Over 1/3 of the year gone already!

Until recently, the weather has been relatively kind to us so far this year and flying hours have been a bit more like they used to be - though we still need to do more. We have a lot of catching up to do after such a long run of bad weather last year.

We had a successful ALACS with Mal Steane winning the spot landing competition and Ed Ten Broeke coming second in the streamer cutting. We had a good showing this year with 13 members attending and 9 taking an active part in the competition. We performed creditably with 4 pilots in the top 10 in the overall rankings for  the championship. See Echuca - ALACS Results.==============================

Next year the ALACS are at Maitland, NSW, hosted by the Royal Newcastle Aero Club. After a successful return by our club in reasonable numbers to the ALACS this year, perhaps next year we can do even better. A good time was had by all and I'm sure those who were attending for the first time learnt a great deal.

With winter coming up, we need to encourage more flying as well as an increase in social activities. Don Prairie and Mark Nichols will be organising a few social activities over the winter. You can find these on the activities calendar page. I would encourage you to participate if you can to help make these activities a success.

In regard to our premises at Cambridge,  we should soon have some certainty about what our airport environment will be. We are still in negotiations with the owner Mr Don Wells and I hope that we will have something definite worked out before the end of the financial year. Briefly, Mr Wells would like us to lease the whole premises surrounding the club house including the apron, hangar adjacent to the clubhouse and the hangar across the apron. He has stated that we can have a lease for up to 10 years, or perhaps longer though council approval would be required for a lease of 10 years or more. (Apparently they then consider it as if it was a strata title subdivision which requires council approval). We are currently working on a proposal to come up with a cost that is satisfactory to both parties and meets conditions that will allow us to operate viably over the lease period. It will require that the club becomes responsible for the complete area including  hangar keepers liability.

We have obtained a contract to provide some  basic flying training to a substantial number of Air Cadets which will be a big boost to our flying hours. Sincere thanks go to our club manager Peter Fenton for having seen this through to a successful conclusion.

Whilst the club is in no danger of going broke in the short or medium term, it is a concern to me that we are not putting away any reserves for the future and are slowly running down our capital reserves. The time to start working on this is now so that we don't leave a future committee in a few years time facing a big black hole when faced with replacing aging aircraft or other financial commitments. I and the committee are working on changes to the way that the club operates in order to improve our financial situation. Look at the page on the strategy for improving the clubs viability for more detail.

There are a number of changes taking place in the General Aviation world. A briefing was held recently by the education arm of CASA on the forthcoming changes which will take place on 3rd June this year. A brief summary is given in the section CASA Education Briefing, Operational Changes. I urge you to have a look at this and also to look at the booklet summaries of the changes.

As always, the club can only ever be as as good as the support it gets from members. We have some fairly difficult times ahead and I ask that you continue to support the club in whatever way you can over the winter when flying hours drop, and on into the future.

Graeme Martin, President