EX / non-commercial:
The first comment is that Tripoli is trying to move the community away from the use of the terms EX or Experimental and get people to use either the phrase Tripoli Research Launch or Research. This is due to perceptual issues around the word “experimental” with regards to insurance and regulatory agencies.

Mike Bennett gave a presentation on the Colorado Experimental Group (CEG) and their use of the NCR launch sites and waivers. While NCR is a Tripoli Prefecture, all Research launches are held in the “Coyote Hunt” format with no official sanction by either NCR or Tripoli. Club launch equipment is NOT used for these launches even though a significant number of the flyers belong to either NCR or Tripoli Colorado and Tripoli. Flyers must bring their own launch equipment. In order to be held, CEG launches require a minimum of 8 people to attend to ensure enough bodies for fire suppression. Beginning in 2006, CEG will require liability waiver forms to be filed for both fliers and spectators. Due to the non-sanctioned “Coyote Hunt” format, flyers can fly commercial motors as well as Research motors at CEG launches. Keep in mind that there is NO insurance coverage for either flyers or spectators at CEG launches. If you are interested in attending a CEG launch, contact Mike Bennett. Mike can be contacted through his website at www.mbrocketry.com.

The Aliens Abducted My Rocket Prize Award:
Next up was the presentation of the “Aliens Abducted My Rocket Prize Award”. This is a new award that Joe and others made up this year in response to a recent incident out at the site. The story is… Back in November, a Colorado Springs group flew a large rocket at the Pawnee North launch site during a CEG launch. After a perfect flight on a Wimpy Red O motor built by James Russell, the rocket (which did not have dual deploy) disappeared over the horizon on a 24’ chute that was much oversized. Despite repeated attempts to find the bird, it was not located by the group, Beyond Earth Enterprises so they offered a $250 reward for locating it.

On New Years Day, Warren Musselman, the NCR webmaster, received an email from a pilot who had spied the bird on the ground about 4.5 miles east of the Pawnee site along with GPS coordinates. Warren drove out to the Pawnee site from Longmont and found the bird where the pilot reported it and called in the find to BEE. Joe Latrell and his team from BEE went and collected the bird the following day and gave Warren the reward. Warren in turn kept $50 to cover his gas and a case of beer for the pilot and donated the remaining $200 to NCR.

In response to this generosity and the unusual nature of its recovery, the club honored Warren with the first annual “Aliens Abducted My Rocket” prize – a wonderful creation consisting of a stuffed dinosaur holding forth a silver rocket. Warren would like this award to become a rotating award going to the club member with the most notable “lost-rocket” recovery of the year.

Equipment Report:
Brock Bayes, the NCR equipment manager has stepped down due to other responsibilities and the club needs a new equipment manager. No one volunteered at the meeting to take on this task and it continues to be a high priority for the club to recruit a replacement from the membership. Duties do NOT include storing the trailer between launches as the club is exploring various options for storage near the launch site. The primary duties of the equipment manager is regularly checking the equipment for loss or damage, ensuring that the fire extinguishers are full and pressurized, charging the launch system and PA batteries, and checking the level of various consumables such as hybrid fill line material, nitrous oxide, GOX, etc. Also, the equipment manager should check to ensure that all equipment is present, accounted for and in good repair on a regular basis and to work with Dale Netherton, Glenn Colon-Bonet, and others on the executive committee to resolve equipment issues before the next launch.

Troy Hummel, Eric Parsons, and Rob Piotrowski offered several possible storage locations for storing the equipment trailer in the vicinity of Ault and the executive committee is exploring those options now that we can no longer store the trailer at Brock’s house in Ft. Collins.

Dale Netherton gave a presentation on his recent upgrades to the hybrid ground support equipment. For some time, we’ve had problems with the fill rate on hybrids, especially with larger motors. Dale has built a new nitrous valve tree with a much larger solenoid valve that should substantially improve hybrid fill-times, particularly on the larger hybrid motors. He is also working to integrate the hybrid launch controls into our existing launch system, though more work is needed before that will be possible.

