Sonoma Wings Meeting

March 22, 2001

President Albert Branson call the meeting to order at 7:55 p.m. In attendance were Ernie Camacho, Charley Warren, Leo Bynum, Matt Jagelka, Albert Branson, Duane Taylor, Leo Jones, John Blacet, Jon James, and Greg Sugg.

The club was introduced to two prospective new members: Divyakant Kadiwala, a.k.a. DK, and Brian Padgett. DK who has no prior flight experience said that he became interested in the club after seeing Todd Robinson’s custom screen saver on Todd’s computer at work. He is interested in learning to hang glide. Brian has prior small plane experience and is currently taking lessons from Mission Soaring Center. Both men were warmly received and encouraged to join club members on weekend outings to Elk and Hull this season to see first hand what it’s all about. They were also assured of the club’s support in the sometimes difficult process of acquiring H-3 skills and ratings.

Mike Vorhis had been scheduled as the featured speaker to relate his experiences in recent speed gliding competitions at the meeting but was unable to attend due to transportation problems. Hopefully Mike will be able to make his presentation another time.

Greg Sugg volunteered to assume the duties of club secretary since it was made known that Kurt Bainum resigned the position. Greg, who lives in Benicia, said that there may be an occasional time when he is unable to attend the meeting. Charley agreed to sit in as club secretary on those occasions. The motion to install Greg as the club secretary was made and seconded and agreed on.

There was discussion of sending a club representative to the County Open Space Committee meeting to voice the recreational needs of the club and the hang gliding community for consideration in the general plan. There was no formal resolution. The matter will be placed on the Bulletin Board for further discussion.

In preparation for the up coming aerotow clinic at the Crazy Creek glider port the club will conduct a work party on Saturday and Sunday, March 24^th and 25^th starting at 8:00am. The area where towing will be conducted needs to be mowed and smoothed out. The early start time is to allow for flying off mount St. Helena in the afternoon. Jon James stated that the club is providing USHGA site insurance for hang gliding at Crazy Creek. It was pointed out that the club provided site insurance for the tow clinic last year too. Because of this Jon is going to ask Ken Brown at Moyes America, who is conducting the clinic, to pick up the cost of this years site insurance.

The club will have a presence at the Santa Rosa RV and Boat Show this year on April 7,8 and 9. John Blacet suggested that the club have on hand some of the USHGA promotional hang gliding videos. It was decided to purchase ten videos to sell to interested attendees at the show. The videos will be sold to cover their cost. Also, a TV with VCR will be on hand to show the video at the show to promote hang gliding.

Leo Jones mentioned that he is going to contact Jessie Rosencrest of the Forrest Service to discuss the St. John ramp improvement which has been in the works since last year. He also brought up the idea of having custom Sonoma Wings club caps produced. There was no final resolution.

The motion was made, seconded and agreed to end the meeting.

Submitted by Greg Sugg