I hope everyone has a nice Christmas and New Years. Hopefully Santa brings you something you want. Luckily, I am my own Santa, and Santa is good to me!
It has been an odd year, and while I have heard feedback of members and their family catching Covid, I have not heard of any member fatalities attributed to Covid, and hope it stays that way! Our club’s flying site continues to remain open. As we rent from Mission Bay Park, and Parks and Beaches are sanctioned as safe outdoor recreational sites, we are able to operate during the stay-at-home order.
Thank you to the members that continue to practice social distancing on site.
Membership renewal for 2021 is open, and it looks like quite a few people have already renewed. If you were at the field the morning of the 19th, George had a stack of new membership cards for 2021. He may be back on the 26th, but please don’t hold me to it. Officially we will have our annual “Freeze Fly” on Jan 1st. No food or prizes, just enjoy the cold morning. January 2nd is Badge day when you can pick up your badge. Your second chance will be on 09 Jan. Following that George will put them in the mail. Please remember to let us know if you don’t want them mailed! Last year a member from Arizona was upset that we has sent his card to the address he had provided… Who Knew?? I will be shifting the lock on the gate and the portable restroom on 15 Jan. The new combination is printed on the back of the 2021 membership cards. If you like the image on the new cards, It was selected from numerous submissions and was provided by Carl Cox.
As we roll into the new year, I would ask everyone to look at your fire extinguishers and see if they still have a charge. A few years back we distributed around 150 fire extinguishers to members to ensure there was always one on site. The caveat was that if it was used, the member needed to replace it themselves – and continue to bring one. If you received one of these, and it still hasn’t been used, look at it and see it the handle is plastic or metal. The Manufacturer ( Kidde ) was replacing them for free a while back due to failures in the plastic heads. There is a phone number and serial number on the label so you can verity if you are eligible. We recently had an ESC failure cause some pretty good damage to a helicopter. A member tried to help, but had one of plastic head extinguishers fail and the fire burned for a minute longer than it should have. Also, if you carry a first aid kit, please look at the contents to ensure they are still usable. There is a shelf life on a lot of those items.
We are behind on our rainfall for this season, and I’m hoping we get some catch-up precipitation in the first quarter of 2021. When we do, please do everyone a favor and stay away from the main runway when it is wet. I can’t count the number of times someone has come out with a micro on the premise that it is light, Then left four inch deep tracks across the runway when it stuck to the mud and they walked out to get it. If it dries like that we have to deal with it for months.
Our incoming President, Jovi Murek, has stated that he will start writing submissions for the newsletter, and I’m excited to get his input. He has been enjoying modeling in many aspects over the years and brings a fresh point of view.
Let’s hope 2021 levels out quickly and we can get closer to normalcy!
Brad