Soaring Society of America

Soaring Society of America
Executive Committee Teleconference
Meeting Minutes
June 9, 2011

Present: Chairman Al Tyler, 1st Vice Chair/Treasurer David Pixton, Vice Chair Dianne Black-Nixon, Vice Chair Cindy Brickner (joined 2027), Vice Chair/Secretary Frank Whiteley, Soaring Safety Foundation (SSF) Chairman Richard Carlson, Director Stephen Northcraft
Call to order. Determining a quorum present, Chairman Tyler called the meeting to order at 1904 EDT.
Agenda item 1. Open action item review completed by Director Whiteley and Chief Administrative Officer Layton.
Agenda item 2. Approval of April 28, 2011, Executive Committee meeting minutes. Director Black Nixon moved, Director Pixton seconded with edit of meeting start and end times to 1902 and 2008 EDT. Carried.
Agenda item 3. Approval of February 22, 2011 SSA EXCOM minutes. Direcotr Black-Nixon moved and Director Pixton seconded with inclusion of full motion as provided by Director Pixton and deleted Director Black-Nixon comment. Carried.
Agenda item 4. Approval of winter SSA Board of Director meeting minutes, January 2011. Nothing yet from Director Brickner (see 2027 EDT entry)
Agenda item 5. Treasurer Pixton’s report.
I have updated the 2011 Forecast Model. We are recovering nicely from the losses sustained from Philadelphia. Membership is up slightly, which is encouraging. Chief Administrative Officer Layton continues to manage our expenses which is the major favorable variance against budget.
I have updated all the membership metrics tabs in the 2011 Forecast Workbook. Also I have attached the Soaring Magazine Management Report and the new Management Report for Merchandise. Accounting Manager LeBreton has done a great job on this report. I hope that we will find it useful.
Revenues are hanging in there as a normal stream. Membership is slightly behind budget holding about 10,785 Magazine advertising is on plan, merchandise is $18,000 behind plan. I will provide May financials over the weekend.
Audit was in progress week before last and Chief Administrative Officer Layton called with a couple of questions. We’ll have the Audit Report in due course and follow-up with the tax work and the foundation. We will need shop for auditors for next year. Accounting Manager LeBreton and Director Pixton will develop a list of auditors. ACTION ITEM
Agenda item 6. Chief Administrative Officer Layton’s report.
Not a lot to report. HVAC gave up. The unit was rewired to limp along until a replacement could be ordered and installed. As a result of the gift to the SSA, we were able to order a replacement and it will be installed the first of next week. Rick Walters hoping to find someone to help with repairing water damage still remaining from before the roof repairs.
Agenda item 7. IGC Nominations approval.
Chairman Tyler forwarded e-mail from Jonathan Gaffney, President and CEO, of the National Aeronautics Association (NAA), requesting our nominations for the Primary and Alternate Delegates to the FAI International Gliding Commission for the next year. Extract from the e-mail attachment shown.
Gliding Commission (IGC) - delegate:
We do not nominate any IGC delegate for next year.
We wish to nominate the following new IGC delegate for next year :

Mr. Eric MOZER
9119 Winged Bourne Dr.
CHARLOTTE, NC 28210
USA

Gliding Commission (IGC) - alternate delegate:
We do not nominate any IGC alternate delegate for next year.
We wish to nominate the following new IGC alternate delegate for next year :

Mr. Rick SHEPPE
219 Robinson Hill RD
Post Mills, VT 05058
USA

Director Whiteley noted that Rick Sheppe’s SSA membership expired May 31, 2011. Likely oversight and Rick was working some contests. Chief Administrative Officer Layton will contact will contact him personally.

Director Black-Nixon moved that we approve delegate Mozer and alternate delegate Sheppe for the next year. Director Whiteley seconded. Carried.

NAA board meeting July 13. Director Pixton will be attending.

