From the Committee

This is being written just after Christmas: I hope that Santa was kind to you, and I hope he’ll bring us a better soaring season than the previous one.

It has been a while since there was a note from the committee in the newsletter so there is quite a lot to cover. In no particular order…

Dave Sarney has left us, after many years as BAS’ Chief Engineer. Dave has been instrumental in turning BAS into the efficient organisation it now is, and we all owe him a debt of thanks for his hard work over the years. He will still be a member of BGC so we may now get to see him flying for a change. Until we find a suitable replacement we shall be covering the tug maintenance with a mixture of out-sourced work and itinerant labour, we expect to go back to all our maintenance being carried out in-house in late Spring.

In another change of personnel, you will have noticed that Phillippa Watt has been taken on in a part-time role to help both the staff and committee run things a little better. Her title is Professional vice-chairman, reflecting the fact that her position is not managerial. We have been very fortunate to secure someone of Phillippa’s experience under such favourable terms and have already seen improvements in efficiency from her input.

As far as the fleet goes, no real changes are planned. K13 FWN will be replaced in the Spring, and the Falke is currently undergoing a significant overhaul – including a new engine. It should be flying by mid-January, paperwork permitting. Pawnee UU requires a new engine, and we plan for this to be delivered late February in order to keep the Winter overdraft to a minimum, although this can be brought forward to a couple of weeks’ notice should the need arise. After the most frustrating and protracted set of negotiations with Robin and the CAA, Robin MM should be back in service by the time you read this. Of the 18+ months this aircraft has been grounded, about 6 months were spent physically working on it, the rest was all spent obtaining the necessary permissions and bits of paper. K21 FYV remained on the fleet after ECZ’s early return, with the intention of ramping up trail lesson income. We plan to continue that process this year by keeping this extra machine set to one side as a pure trial lesson vehicle, although it will of course be available for other purposes when not in use for T/Ls. It looks as though we will achieve significant revenue benefits from this approach; if they are not realised then we will either dispose of the machine, or if there is sufficient demand, keep it for general use. To relieve hangar congestion it will probably be parked out for part of he season. This process will not start until later in the year, so until further advised please continue to use FYV as just another club machine.

The little-flying, much-gossiping time of year is upon us, bringing a bumper crop of rumours…. most of which seem to suggest that we are either going to sell the fleet or double fees or go bust or all three. None of them is the case, or even close to reality. Part of the problem has been the absence of your Chairman for a large part of the year, which has hindered communications with members greatly. I trust that situation will improve next year, but let’s set the record straight about this year first:

Booker is going to run an overdraft this Winter – no great surprise given the expensive capital projects undertaken in the foregoing 18 months and the poor weather last year. This size of overdraft is small and it is not an issue in business terms. What is an issue is our continued drive
to reduce costs, and that compels us to minimise the overdraft by all practical means – business overdrafts are rather more costly to run than personal overdrafts. What we have done is to defer all the costs we can (UU’s replacement engine is an example mentioned earlier) but if need be we can bring forward the deferred items if operational needs override financial savings. Some members have been paying bills in advance and urging others to do the same – this is quite helpful because it keeps overdraft levels down in the time of year where we pay bills but don’t generate income – but it isn’t essential.

I appreciate that if you see us deferring work and apparently asking for payments up front it could cause alarm, but let me assure you that Booker is facing no crisis, financial or otherwise; these are just sensible cash management exercises to minimise our costs. The committee, as directors, would face severe personal consequences if we allowed the club to get into trouble and we are all still here.

Finally, fees for 2005. The budget is still being tweaked but, as a rough guide, increases in the order of 7% are likely, although we try to keep launch fee increases to a minimum. I don’t want to pre-empt the final details, but I do want to explain the rationale… I know RPI has been running at the 2% or less mark for some time, and so people wish to know why the fees go up by more. The problem is that the arbitrary items looked at to determine RPI are almost entirely irrelevant to our business, whereas we have had to deal with drastic increases in the cost of things such as insurance and fuel, to name only two. You can be certain that we do all we can to minimise costs, and therefore fees, but that the cost of flying WILL increase at a higher cost than RPI, which is largely a meaningless construct anyway.

For further information, you may ask any committee member, or better still turn up to a committee meeting to hear the low-down for that month. You could, of course, join the committee (there are vacancies) and help us to keep everyone’s club running well.

See you at the AGM.

AGM – 19th February 2005

Enclosed with this newsletter is the Agenda for this meeting together with various papers you may find of interest. We have included copies of relevant pages from the 2004 accounts, a full copy of which can be viewed in the clubhouse or copies obtained from the office. There will also be a PDF file available for those wishing to view online – please contact the office if you require sight of this.

This is your forum – please make sure you turn up.

From the CFI

Writing this newsletter on the shortest day of 2004, my thoughts turn towards the coming season and what I would like to achieve out of it. From that, I can formulate a plan of action to hopefully give me the result. This is something everybody needs to do in my opinion, as it is always good to keep track of ones progress, and also have a goal to achieve. Try setting yourself a “2005 resolution”, and formulate your own plan. Often people get stuck trying to do this, so I am going to have an informal meeting for anybody who would like to do this on Saturday 15th Jan @ 5pm.
December has followed suit much the same way as November, with us being lucky in receiving fairly benign weather most weekends. This has allowed us to keep a constant trickle of launching resulting in a better than average December for flying. Keep your eye on the forecasts from now on, as it won’t be long for the sun to start having a greater effect and it will be soarable before you know it! Also, the systems tend to set up in such a way that Jan and Feb often result in a number of days where the ridge works well for some early season soaring.

Dinner Dance

Tickets now available from the office, priced £25 a head. Please get them as early as possible so we can have an idea of numbers.

Only one trophy is outstanding at the moment as not being claimed. Have you done a first 100K flight this year? If so let me know!

Anyone who received a trophy last year would you please arrange for it to be returned to the office by Sunday 23rd January at the very latest.

Instructors meeting

Jan 22 ’05 in our clubhouse @ 16:00 hours.

Can all instructors please try to attend.

A.G.M

19th February 2005 @ 19:00 hours.

Open to all members. Please remember, this is your club and this is where you can have your say. Please try to attend if possible.

Parachute packing

John Rix will be here next on Saturday 5th February to pack any parachutes left in the hangar for re-packing.