Announcements:

NUTSO Spring Soaring Seminar

Location:	Salt Lake Main Library
Date/Time:	March 27th from 8:30 – 5:00pm
Fee:	free
Refreshments:	Light snacks and drinks in the morning; drinks (water) in the afternoon.

Preliminary Schedule

Waive Flying in Utah or Weather Forecasting	Lynn Alley
Landing Pattern/Safety	Michael Povinelli
First Cross Country Flights	Bruno Vassel/Dan Wrobel
Flying the Uintas/XC out of Heber	Jack Corneveaux
Utah XC locations	Tom Vayda
Advanced XC Flying	Tim Taylor
XCSkies	Chris Galli

SSA convention

If you're planning on going to the SSA conference in Little Rock let me know so we might all get together and spend some time at the show. For now I know that Bob Briggs, John Ackerson and I are going.

Thanks
Dave Bates

2010 Dues:

2010 dues for Regular members has been raised to $50 per month, $600 per year or $550 if paid in one payment. This increase per Bob Briggs email is to help cover the cost of BG refinishing. If you would like to make one payment let me know quickly as I'm beginning to send out invoices now.
Also the invoice will include SSA membership of $64. Membership in the SSA is required by our insurance company. If you joined the club mid year you will get a partial bill for SSA so that you are on an calendar membership with the SSA.

Thanks, Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays
Dave Bates, Treasurer USA

Annual Meeting

Dear Utah Assoc. members,
Thank you for the outstanding attendance on the 14th for the annual meeting, we had a quorum. The board of directors met the 20th, and the big topic is the refinishing of 8BG's wings and stab. It is a lot of work and expensive, about $19,000. The new finish will not be gel coat, it will be a more durable material. 8BG will not pass it's annual inspection next spring without this repair. 554 is not finished in gel coat, and does not need work of this type at this time. We are having it's canopy inspected to see what we can do about crazing/fogginess in the front. Appleby gets about $5,000 for a new canopy, hope we do not need to do that. 46Y is gel coat, but in good shape for now, we need to save up for the future refinish on it.
One of our members has generously offered to loan the club the funds needed to pay for this winters work, at a reasonable interest rate. The board had to come up with a plan to repay this loan over the next few years, the sooner the better.
For the 2010 season, the dues are being raised $10/month for regular members. Dues are not being increased for assoc. members ,however, the board is asking asoc. members to consider a voluntary contribution. This would be a personal choice, you might look at you past season usage and consider something like $10 per hour that you flew a Grob, and that would be a big help, or maybe you might decide some other amount to put in the pot. We realize asoc. members have different reasons to belong, some use no more of the club's resources then the O2 bottle. Whatever you might decide, we appreciate your participation in the club and the sport of soaring.
We added 12 new members last year due to our adding training and relaxing the PIC requirement, had 2 returning members and lost 4 members. We have $4270 in the bank and a positive cash flow of $2,560 each year. The board is committed to adding another 10 members next year which will help the budget. We will review the dues increase next year.
Bob Briggs

2 new pilots, 2 new CFIGs

On Friday, October 16 2009 USA club members Louise Vickerman and Ted Nolan passed the glider rating add-on to their private pilot licenses. The examiner was Eric Soyland from Driggs Idaho. That weekend Dan Thirkill passed his CFIG check ride in Morgan and Dave Cleveland accomplished the same in Minden, adding two more instructors to the club. All passed with flying colors. Thanks for the hard work and congratulations to you all!

Left to right: Louise Vickerman, Examiner Eric Soyland, Lynn Alley, and Ted Nolan

Welcome to our new and returning members!

This is a great year for the Utah Soaring Association. Thanks to new and returning pilots our club has now more than 60 members.
Bret Hess is our first primary student and Ted Nolan a power conversion pilot who flies a 182 out of Salt Lake. Matt Haag lives in Mountain Green across from the airport, flies for Skywest and is doing a transition to gliders in Morgan. Sylvia Finlayson was a member twelve years ago but has been out of the country. She is now back getting current up in Morgan and then will probably fly in Heber as she lives in Spanish Fork. Jeremy Middlemiss finished his glider rating at Soaring NV in Minden last year. He is getting checked out up in Morgan. Some will remember KC Paulsen who worked the line for Dave Robinson last year. He is a college student who got his rating flying with Jim Arndt. Then KC's dad Karl got his rating last year at Soar Minden. He is also SEL, Commercial and Instrument. Both KC and Karl will be flying out of Heber to get checked out in the club grob.
Welcome to all of you!