In a word, brilliant. Westerly all week, plenty of sunshine and wave (see Tuesdays blog). Have a look for yourself with this link https://youtu.be/X3n2T6NCLPs
Congratulations to Ray Lewis, who when not fixing software problems with the simulator head tracking found time to finish off his bronze.
Hi everyone, this is the regular Thursday posting to let you know what is coming up in the near future and the highlights of the last committee meeting.
This week
Please accept my apologies for last weeks absence of blog, my delegation skills aren’t as good as I thought they were.
Wave day
Yesterday, as posted on WhatsApp and blogged earlier today, was a wonderful wave day, North Hill and Mynd members had a fabulous day once again showing the benefits of our site and if you are not on the WhatsApp I suggest you join – MGC Flying.
Winter Lecture
We were privileged to have a well attended talk from Jon Hall, Richard Bennett and Mike Greenwood on our expeditions. I hope it has inspired you to try to join in one next year.
Your team this weekend is:
Saturday: Mike Witton, Mathew Cook, Stephen Alexander, Glyn Macarthur
Sunday: Simon Adlard, Denise Hughes, Liz Adlard, Stephen Alexander
Forthcoming events
Winter Lectures
November 17. Mike Groves Skylaunch
Please note that this has been moved from November the 10th. 18:00 start
For those of you who attended last years lecture you will be delighted to know that part 2 is being delivered this year. For those of you who did not attend you really missed a fantastic talk. Mike gives us a superb understanding of the life of winching all over the world including the movie world. Don’t miss it.
The other lectures are now on the web calendar I suggest you bookmark the link below
https://www.midlandgliding.club/all-events/
we are trying to make this the master calendar for out future events in order to give a longer term view of what we are planning.
Christmas meal and awards evening
Please put the 15th of December in your diary.
Highlights of the committee meeting 11th of October
The insurance brokers have advised that insurance for bonfires is tricky and the committee agreed that unless there was clear ownership of the event enabling coordination with the secretary then the event should not go ahead
A policy regarding social events was accepted and this will be put on the web sites
A petition has been received from some members and non members asking for the current policy on dogs to be amended. The secretary will issue a clarification statement to members by email and we will discuss the amendments with members before making a decision
Interest in the sale of the Discus has increased and the CFI will be negotiating with the interested parties
The club trailers will be taken on under the Fleet umbrella, the open trailer needs some refurbishment and the other trailers will have a standard service applied to them. This work will be scheduled over the Winter in the old MT shed. The heater for this is installed except for the electrical installation
The Chair will have to resign in December.
The Motor glider is now registered and the instructor cohort training is well under way. The prices for the use of the motor glider have now been approved.
The Simulator is attracting a lot of interest and we will incorporate it into our literature
The tours for potential members will start at again in November. We have had our first new member from Winterfest
CCW has been stripped back and has found to be in excellent condition. We will soon have first class K13s in the fleet.
Guy is liaising with Skylaunch to get the maintenance done before the start of the 7 day operation 2019
The Water Header Tank has arrived ready for installation. The existing tank needs replacing as a matter of urgency.
Tuesday was a cracking day for wave. RASP had forecast good wave prospects showing the wave system at low altitude early in the day. Coupled with a strong WNW it looked like it would be reachable from the ridge.
DC launched first in JGJ, and quickly disappeared up into the wave followed by North Hill’s DG505 and a handful of private gliders.
It turned out to be a splendid wave day with most gliders getting to 6000 QFE and Rob and Pete got to 11320 ft at Vyrnwy.
I met up with Tim B in FVP over Welshpool for a few minutes before whizzing back and braking down under the cloud at BCS.
It was a confusing outing for the nav computer; ~50 knot head winds gave me negative groundspeed plenty of times.
Wave bars past Stiperstones
Going backwards at 8 knots
Victor Papa over Welshpool
The RASP Wave Forecast for Tuesday
Hi everyone, this is the regular Thursday posting to let you know what is coming up in the near future.
