Central California Soaring Association: November 1, 2014 -- Awards Banquet

WEATHER
Visibility:        Very good.
Wind:            Gentle from the SSE until noon, switching to northerly. Gusts up to 20 MPH mid-afternoon.
Temperature: 56°F at 10 AM, 61° from 1:30 to 2:30, 53° as the last of us departed that evening.
Comment:     No flight operations today...great Awards Banquet!

Visibility was great, markers were abundant in the sky. Looked like it would have been a great day for soaring up to 500' below the cloud base. The RASP was looking like one could expect fair thermal action. If you take into account that it was November 1st, should probably say great thermal action for the date was expected.

BUT! Overnight 0.58" rain fell. The gliderport was unusable. Nonetheless, it was still a productive day.

This first project did not just happen today. Over the course of the last few weeks, Richard Walker has been working on installing a stove in the clubhouse. His cabinetry work looks great. It will be useful for some of the non-flying functions of the club--perhaps a ground school in the winter with the smell of something baking???

Richard Walker has set a stove in the ClubHouse.

Dan Gudgel busied himself for the day in the towplane hangar. First thing he did was clean out "stuff" that had been left there, as well as sweeping / blowing out the hangar. It improved the appearance quite a bit.

Dan Gudgel cleaned out the towplane hangar.

Then Dan built a frame and covered it with pegboard to store towing items such as tow ropes and weak links. Every item will have its place on the pegboard, with dark images of each item on the white pegboard. Use an item up? Get it replaced!


Pegboard.

A new variometer was installed in Orange Crush.

The southeast hangar had huge amounts of pigeon droppings shoveled out. The missing panel in the roof was replaced, which has dramatically cut down the pigeon problem inside.

It was great weather for working, and everybody out there did something beneficial that day. Some people worked on their gliders. Some worked on weeds on the runway. A good sized crew worked on the southeast hangar. Some worked on cleaning up the clubhouse in preparation for the Awards Banquet that evening. The rain did not mean a washed-out day--lots of people did lots of things.

Awards Banquet: (Thank you Morgan for your text, below!)

Julie is practically 100% of the awards committee and will never give herself the "Harold Gallagher Wings Level Award" but I think we all know that she embodies the spirit of the award.

That's our award that represents the commitment to the club and to soaring that Harold was our inspiration for when we started the banquet and the awards fun 5 years ago.

Whether it is contest banquets or our fall banquet, Julie pours herself into these events with the organization and execution to pull them off, keep everyone well fed and sending lots of leftovers home with people.

Thank you Julie.

And thanks to everyone that came out Saturday despite the chilly, damp weather to enjoy the food, company and awards fun.

While Julie decided who got the awards, Morgan got the honor of emceeing the presentation.

Emcee Morgan

For those that could not make it, here are the award winners this year:

Slipping Tortoise Award - No Award! Thanks to Harold, Alex and Dan keeping the instruction going and the Checkrides happening. We didn't have any viable candidates--this year! Two members were warned, however, that they would get the award next year if they did not get with the program and get their glider certificates before next year's awards banquet!

Tape Measure Land-out Award - Ethan Ronat - Only this year it was a really long tape measure required. Usually we can count on someone making a mistake near the field and landing just outside the fence. Not this year. Good job everyone. The only land out that was not Contest induced was Ethan Ronat landing in CA Valley in late summer. So it would have taken about a 50 NM tape measure.

Golden Weak Link Award - Karl Kunz wracked up the most days of towing. We had a strong grouping in the second place area by Andrew, Mike, Harold, Jan and Allen.

Carl Kunz with his Golden Weak Link award.

Iron Butt Award - Craig Gifford - with his flight in a Schweizer 2-33A, "Big Bird," of 4 hours, 19 minutes, reaching 10,200 MSL, Craig was the obvious choice.

Craig Gifford recounts his Epic flight of August 9, 2014.

Greasy Elbow Award - Mike Paoli - For both his work commitment and his continued organization of work efforts around the club.

Mike Paoli and his Greasy Elbow award.

Wings LeveL Award - Jim Rickey - Although Jim is a relatively new member, he has really dove in with lots of energy and support. Organizing BBQs, working on club aircraft, helping with maintenance around the glider port, taking pictures and managing the blog he's really making an impact.

As always, there are lot's of people that could be on those awards. And for the service awards, everyone that has been named in years past continues to live up to the standards they set: Harold, Richard, Martin, Jan, John, Dan, Peter S, Peter M …We don't really have any one and done types. Thank all for the continued dedication.

The Dinner:

Julie almost single-handedly did another outstanding job on the dinner. Complete change of pace from last year, with a Mexican food. Enchiladas, make your own tacos and/or burritos, rice, beans.