometers to move us up to second place in the OLC and we haven’t even started yet. Some of our home field flyers had some very impressive flights out of Moriarty. Seems that some of the soaring weather at home was better than away.

On the membership front we have had several new members join our group, Colleen Koenig, Jean-Paul Chevalier and Vickie Brewer are our three newest aviators. Colleen and Jean-Paul come to us as already licensed and they have their own airplanes. Vickie will begin her flight training soon. Be sure to introduce yourself to these folks and do your best to make them welcome.

Your board has also spent a great deal of time and effort on the issue of the convention slated to be held in Albuquerque in February 2008. The details are given below.

A very successful Safety Down Day was held in the Southwest Soaring Museum thanks to George Applebay’s kindness. Over fifty club members heard some good presentations. Stan Roeske brought us up to date on how to gain Soaring Badges. Renny Rozzoni introduced us on how to play with the OLC. Billy Hill briefed us on how to avoid mid-air collisions and Larry Richardson gave us a lecture on survival equipment. For those of you who couldn’t attend, you missed out on some good information.

After the meeting we “repaired” to the Club House where we performed the annual spring cleaning. The members did such a good job straightening out the hanger that now we can’t find anything.

Next issue: A lot of you have been flying Club airplanes and that’s great. However, these airplanes need to be cleaned, waxed and vacuumed. Next time you plan to fly a club plane, show up a little early and bring some rags. Who knows you might be able to get 5 more knots out of the glider.

Also, someone has been abusing the oxygen system. If you are not sure on how to fill your bottle then find someone who is an expert, like Mark or myself, and learn the right way to fill your bottles; “nuf” said.

This message is twice as long as normal message, but I want to make sure you are kept informed. Now go out and fly safe!!!

The Convention saga By Bob Hudson

Now to the weighty issue your club has been working. As most of you know the 2008 SSA Convention will be held in Albuquerque. This was contracted before anyone in the ASC was contacted.

When I brought this up to Dennis Wright, ex-SSA Executive Director, he told me that we don’t get a vote…we were going to be the “host” club. Well, after Dennis “departed the fix”, I met with the SSA Board and informed them that we would, so as not to leave the SSA high and dry, “play”.

I then attended the Memphis Convention and heard from several participants their displeasure with the convention process and the people who were putting the convention on. To add to this I had not been included in any convention planning/issues for Albuquerque. I was always told that they were too busy and we would cross those bridges after Memphis.

Well, Memphis came and went and the SSA was always too busy to move on to the 2008 Convention. There was some missteps on a theme and logo (another story, but the bottom line is that I was promised some info and then it was determined at SSA Headquarters not to provide me with the info, nor inform me that they weren’t going to give me the info.) To top this off, we, the ASC, were misrepresented at the EXCOM level by the SSA.

On the first of April we were finally presented with a MOU that I was told was not a draft. I was told to sign it and return it. I “farmed” the MOU out to the Board and solicited comments.

The comments came back unanimous that the MOU was unacceptable. The biggest issue dealt with compensation for ASC involvement. We stood to receive compensation ($3,000) only if there was an attendance of over 1200 participants. Any registration below 1,200 and we would receive nothing. I tried for over a month to get attendance figures for the past three conventions only to be “slow rolled”. In fact I never got attendance figures from the SSA, but got them instead from Chip Garner.

The numbers Chip gave me indicated that last two conventions did not have attendance that reached the 1,200 registration number. Add to this that parking is not provided to the volunteers and you have a convention in which we would provide the muscle and charge the volunteers for their efforts (in all fairness volunteers would get to go into the convention floor after their shift was over and they would get a convention logo shirt.)

In talking to the ABQ Convention Center authorities, it turned out that they had not talked to the SSA since Dennis Wright signed the contract. I discovered that the convention had not been placed on the convention calendar because they were not sure if we were proceeding or not. I also discovered that the info the SSA was giving to vendors did not accurately portray the convention site. These issues alarmed me and made me nervous about linking the ASC name with an event that I wasn’t sure was going to be a success.

To add injury to insult, the EXCOM was insulting in their response to our wishing to negotiate the MOU. I conveyed to them that the MOU in its present form was “completely unacceptable”. There response was that we didn’t understand that the SSA was carrying all the liability. Well, the EXCOM missed the boat…we are the SSA!

On the 2^nd of May, a select group of ASC members (consisting of your Board and a couple of committee members with prior Convention experience) met with Diane Black-Nixon, SSA Board Chairman, in ABQ to discuss issues. At this meeting it was determined that the ASC would not lend formal support to the convention as a club. We agreed to assist with trying to convince our membership to provide volunteers for the convention.

The SSA took this in stride and said that they really didn’t need our assistance (outside of the volunteers) and that they would put the convention on without the partnership of the ASC. Later, I will be soliciting volunteers, but to date I have not received the volunteer tasking. I was promised that document following our 2 May meeting.

The bottom line is that we have been promised multiple documents, and answers to requests, and the SSA has not provided them or did not provide them in a timely manner. Also if you study the financial results of the Memphis convention, you will find that if FEDEX hadn’t contributed $12k, and the Memphis convention center had not refunded $6.5k for lack of heating in the hall, the SSA would not have made any money. I want the SSA to succeed but piling on mistake after mistake does not instill confidence.

Talking of no confidence, the SSA staffers at the May 2 meeting were visibly shocked to learn that the plan of the convention center that they have been using to allocate space and layout for booths and glider displays was all screwed up. Our own Mark Mocho quickly went through the errors and took the staffers the next morning to show them how the convention center really is. Even with this, there has since then been zero contact from SSA about involving ASC members with experience of putting on conventions in Albuquerque!

Club House activities:

9:30 AM, 30 June 2007: Larry Richardson will give parachute refresher training at the Club House/Hangar for all those who use those expensive seat cushions. Training will include how to inspect a chute, how to get out of the aircraft, how to deploy a chute, how to land and you will even get a chance to “hang in the straps” if you want to try. Wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty in, (for some of you that would be your good clothes).

6:30 PM, 23 July 2007: Join us for a Club Night out to Isotope Park to take in a baseball game. For more information call Bob Hudson, 281-9219.

NPRM on parachute repacks

Talking about chutes, the FAA has now issued a call for comments on the proposal to increase the time between repacks from 120 days to 180 days. The whole parachute industry (makers, riggers and other experts) seems to agree that this is a great idea – some makers think that once a year repack at the factory would be sufficient. It is in all our interests to get this rule adopted. Throw in your support! Details can be found on the SSA web page.