Agenda item 8. AOPA reconnect - AOPA Summit attendance - AOPA member swap and offer of ad credit or exhibitor space at Summit.
Chief Administrative Officer Layton reports that AOPA’s Patrick Hower remains enthusiastic about membership swaps. We may be more interested in doing other things with the credits, for example, attending the AOPA summit. SSA Advertising manager Mechelle Radcliff will explore an ad swap. We could use the balance of the credit to attend the summit. Chair Tyler insists that such a booth be professional. Director Whiteley commented that SSA State Governor Scarpelli was on deck, but that he also resides two hours west of Hartford. He may be able to generate volunteers. There are two venues, the convention hall and the airport aircraft displays. Dave Nadler had demonstrated an interest in presenting his glider and promoting soaring. Chair Tyler and Director Whiteley for action.
Agenda item 9. Transponder Code for 2012. (Northcraft, Tyler)
FAA is in process of formalizing 1202 for gliders effective February 9, 2012. Director Northcraft commented that paragraph was added to SSA web site because of reaction. Director Northcraft will follow-up in August-September when the process is further along.
Agenda item 10. GPS interference from LightE2. Should SSA join opposition group?
Director Northcraft recommends that SSA add name to list in opposition. See Bernald Smith e-mail (below). SSF Chair Carlson, RTCA will talk about it. Director Northcraft commented that it’s a good start. Chair Tyler asked what’s the plan? Director Northcraft commented the goal was universal use. What happened was the FCC had fast tracked the application. ACTION ITEM. Chief Administrative Officer Layton to write letter and join Coalition to Save Our SPS.
Background Reference: Bernald Smith E-mail with informational links omitted.
Subject: GPS interference addressed
Folks, here's what's happening. As I've reported earlier re my RTCA activity, I have been participating in the RTCA SC159 WG6 fast-track discussions about new GPS interference likelihoods in the USA, with potential for worldwide such attempts. Below is part of a web page's early look at INSIDE GNSS magazine's forthcoming issue.
Our RTCA work, whose latest meetings were this past Thu/Fri, led to the
presentations as reported in the RTCA paragraph below.
Interestingly, last week during a subcommittee hearing exploring FAA matters, which I just happened to stumble across on c-span, Sen. Warner of VA queried FAA Administrator Babbitt about the LightE2 issue. Randy responded well:
The original LightE2 proposal of some years ago was not strongly objected to because the proposed signals were all going to be
satellite-originated, and thus of considerably lower power than might interfere. Randy said, in effect, that the firestorm of objection arose when FCC agreed (I think it was late last year) to terrain base stations with so much power (some say 10000 times more) as to potentially overwhelm the weak satellite-based GPS signals, which work very well as you all know, as long as there's no interference. I would not be surprised as to what led to the House action to protect GPS as noted below. As was discovered in the tests I ran in Sweden last century, even 13th harmonic VHF signals interfered when generated by VHFs near GPS receivers!
I wanted to have the test program planned by RTCA to include some FAI
IGC FRs, but the RTCA testing was just for aviation-quality units, so I was referred to another group (Coalition to Save Our GPS http://www.saveourgps.org), but never got around to pushing for SSA to join the group (lots of members/associates) because things were moving too fast, I guess, for an old guy like me to keep up, what with many meetings these past few months. I considered, and even mentioned it in one of my reports, having SSA (and SSAers) contact FCC and Congress, but again, unless someone did it on their own, I never followed up on it, because I thot my involvement w/RTCA would include the SSA/FAI names as those w/great concern.
SSA could join the Coalition now, if you'd like to be alongside the
likes of ATA, GAMA, Garmin, IATA, Orienteering USA, Southern Surveyors Group, LLC and many, many more such prestigious names, all of whom of course have great dependence on GPS, just like we do.
Bernald
Bernald S. Smith
RTCA Representative, SSA & FAI
