1. Welcome New Officers. I want to personally welcome our two new Vice
Presidents to the fold. Art Ellis was elected from the Eastern District and Bill
Vanderbeek was elected from the West. Both will serve a four year term beginning
January 1, 2002. One of the first duties each has will be to appoint committee
members to the Nostalgia Committee and to the Scholarship Committee. As of this
writing, these appointments have not been made. I look forward to working with
both of these quality individuals, and I want to express my appreciation to Phil
Sullivan, Bob Beecroft and Terry Kerger for their willingness to be
nominated for these positions.
2. New Life Members. In the past 6 months or so,
I have not been keeping up with some of the developments on this front, but Hank
Nystrom, our membership chairman, reminded me recently that two new Life Members
have signed up. They are: Bob Sundberg, who is life member number 37. Bob lives
in Santa Barbara, CA. Life member #37 is Steve Bruno, who is from Oklahoma City,
OK. Welcome aboard, Bob and Steve. If any member is interested in
becoming a Life Member, contact Hank Nystrom. We are always looking to add to
this small but dedicated bunch of free flighters.
3. Muncie Field Proposal. Many free flighters are aware that AMA President Dave Brown recently proposed an idea which would expand the use of the Muncie site for AMA members and get the AMA more exposure to the rest of the country. On the other side of this coin is the proposal that the Nats would travel around the country on an every-other-year basis. As expected, free flighters from around the USA were displeased with this part of the proposal. However, the NFFS officers believe that this proposal gives some impetus to the Society to work closer with AMA to help them achieve their goals and to still maintain a strong free flight presence at Muncie. To this end, I have appointed Bill Shailor and Bob Hanford as an ad-hoc committee to represent the NFFS with AMA on this issue. Sandy Frank, who is a member of the AMA Executive Council and a one-time active free flighter, is heading up the AMA committee to study this proposal, so our initial work with be with Sandy. I will keep the membership posted as this project develops.
4. Feasibility Study. Over the past year and a half, NFFS members
may have been aware that the Society has been looking at ways to increase
its membership, its clout and its visibility. The Planning and Operations
Committee, headed by Dan Tracy, has been the point organization in our efforts.
Recently, the NFFS officers decided to take advantage of an offer to match
funding with a grant of $9000 to study the feasibility that such an effort on
our part would be successful. Ed Wiley, the chairman of the funding committee of
the NFFS, has agreed to head up the project. More will be forthcoming on this
study as 2002 moves along.
5. New Plans Listing. I just received notice from Hank Sperzel that
the new listing of plans from the “Plans Man” is available. Hank notes that
there are around 600 plans on the list, including a large number from the
archives of Harry Murphy. If you want a list of these plans, you can find it on
the NFFS website at
Bob Stalick, NFFS President.