3/1/2008 Meeting Minutes

Meeting began shortly after 7:00PM on March 1st, 2008 at the Microsoft campus in Redmond.

Old Business

Selling Launch Pads

Tripoli Idaho may be interested in purchasing some pads, but discussion at their meetings is still required before committing.

OROC is interested in purchasing three pads.

John Lyngdal has expressed interest in having one (or more) pads built from tubing he already owns. The goal would be for him to pay just for the labor of construction.

Western Washington Launch Sites

Using the overhead projector in the conference room we were in, Dan Work guided us over two of the launch sites he documented at the previous meeting using Virtual Earth. Both sites look encouraging. The next step for either of them is to make contact with land owners.

NW Model Hobby Expo

Mike Wyvel reports that our booth at the NW Model Hobby Expo went well, with good traffic on Saturday and so-so traffic on Sunday. Inquiries regarding outreach were made by two separate people on Saturday, including somebody from AeroJet that spoke about financial grants for education.

New Business

FITS 2008

The majority of the meeting was spent talking about Fire In the Sky 2008.

Kent has not spoken with Tom Snell recently regarding our new, proposed launch site, but given our relationship with Tom there's no need for concern (yet). The new site will be critical for FITS this year if the home to the northeast of the current site becomes "occupied" by Memorial Day.

The question was asked again: will we have a research launch at FITS this year? If we move the main launch site to Tom's farm and, we would need to find another location from which to do research launches. Many fliers felt that while the research launch was fun, dividing the group wasn't.

Mike Wyvel has been moving forward with some of the preparation for FITS. The web site has been updated with a FITS 2008-specific page.

Mike proposed a mission patch-style logo for this year (and future years). This idea was met with a lot of support and enthusiasm.

Mike would like to make online registration for FITS available. Carl Hamilton has volunteered to provide PayPal-based club registration and will handle FITS registration as well.

Bill Clugston has been tasked with inviting the astronomy group whose company and telescopes we have enjoyed in the past.

Due to a lack of interest and the cost of helium, a decision was made not to invite the near-space balloon group to FITS this year.

A suggestion was made to have one or more kid-oriented events, such as a spot landing competition. Jim Pommert seemed like the perfect person to take this one.

Several methods of marketing the launch were brought up. Among them were the radio time we have had in Wenatchee in the past and posting fliers in hobby shops. Hopefully somebody will be able to produce an updated PDF of the flier from previous launches (Bill Clugston?).

There are at least five planned level 3 attempts scheduled for FITS this year: Dave Randall, Harold Kellums, Michael Dennis, Scott Berfield, and Denny Smith. Good luck, guys!

Level 2 Certification Q&A

The floor was opened up for questions regarding level 2 certification. Many good questions were posed with just as many (if not more) excellent answers.

Attendees

Kent Newman
Carl Hamilton
Jim Wilkerson
Denny Smith
Andy Casillas
Bryan Young
Robert Simpson-Clark
Mike Wyvel
Dave Randall
Bill Wyvel
Bill Clugston
Dan Work