This week
Oktoberfest
Martin, Jon Lewis, Sarah Platt, Chris Harris, Steve Male, myself, Chris Ellis, Holly Harris, Mike Amor-Wilkes, John O’Reilly all helped out at this event and I know I express the thanks of all the members to each of them for giving their time and effort to help promote our club.
Whilst the weather didn’t help this year, we did bring home a list of interested people whom we will now contact and invite to visit the club so they can begin to see how great it is. We will keep in touch with them over the winter in preparation for some of them to hopefully become members over the course of the next few months.
Shrewsbury summer camp
The Shrewsbury school summer camp was a huge success and below is an extract from their feedback:-
“The annual Gliding Camp, held at the Midlands Gliding Club on the Long Mynd and open to all members of the RAF Section of the CCF, was a resounding success. The central activity was, of course, gliding. While training progressed well for all the pupils in the ‘modern’ K13 and K21 gliders, we were all fortunate enough to have a joyride in an almost antique, open-cockpit T21. As the sun set on another year of gliding for Shrewsbury School CCF cadets (and quite literally over our evening game of croquet), I was already looking forward to next year! This is a truly stunning location for a summer camp and we are all extremely grateful to the Midlands Gliding Club, and in particular to our regular instructor Paul Fowler, for their continued support for our pupils in their gliding tuition and for everything they do both on and off the ground.”
Your team this weekend is:
Saturday: Neal Clements, Guy Hartland, Dave Cole
Sunday: Charles Carter, Guy Hartland, Laurent Couval
Forthcoming events
Instructor meeting
The next instructor meeting is on Saturday at 17:30. Do please try to attend, it is most important that all of us instructors and potential instructors keep abreast of the latest developments and feedback.
Winter Lectures
October the 20th at 18:00 in the quiet room will be the first in the series and will be a talk on Expeditions. Have you ever wondered what we do on club expeditions, how can I get on one, what would it be like? This will be the talk for you hosted by some of our expedition leaders. Beware, once you know you may well become hooked!
November 10. Mike Groves Skylaunch
For those of you who attended last years lecture you will be delighted to know that part 2 is being delivered this year. For those of you who did not attend you really missed a fantastic talk. Mike gives us a superb understanding of the life of winching all over the world including the movie world. Don’t miss it.
The other lectures are now on the web calendar bookmark the link below
https://www.midlandgliding.club/all-events/
we are trying to make this the master calendar for out future events in order to give a longer term view of what we are planning.
Christmas meal and awards evening
Please put the 15th of December in your diary.
Hi everyone, this is the regular Thursday posting to let you know what is coming up in the near future.
This week
Horses
At last some good news. The National Trust have gathered the ponies together and 19 have been removed from the hill. 11 of these were colts so riders and ourselves should have less hassle in the future.
Legal stuff. The B word.
Just in case you thought life was getting easier read the article linked to below. Anybody who would like to buy me a pint and explain it is very welcome to try!!
Your team this weekend is:
Saturday: Chris Alldiss, Geoff Dailey, Dave d’Arcy
Sunday: Clive Crocker, Guy Hartland, Geoff Dailey, William Brewis.
Forthcoming events
2019 MGC calendar – call for photos
We are planning to produce a MGC calendar for 2019, so if you have any good quality photos that you would like us to include, please email them to Sarah at marketing@midlandgliding.club by 4th Oct latest, along with your confirmation that you are happy for them to be used for that purpose. We will choose the best 12 or 13 and publish it during late November.”
Oktoberfest
Please wish us luck for this years event. It runs from 5th-7th October and we will be taking a glider. It was great fun last year and we gained a substantial number of new members, enquiries and trial lessons. I am so impressed with the willingness of our volunteers who are coming along to help sell the club to a wider audience. Gaining new members is the key to our future and events like this are a significant part of that strategy.
Winter Lectures
October the 20th will be the first in the series and will be a talk on Expeditions. Have you ever wondered what we do on club expeditions, how can I get on one, what would it be like? This will be the talk for you hosted by some of our expedition leaders. Beware, once you know you may well become hooked!
The other lectures are now on the web calendar bookmark the link below
https://www.midlandgliding.club/all-events/
we are trying to make this the master calendar for out future events in order to give a longer term view of what we are planning.