Author: Blogger

Distinct lack of entries for the second half of January and there are people out there interested to hear (OK, well, one person had noticed).
Sunday the 19th was reasonably busy with 22 launches.  Justin was the first break the single digit flight time (14 minutes), immediately followed by Carol+Claire and Paul P.  Half an hour later Trevor G stepped up to that challenge and took the Puchacz soaring for a remarkable 38 minutes.  Alan P brought out his Skylark for a little exercise.
The mid-week flyers clocked up 15 launches on Tuesday 22nd with longest flight honours going to Rob J with a modest 9 minutes.
Modest turnout the following Saturday (25th) even though it was clear Sunday would be a wash-out/blow-out, just 9 launches.  Double digit flights (10 and 11 minutes) were achieved by those who flew with Jim C in the back seat.  There were almost as many folks glider/trailer fettling.  I was one such and  about midday someone pointed out that someone had painted a K13 on the sky.  It wasn’t moving forwards or backwards or up or down – Nigel B just hung about for 29 minutes.
Despite all the wind and rain we flew on 7 days in the month (8 is the average and 10 the best) and did about the same amount of flying as 2 years ago (which was much better than last year.  December was the surprise – highest number of launches and flying time for 7 years (stats further back not readily to hand).  Kinda balanced off October which was the worst for 7 years.

32 members and guests attended the Annual Dinner, admirably cooked and served by Marion and her team at The Plough, Shalbourne.

Awards of club drinking vessels were made in appreciation of services to the club or recognition of flying achievements:
Supergrafter Awards to Alan B and Bill  for enormous time spent on recovering JPC,and James H for days under the Trooper.
Stropmeister Award to Paul B for keeping the launching kit up together.
Salesman of the Year Award to Jon G for getting us a double page news spread in the localrag
Big Spender Award to Paul P, for doing most chargeable flying in 2013 (I hope he can live this down with his wife)
Three-in-a-row Award to Chris K for unluckiest day(3x launch fail + 1x Airprox in three consecutive launches)
Up & Down Award to Steve B for highest and lowest(-but-got-back-up-for-a-proper-circuit) flights – 7800′ in wave in the K8, and below the Gibbett on a rare ridge day
Ab-Initio of the Year Award to Justin for getting to solo/off-checks in one season.

Few squeeze more out of a day than our Stephen.