November 21, 2005

President’s Message

It’s that time of the month again to try to put some thoughts to paper. I missed this last Sunday at the field. While I was raking leaves and putting the last of the garden furniture away, I was cursing anybody who happened to be enjoying the warm sun at the field. Any of you who had to miss the day because of the Santa Claus parade were probably cursing also. I believe it might have been the last of the warm November weather. I chose to fly today, Monday, instead. It was cold and windy, but I had to try once more before I hang up my wings until spring.

While we were there, we noticed some construction activity going on to the north west of our field. We went over to inquire and found out from the owner of the golf driving range that was on the east side of Markham Road, that he has had to re-locate to the east side of Tapscott Road because of development on Markham. He told us that he has a five year lease with Tap-Steele Investments, the owners of the field to our immediate west, for a driving range, with a guarantee of being there for at least two years. The driving range will be in the north west corner of the farmer’s present field. This will put the closest point to us about 300 feet past the north end of our field, and about 60 feet from the west end. This might sound a little close, but I think he said the total length of the driving range will be about 575 yards. That is a long way for anybody to hit a golf ball. He also said that there will not be any fencing at our end for us to worry about, because even if some guy does get off a really good drive, there is still no way that the balls will travel far enough to bother anyone. The farmer is still going to farm the remainder of the field.

I don’t know if the above should concern us for the time being or not. The good news is that the driving range will be there for at least two years. This means nothing else will be happening to our west for at least that long. As for our own field, no sewers along Passmore yet, and it does not look like anything is happening for the near future.

For those of you who did not attend the last meeting, the election of the new executive went quite well. President, Secretary, Treasurer and Field positions remain unchanged. Romeo Ramos volunteered to take the Membership position and Nick Chen has stepped in to take over the Wings job. Thanks to Gord Schindler and Curt Jones for fulfilling these positions last year. Arthur Krikorian is going to handle the Flypaper and Romeo and Bill Shedden together are going to look after the refreshments at the meetings. We did not get any volunteers for anyone to look after the Fun Flys or to handle the entertainment at the monthly meetings. If anyone feels that they would like to help out, give me a call.

Special thanks to Bill Shedden and his assistant for the great job of grass cutting this year and also thanks to all the instructors who assisted the new students to get their wings.

I wanted to say something about our monthly meeting before I sign off. I know they have been getting rather boring lately. During all my years with the club, the one person who excelled at providing entertainment was a fellow named Ken Bartley. Most of you probably don’t remember him, but he was always able to come up with something. When he left the club the entertainment started to go down hill. Harvey Gold gave it a good shot, but he also got frustrated looking for new material. Then again, it’s possible that the hobby was different back then. Newer 2 and 4 stroke engines were emerging, digital proportional radios systems were improving rapidly, Monokote and Ultracote were invented and Ni-Cad batteries were available to us along with CA glue. It did not take much effort to keep us interested at the meetings when we had so much new stuff to talk about. Things seemed to have levelled off now, except for the advances in Electrics. Nowadays very few modellers are building kits. They just go to the nearest hobby shop, pick up an ARF and have it ready to go in a couple of evenings. We have tried auctions, swap meets, talks on fibreglass, covering materials, batteries, engines, etc. etc. The last couple of auctions have been a bust. No one in our club wants to buy or sell anything. Leon Arnold tried his best last time, but to no avail. The swap meets are getting pretty bare, and there does not seem to be anyone left to give talks on stuff that they have not already talked about previously.

So, ...... I don’t have anything up my sleeve for any of the upcoming meetings, unless we have a magic show. As I look around the room on meeting night, I just see the same old faces. This is your club, so if no one can come up with anything of interest for at least some of us, then the meetings will have to continue on as they are. The Flypaper is really the only way of letting everyone know if there is anything going on at the upcoming meetings, so if anyone has anything to contribute, let Arthur know in time so he can include it in the Flypaper.

That’s all for this month. Maybe I’ll see you at the next meeting.

Paul Battenberg