As a reminder, there will be equipment cleanup and maintenance parties before both Mile High Mayhem and Oktoberfest. The Mile High Mayhem cleanup will take place on April 22nd at Dale and Patty Netherton’s house. Another cleanup party is tentatively scheduled for September 16th or September 23rd, location still to be determined. Look for an announcement on the website later in the year.

A final equipment note is that the club’s 54mm Aerotech rental motor set is missing both forward and rear closures as well as one of the casings. Whoever borrowed them is asked to return them immediately. You can contact any member of the board or executive committee or just bring them out to the next launch.

Hybrids:
Historically, NCR did not charge members for the nitrous oxide they used when flying hybrid motors. As hybrids became more popular, this became a significant budgetary drain and a losing proposition for the club. Last year, in 2005, NCR instituted a fee system to charge for nitrous oxide use. While these fees do offset the cost of the nitrous, payment logistics have been problematic. This year, in order to make sure that the fee gets paid, NCR is instituting a special launch card for hybrid flights. This is a bright yellow/green card with the same information that is on a regular flight card plus a checkbox for each impulse class of hybrid motor and the fee charged. These cards are only available from Patty, Dale, or at the launch registration table at 3 day events AFTER payment of the nitrous fee. You must have one of these special flight cards before you hook up to the hybrid GSE at the pad.

NOX fees are H-$4, I - $6, J-$8, K-$10, L-$15, M-$20. G and under hybrid motors are free to fill. Larger motor sizes will be fee-adjusted based upon the relative amount of nitrous used. Fees are the same for both members and non-members and have not changed for 2006.

It should be noted that this fee covers one flight attempt – If the rocket is removed from the pad for any reason, the flyer must pay the fee again. (This will be waived if the flyer doesn’t fill the motor with nitrous before removing it from the pad.) While the fee does allow for a reasonable attempt at flight including a reasonable number of fills or purges, the final determination if additional fees are to be charged due to multiple fill attempts is at the discretion of the LCO.

NCR Fees:
The NCR membership fee remains $25, along with a $25 initiation fee for new members. Lifetime membership is $125.

Non-members may attend regular NCR launches for free on the first visit, with the expectation that if they continue flying with us, guilt or something will drive them to join.

Event Fees are unchanged from 2005 with Mile High Mayhem and Oktoberfest being $10 for members and $25 for non-members. The initiation fee is waived for Non-members who join NCR during Mile High Mayhem and Oktoberfest.

Contests:
Jon Skuba, the NCR Contest Director, made the contest award presentations. After some comments about a few difficulties in producing contest results due to the switch to the new website, he quickly moved on to reporting on the 2005 contest results.

Icarus Challenge – This has been a popular contest in the past that had fewer participants this year, though many expressed interest in seeing it continue. The rules are: unlimited rocket design, any number of attempts, I motors only, $5 per flight fee which goes into the winner’s pot, winner is the closest flight up to but not exceeding 10,000’ AGL.

The winner this year was John Wilke, who flew 3 attempts in 2005 and finally won with an altitude of 9,828’. John wasn’t present to collect his $30 prize pot. John also receives the rotating Icarus Challenge award with his name added to the list of previous winners.

Icarus Lite – This contest was a good idea that just didn’t catch on, primarily due to insufficient advertising among the membership. It was agreed that the Icarus Lite contest will be discontinued in 2006. The idea was to provide a variation of the Icarus Challenge contest that non-certified flyers could participate in. The rules were the same but limited to G motors, a $4 per flight contest fee and with the altitude limit reduced to 4444 feet. Again, winner on this contest was, John Wilke, who won the $4 pot (John was the only flier in this contest). If interest in this contest returns, it may be resurrected in future years.

Race to Space – This has been a multi-year contest with the idea being to accumulate 50 miles of vertical altitude with any number of rockets and flights. John Wilke is the grand prize winner as the first one to reach the goal of 264,000 feet of total flight. Grand prize is a lifetime NCR membership or $100 cash. This competition will be closed after today’s meeting to new competitors although existing competitors are eligible for 2nd and 3rd prizes when they reach the altitude target.

