Had a good mid-winter meeting. We welcomed back Bill Meserve, one of the original founders of the group, as a new (old ) member. He has been racing cars for a few years.

  Our Secretary, Bob Wall, is completing our AMA membership papers.

  Our Treasurer, Bill Lowe, reported 27 paid members and a good treasury total. The sum should cover operating expenses for the coming year. Thank you Bob and Bill.

The reduced membership may have to do in some part with the economy.

  We should not have any new major capital expenses for a while, now that we have a new tractor and a metal container to house it. Now we can work on building up the treasury so we can buy our own airport.

  We touched lightly on the answer to the rolling hills that constitute our runway at present. I think this will be addressed seriously when flying seasion gets here. There is a new element in this, that is, our new member, Bill Meserve, has offered the use of his tractor which has a bucket - maybe an answer to the problem.

  V.P. Bud T spoke of the threat to the model aircraft hobby by the FAA. They are trying to define model aircraft as Unmanned Aircraft (drones). Les Hailey said he had received an e-mail from the AMA saying the threat of regulation of model aircraft by the FAA has been averted by an act of congress. I checked at the AMA website and tis true, we get a pass for now.

 The folowing is on the AMA website

  'Congress has recently passed legislation intended to prevent

model aviation from being swept up in the effort to enable the operation of commercial and public use unmanned aircraft and to protect the aeromodeler from overreaching and burdensome regulation. While this is a positive step, we need to remain vigilant on the issue, knowing that the FAA will release its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for small Unmanned Aircraft Systems in spring 2012.

Please visit these pages regularly for the latest developments. To contact the AMA Government Relations team, email amagov@modelaircraft.org.'

And more information at... modelaircraft.org/aboutama/gov.aspx

Looking forward to spring...

V.P. Bud T

P.S. Hi Larry C in Florida