Meeting 3244 was opened by President Elect Kyle who welcomed members and guests Tony Clarke and John from CFS air wing. Apologies were received from Stan Roulston, Kim Potger, Mark Smeaton, Nathan Pengelley, John Lyons, Rebecca Pratt, Ron Lloyd, Steve Barilla.
Guest John Paynter – guest speaker, Tony Clark – guest speaker, Harrison Clinch – guest of Leanne
Notes from members and directors:
PE Kyle: enjoyed the President Elect training on March 29 and the District Assembly on 30th participated in lots of activities but really enjoyed just meeting other like- minded people and sat with other members of Group 7. Passed the budget on behalf of the club.
He took away lots of information including:
- Learning that the Foundation is the charity side and RI is the service side!
- Learned there was a vision statement
- Looked at an action plan -will work on this with the club
- Changes to Shelter box and would like to get them to come and present to the club again soon.
- Extra things available on club runner which we don’t access.
Michael Jacob will attended on Sunday.
PP Mike Williams Relay for life was a great success and they raised in excess of $60,000 on the weekend. Thanks to everyone who assisted with marquees.
Air Show- this coming weekend. A few people will go up on Saturday to set up, a group of ladies will meet at Kathy’s to prepare salad gear etc. Everyone to arrive 8am on Sunday morning to set up ready to serve at 10:00am should be a very busy day with good weather.
Almoner report Mark Forgie’s Aunt Ruth passed away aged 104. She remained living at home until 10 days ago. Ruth was married to past president Frank. Her funeral followed by a celebration of her life will be held at Adelaide rd. 7th April all welcome.
Kyle then invited everyone to enjoy each others company over dinner.
After Dinner PE Kyle introduced Barry for his sergeant session.
Wheel winners were Deb, Wayne and Julie.
After PP Barry’s entertaining Sergeant session. Kyle invited Guest speakers John and Tony to update the club on the CFS Airwing.
Some interesting points
- They had an 11-minute turnaround for the recent fire at Buchefield
- Due to an agreement with RAAF Edinburgh, they now have a new state of the art Large Air Tanker [LAT] system at Edinburgh. This is the only one in Australia. The system is computer controlled and can be operated from Sydney. Every aircraft is on the computer and is automated to get the correct mix etc for each plane.
- There are 37 people/volunteers at Air Ops. They need more they had 50.
- Farm fire units are essential to support
- SEAT fills the gaps left by LAT pilots work 9-5 only this is due to regulations around hours etc. at a recent fire in Port Pirie they did 554 drops totalling 1,939,000 litres. The Blackhawk tactical support -Aerotech can drop 3,500 litres in less than 90 seconds. They have precise drop and can load and unload quickly making them extremely effective. The owner took 2 years to get permission to purchase then another 2 years to bid on one. They have an accordion tank making them quicker and more effective than Elvis. These units are self sufficient with their own tanker which holds 3-4 tanks full. South Australia are leading the way.
- An Attack supervisor sits above in a helicopter he is then able to send an thermal image to all vehicles which is then projected onto a screen showing it overlaid on a map of the area.
- We have had a drier summer leading into a dry Autumn and winter. The Air Corp has had its contract extended due to this and Tony and John believe that the Adelaide Hills will be another Sampson Flat due to the lack of water.
PE Kyle thanked Tony and John for another wonderful update and presented each one with their certificate.
He then closed the meeting with the four way test.