2005 Single Shot Sweepstakes – This contest was new for 2005 and generated a great deal of interest, if not all that many flights. There were 14 paid competitors, but only 5 flights. The whole idea of this contest was to get people thinking and building. The rules for this contest were also fairly simple; $20 entry fee which goes directly into the prize pot; winner is the one who gets the highest altitude flown on an Aerotech H180 motor, unlimited rocket design. Contestants are limited to one attempt, which must be declared before ignition.

We went in to this contest with John Wilke the strong favorite given his track record with high altitude flights, but in the end the contest was won by Ed Dawson who turned in an awesome flight of 9555’. Ed received the entire $280 pot.

Beer Boost – Once again, Seth Senema won the Oktoberfest Beer Boost using his Black Knight with a 12oz can of root beer. His duration of 10 minutes, 9 seconds was far and away the winner as he has done for several years in a row now. There was discussion of changing the rules on the Beer Boost this year. The main option for rule change was that the winner would be the flight with the nearest landing to the pad or a specified marker. This will be decided before Oktoberfest.

The LCO and RSO of the Year Awards – Due to problems with the launch log database during the conversion to the new website, we were unable to determine who LCO’d the most in 2005 in time for the club meeting. Moving forward, the new launch log database is working and will allow us to better track this for 2006. In addition, we’re looking at extending this award to RSO’s as well.

AP Bonfire Award – This contest is won by whoever burned the most mass of APCP propellant at NCR launches during 2005. The winner this year is John Wilke, who burned 10.33 Kg of AP. (approximately 2.5 M motors!)

Frequent Flier Award – This goes to the person who made the largest number of flights at NCR launches in 2005. The winner this year was Bill Beggs with 92 flights ranging from ¼ A up through M.

In other contest related matters, Jon Skuba is stepping down as Contest Director due to other responsibilities. Warren Musselman is stepping up to the plate as the new Contest Director. Warren gave a presentation about the 2006 Single Shot Sweepstakes. The rules have changed somewhat from 2005 to enable more folks to participate as well as increase the challenge in a couple of areas.

2006 Single Shot Sweepstakes – The rules for this year’s version of the Single Shot Sweepstakes are:

The main purpose of the rule changes was to open the contest up to uncertified flyers and potentially a wider audience. This will result in a larger pot and hopefully a bigger drive by folks to participate for that reason.

Warren also mentioned that for those L2’s and L3’s who are interested in a somewhat bigger challenge, there is an unofficial side contest using an Aerotech J350 motor tentatively called the Super Single Shot Sweepstakes. This is not an official NCR contest, although the rules are identical to the 2005 Single Shot Sweepstakes except for the choice of the motor. See Warren Musselman or John Wilke for details. As with the regular SSS contest, the more who participate, the greater the potential reward. If participation is good, this may become an official contest in 2007, albeit with a different L2 level motor.

Website:
Warren next moved on to discuss the website. A calendar page will be up within the week, as well as some updates to the Launch Log section and Contest reports. He brought up the need for an additional volunteer or two to help with both graphical needs and PHP programming on the site. He needs help from people with some Photoshop or similar skills for editing images, banners, icons, etc. He also needs help with a number of PHP programming projects on the site. If anyone has web development experience with PHP, PHPNuke, or Perl, please contact Warren at wbmussel@indra.com or webmaster@ncrocketry.org.

Among the items on the agenda for the site in 2006 is a signup page for members to volunteer for trailer towing, LCO, RSO, and other activities.

Tripoli Colorado:
James Russell, an NCR member, is also the Prefect for Tripoli Colorado, the revitalized Tripoli Prefecture in the Denver area. He reported that they essentially had to restart their prefecture last year as the club was in trouble. They’ve changed things around significantly and added EX launches with their calendar favoring experimental due to number of people interested. They have a 6000’ AGL waiver at their Hartsel launch site, with call-in’s to 14,000’ AGL as needed. James is developing a calendar of all Colorado club launches and related events on the Tripoli Colorado website. They are planning 4 to 5 Research launches this year, a mixing party for Research propellants, and developing a club stand for test firing. Please visit their website at http://www.tripolicolorado.org . Send mail to prefect@tripolicolorado.org for more information.

