Committee report from the meeting on the 8th of July
This was the last meeting attended by Mike Greenwood in his capacity as CFI. We all owe Mike a great vote of thanks, he has done a brilliant job of CFI through difficult conditions including EASA. The committee and I am sure all of the members, would like to record our thanks for his service. You can never keep a good man down and Mike is proving this by becoming the safety officer.
Building and caravan park
As I reported in my weekly blog we are reaching the end game of this project. When we finish the accounting we will be evaluating the capital projects waiting in the wings eg fleet, winches and grounds.
Accommodation block roof
We are struggling to get a supplier to repair this so we are looking at doing it ourselves. Dave Crowson will be in touch with all of us soon asking for volunteers.
Club access road
We may possibly have found a grant. We have applied and will know more in August. Fingers crossed!
Club operational plan
We operate on an 18 month cycle and refresh the plan every few months. We are doing a major revision this month so if there is an event you would like to see included then please contact Sarah Platt or myself.
We monitor the club’s operation via “a management dashboard”, comparing actual performance against plan. There are no significant variations except for finance below.
Operational areas:-
Finance
We have had extraordinary expenditure on winches and sailplane maintenance during this financial year and we will create a new, rolling 3 year forecast in October. Tony Gould is doing a fabulous job as treasurer and once the building costs are complete then we will be able to predict with more certainty.
Martin and Sue have designed a process that will enable us to take credit card details for visitors and we will move to this system soon which should help reduce bad debts. Tony Gould and Martin are writing to all our debtors who owe over a certain amount and chasing them hard for the money.
Marketing and membership
Our membership continues to grow, albeit slowly. Sarah’s marketing plan is being finalised now and will increase the efforts to attract new members.
CFI report
As reported above this is Mike’s last meeting and from the 1st of August Steve Male will be our new CFI. For those of you who don’t know Steve he is the most able and qualified person you could imagine and we are delighted that he has agreed to take on the role.
Guy Hartland has almost completed his assistant rating and John Randall and Tim Mason are now Introductory Flight Pilots.
Launching and MT
The Vitara test is going well, Julian Fack is doing the gas conversion and bought the tow ball. Next we need to compare the likely costs of operating these kind of vehicles versus the costs and reliability of the Land Rovers.
Grounds
The seeded areas have taken extremely well. Thanks to Charles Carter and Steve Gunn Russell for implementing this so successfully. We are in the process of ordering the signs for the new paths at the South end. These will greatly reduce the bicycle and walker traffic.
Staff
We are now in the process of implementing the “pension auto enrolment” for the staff. Our implementation date is April 2017