News

The Club's AGM for 2015-16 was held last weekend - 22 October. Thanks to those members who attended. An enjoyable dinner in town was held afterwards, where much of the discussion was about preparing for this weekend's expedition to Raywood.

At the AGM, the Committee for the coming year was elected as follows:

Role	Member
President	Ben Loxton
Vice President	Tighe Patching
Secretary	Michael Aldridge (NEW)
Treasurer	Tony Carling
Committee member	Paul Spooner (CFI)
Committee member	Steve Coulton (Tugmaster)
Committee member	Mark Hunt
Committee member	Ian Northey
Committee member	Bob Hickman

The club now accepts credit card payments for flying invoices directly, instead of making credit card payments via PayPal.

At he bottom of your invoice select Pay online now you will be taken to an online invoice. At the top left of the screen, click the green button that says Pay with Credit card or PayPal, a new screen will appear where you can make the appropriate selections and provide your details.

Please note the financial transaction fee will be added to your invoice total.

The club introduced the PayPal payment option a few years ago, to provide an alterntive method of payment for flying.  At the time the financial transaction fees from the service provider were deducted from the member payment, and the remaining funds credited to the members invoice.  The process for deducting the transaction fees was laborious and time consuming, it was also confusing to members as the invoice they thought they had paid was a few always dollars short, as a result of the service provider transaction fee.  When the PayPal processing workload was combined with the work that was required to straighten out the clubs accounts, it was decided to stop the process until a simpler solution could be found.

Recently a new service provider was identified that automatically processes the financial processing fee, at the time of payment.  As a result the club is in the process of changing over to the new provider, and plan to roll it out during Oct. - Nov.  The new service provider is called eway and is based in Australia, 

Once operational, members choosing  to pay via credit card or PayPal will have the financial processing fee added to their invoice total at the time of payment.  The service also simplifies the processing of credit card payments, compared to PayPal.

Details on how to pay can be found at the bottom of all invoices.If you have any queries please contact  accounts@vmfg.org.au

As I wrote about in the recent Glide Angle, VSA members now have a new Soaring Forecast site for Victoria and Tasmania, and covering much of NSW, thanks to the work of Matt Gage and funding from the VSA.

            http://vicmet.gliding.asn.au/VIC/

            http://vicmet.gliding.asn.au/TAS/

This model is closely related to RASP, but will be upgraded every 6 months as new information is released, which hopefully should ensure a more consistent standard of prediction.

New forecasts are created twice each day and cover the next 6 days of flying. The first 2 days are at a very high resolution (good for wave, etc.), the following 4 days are at a lower resolution (but still higher than the previous RASP). Today’s forecast should be ready by about 7:30am and tomorrow’s forecast should be ready by 7:30pm.

The server will keep about 100 days of historical forecasts, depending on available disk space.

A link to the new RASP site has been added to the bottom of the members web site www.MelbourneGlidingClub.com.au for quick reference.

Club house & North Hangar

The codes for the door locks for the Club house and Nth hangar were changed late Sunday 2.10.16.  All current and paid members received a personnel email containing the new lock codes on the 3.10.16.

MGC workshop

Last year the committee endorsed the purchase of a coded lock for the workshop to make it easier and more convenient for members to access,.  The purchase was delayed until the locks were on sale, as a result we recently purchased one thanks to the MASTERS sale at a 40% discount, and plan to install it between now and Christmas.   Once installed all members will receive an email with instructions on its use, and the code to be used.

The Bus phone and CAM have been transferred from the old bus to the new one, and are now operational.  The CAM can be seen on the main page of www.MelbourneGlidingClub.com.au  and the bus number is 0490 098 529.

Many thanks to John Parncutt, who reinstalled them.

All multiday glider bookings are now visible in the club calendar, aircraft booking instructions can be found  here. Many thanks to Michael Aldridge who stepped up to look after glider bookings, Well done Michael.

 If you have any questions please contact Michael Aldridge who looks after multi-day aircraft bookings at michael.aldridge1@gmail.com or 0422 084 716

The club has purchased a new hand pump for inflating glider tyres, and will be stored in the bus.

Defibrillator training at Bacchus Marsh at 10am 10 September

As you may know, we have an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) in the club house should it be needed around the workshops and the club rooms. So far it remains in pristine, unused condition, I'm pleased to say. However, if we did need to use it, say when we were operating from R01, it would take too long to retrieve it.

The Victorian Government has agreed to supply us with another defibrillator, on the condition that we are trained on its use, and that we look after it. St. John Ambulance will bring the new defibrillator out to BM at 10am on Saturday 10 September, and train members from all three gliding clubs on how to use it.

Also on display at the training will be the new Fire and Accident Response cart. It is a small trailer containing fire extinguishers, a first responders first aid kit, equipment for breaking into damaged planes, cutting webbing etc., and, of course, the new defibrillator. The FAR cart will be stored near the fire trailer.

The plan is for MGC to take out the FAR cart each operations day (no, not just in the fire danger season) and for GGC to return it at the end of operations.

Please make a point of attending the AED training on 10 September. After all, if you were the one who needed the defibrillator, you would hope that someone around you knew how to use it!!!!!

Mark White, Safety Officer

Many thanks to Mark White for organising the event.