Launch Services Presentation and the Volunteer Crisis:
At this point in the meeting, Jon Skuba made a detailed presentation concerning the formation of a for-profit business to provide launch services to NCR and eventually other clubs and events. There was a significant amount of detail this proposal so all that will be presented here is a summary.

The proposal put together by Jon, Joe and Art offers launch services to NCR on a pay per visit fee basis. Prices are projected to be $10 for club members, all pads; A-F impulse only $5. Non-member, all pads, $20; non-member A-F impulse only, $10. These fees would be by the day - you show up for a Saturday launch, pay your fee and fly all day. This money, as well as additional income from the sales of motor reloads, rocketry supplies, food, drink, etc. would support the business including one full time and 2 part time employees as well as provide for equipment maintenance and upgrades. NCR gets the discounted launch fees as a “rental” payment from the business for the use of NCR’s launch equipment, trailer, etc. They would be able to start providing these services by mid-year if the club were to approve the proposal. The justification for this would be that the club would be better able to use the volunteers that it has by focusing on other areas (contests, club administration, education, outreach, etc).than on the mundane issues of managing flight operations and equipment.

As expected, this proposal did not readily fly with the membership attending the annual meeting and at the conclusion of Jon’s presentation, a wide ranging discussion took place around the room with a number of notable points made and suggestions given.

Membership expressed concerns about costs although not as much as expected. The largest complaint revolved around undermining the spirit of the club and the camaraderie of working together. While many feel that the dues they pay and the fees for Oktoberfest and Mile High Mayhem should cover everything, this was not as great as expected and it was also pointed out that a single motor costs more than the launch fees discussed, so cost shouldn’t be an issue. More importantly, several members brought up the fact that they didn’t know that help was needed or that they didn’t know who to talk to about helping the club out. Jon made the comment that at a guess it took approximately 500 hours of work a year to keep the club running smoothly and that with 101 active members that should mean everyone needs to kick in their 5 hours. Warren reiterated that point and added that club membership isn’t just about paying your yearly dues and showing up to fly. In a club of this sort, every member needs to put in some time as well as pay their dues. It’s part of the responsibility of club membership.

Several proposals to improve the volunteer situation and bring in new blood were made, among them that there needs to be a way for the executive committee to make it known to the membership what needs to be done as well as to have a place to volunteer or sign up. Also mentioned was the need for better coordination of volunteers and to have someone in charge of volunteers on the executive committee. It was also proposed that the club reimburse people who tow the equipment trailer or give them $30 outright for gas out of club coffers. One tongue-in-cheek proposal was a tip jar at the LCO table and although this issue was obviously not taken to a vote, the executive committee will have to consider this if we cannot find any other incentives to get people to help out.

A proposal was also made to have more meetings for the club so that the membership can stay in better touch and to provide more frequent opportunities for communications to/from the executive committee. Warren suggested that the club take the reward money he donated and throw a BBQ or potluck get together in June for the membership. This could be the evening before or after a launch, though others mentioned it would be better held down in more populated areas.

Signup sheets were provided at the head table for members to volunteer for trailer towing, LCO, and RSO out through the June launch. Additional volunteers should email Joe Hinton at iflyrockets@yahoo.com.

Elections:
Elections were held for the 3 officer positions in the club. Results are: TRA Prefect – Joe Hinton – ran unopposed and received 8 of 8 votes. TRA Secretary – Glenn Colon-Bonet – ran unopposed and received 8 of 8 votes. NAR President – Joe Hinton – ran unopposed and was approved by verbal vote with no dissenting votes.

Patty Netherton remains the treasurer and along with Dale Netherton will continue to manage the administrative side of the club and our membership. Bill Heath is now Volunteer Coordinator. Warren Musselman continues to be Webmaster and adds Contest Director to his portfolio. Other continuing members of the executive committee are: John Wilke, Mike Bennett, Larry Bowser, Jim Amos and James Russell. We welcome folks who want to step up and join the executive committee to contact Joe Hinton.

Other business and announcements:

Meeting was adjourned at 4:30PM.

Club Meeting Raffle Prizes (and who donated them)