The January Meeting
This month’s meeting will be on Saturday, January 12, at noon in the Chapter hangar. The potluck will be on a Mexican theme, with a sort of emphasis on chili, but with any other Mexican dishes you know how to make. Good hot food for a cold time of year! If the weather is nice, check out and prepare the airplane starting the day before and fly over to Willow Springs. Winter flying is really nice if it is a sunny day.

Henny Christensen tells how the P-51 Mustang pedal plane came back to the Chapter as builder Charley Ward enjoys hearing the story.
Photographs by Sue L'Hommedieu

Some things to be thinking about in preparation for the meeting are activities for the year 2008. One suggestion already made is to have an aviation movie night occasionally. We have a growing library of movies which would be nice to enjoy together. What should we do with the set of DVDs on aviation history? Raffle it? Keep it in the library? Also, we have received back from the original raffle winner Charley Ward’s P-51 Mustang pedal plane. Should we raffle it again? Auction it? Use it for small children when we have Young Eagles rallies and open houses? Please be thinking on these things.

Tom White displays Aviation History on DVDs from Kathy Bohemier.	Precious Moments "Wright Brothers" figurine won by Jim & Millie Tausworthe.
Photographs by Sue L'Hommedieu

Back to School
We have had the idea of a ground school of some type on the “back burner” since before we built the hangar. Currently, there is no aviation ground school outside of Springfield. Perhaps we could start small with a refresher course for our own members. It would give us an opportunity to evaluate what materials are effective, set up a curriculum framework, get to know how much “support staff” is needed during each session, about the availability of outside speakers, and the possible incorporation of field trips. If successful, we could later offer the course to people considering learning to fly and those who are concurrently taking flying lessons. National EAA and Jeppesen have contracted to offer training materials at a slightly reduced cost through chapters with a ground school program. The Jeppesen series of textbooks and training aids are the best ones available.

Dues Reminder — Again!
Jim Vokac will again be collecting dues from those members who have not yet paid for 2008. Dues are $10 for individual or $15 for individual and spouse/family. Paying Chapter dues does not automatically make anyone a National EAA member. Remember, only National EAA members have voting privileges in the Chapter. Your Chapter membership helps your Chapter, however. The portion of the dues sent to National from the Chapter covers our liability insurance from National, and is separate from the insurance we must buy to cover the hangar. The portion of the dues we send to National EAA is due in Oshkosh by the end of January. Are you thoroughly confused by now? Keep in mind that we built the hangar without raising dues, because of all the funds and materials donated by members voluntarily. No one had to give any money they didn’t feel they could or didn’t want to give. We’d like to keep things that way, if at all possible.

Member Directory
All members who have paid their dues by the end of January will be included in the member directory for 2008. Since we are now e-mailing the newsletter, everyone will get a copy of the directory, paid on time or not, but it will be a more valuable directory for all the members if everyone is listed in it.

Member Memos
We haven’t heard of anyone having any new health problems, which is a good thing — let’s hope everyone stays in good health.
We’ll see you all Saturday at noon. Until then, tailwinds!

We Celebrate