Agenda item 11. SSF every other year West Coast FIRC's. Viability of developing online FIRC's.
SSF Chair Carlson explained that there are 6-8 SSF FIRCs annually, cycled regionally on a two-year basis, even and odd years. Region 4 has a FIRC annually. It’s based on demand and need. He stated there has been no demand from the soaring community for an online option.
Director Pixton asked about working with AOPA, possessing both the server infrastructure and security. He also suggested we should talk with Air Safety Foundation (ASF). Director Black-Nixon also favored opening the door and talking with them. SSF Chair Carlson commented that the SSF was not willing to degrade the value of the SSF on-site FIRCs, citing the value of discourse and discussion. Director Pixton will open discussion with AOPA, ASF. SSF Chair Carlson commented that they rely heavily on scenario based lesson plans.
Chair Tyler asked if the SSF couldn’t develop a consistent national training syllabus. SSF Chair Carlson commented that local variation dominates training. Furthermore the SSF doesn’t wish to compete with the available commercial packages.
Agenda item 12. Magazine readership survey.
Chair Tyler is waiting for SSA Editor Coyne to provide questions. There was general approval of the survey work done by Bob Lacovara on the SSA conference/convention. Director Whiteley commented that he’d worked with SSA Webmaster Doug Easton to launch an SSA subdomain, HYPERLINK "http://surveys.ssa.org" http://surveys.ssa.org using the LimeSurvey engine.
Agenda item 13. In addition to convention survey - financial analysis of recent conventions and need for business plan. (Pixton, Nixon)
All have now seen the survey report on the convention.
Need to develop a more formal budgeting process and business plan for Reno 2012. ACTION ITEM for Director Pixton, Director Black-Nixon, and Accounting Manager LeBreton.
Agenda item 14. Need for SSA Foundation (SSAF) to make sure Vanguard has process to accept in kind donations of stocks or securities. (Tyler, Nixon)
SSAF Treasurer Peter Brown advises that process is in place. Chief Administrative Officer Layton will follow-up Monday with regard to whether stocks and securities can be donated directly.
Director Brickner joined the teleconference at 2027 EDT and advised that draft SSA Winter 2011 board minutes had been e-mailed to all.
Agenda item 16. Mitre Corp. ADS-B and SSA's position.
Director Northcraft commented that Mitre’s development is an entrepreneurial effort. Mike Schumann, SSA member and outspoken ADS-B advocate, wants SSA to lobby congress. Director Northcraft commented that FLARM is giving us what we want. SSF Chair Carlson and Director Northcraft commented that the FAA is hung up on the cockpit display. Director Northcraft says SSA should make FLARM recommendation to NTSB, that ADS-B is geared toward high end aviation.
Agenda item 17. Information only. All EXCOM members in agreement that Director Whiteley indeed assumes all duties and privileges of Misti Harth-Roland. Consensus.
Agenda item 18. Other business.
Grand Canyon airspace.
Director Northcraft discussed the Grand Canyon EIS regarding noise-reduction. This would result in a raised ceiling over Grand Canyon to FL180. This is similar to class B issues. Class B affected parties should locally talk with Feds locally regarding exemption. Unless there are objections, Director Northcraft will file a letter on behalf of SSA by Jun 28 to docket, requesting gliders be wholly exempt. No objections.
***NAA record of information monthly. HG.
Academy of Model Aeronautics
Chair Tyler had a good meeting with Chief Administrative Officer Layton commented that meeting with Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) went well. We have a booth swap. AMA will be in Reno. SSA will have a booth at the AMA’s 75th Anniversay Convention in Indiana in July. Central Indiana Soaring Society will undertake this, POC is John Earlywine. SSA was also offered booth space at the annual AMA Convention in Ontario,CA, January 2012.
SSA will also have a booth at Soaring 100, but we are restricted from selling merchandise.
Agenda item 19. Next meeting. July 14th. Director Brickner moved to adjourn, Director Pixton seconded. Meeting adjourned at 2035 EDT.
Respectully submitted,
Frank Whiteley
Secretary, Soaring Society of America
970-330-2050