SDHGPA board members voted on the issue of making our minimum visitor/short term dues as a month duration instead of just a week.

The San Diego crew met up in March to talk about traveling to fly.  We've recently had a bunch of pilots go away and come back, so we figured we'd cover the good stuff while it's still fresh, including Brad Stevenson's well researched and authoritative presentation on vaccinations and immunizations.  :)

Folks, these are my quick notes from the club meeting if you missed it.  I'll do a separate, more in-depth write up for the What's On Your Deck question, keep an eye out on this blog for the next article.  -NFH

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2019 Election Results

2019 Voting (Board) positions were ratified by each receiving 100% of votes cast:

​For 2019 Site & Gate access: Join or Renew SDHGPA Membership if you have not already done so for the 2019 calendar year.

• Site Gate Codes are only provided to Annual Members after Membership Verification and may take several weeks to process. If you desire immediate site gate access, Please Fly with current local active Annual Member Pilots for site access and site briefings. ​Visiting pilots can only gain gate access with a Full Member guide present.
• Annual Members will receive a separate email after verification on how to access the Member Only section of the website and receive current gate codes. ​

Plus you get all the other great SDHGPA membership benefits:

• Site & gate access to the following sites:
  • Palomar
  • Laguna
  • Big Black
  • Little Black
  • Horse
• Site Guide & News Updates
• SDHGPA Weather Stations with accurate current conditions at your favorite sites (more being added each year)
• Quarterly Fly-ins

• Great Meeting Topics & clinics throughout the year

• Access to the Member Only section of the Website
  • Local Pilot Roster & Contact Directory
  • XC maps & way point files
  • Master SDHGPA Google Earth Site Guide file
  • Meeting notes & presentation materials
  • Membership Card & Parking Pass re-printing
• Helping to protect The Sites & Landowners by carrying Site Landowners as Additional Insured to the USHPA policies for the following sites: Palomar, Laguna, Big Black, Little Black, Horse, Blossom.
• Site Maintenance for all of the above sites (depending on permissions negotiated) that includes Windsocks, Outhouses at Palomar Launch & LZ, Mowing, & other launch & LZ surface maintenance from erosion & other.

You can check Current Membership Status under the Membership menu.

​Blossom Site Update: Asking for everyone’s support to help counter the proposed sand mining project in the valley. Nik is leading the current efforts and has written a October Update post about what is needed to Help Counter the Sand Mining Project.

Event Planning:
10/27 Halloween fly in:  Need help with stuff for fly-in
Bill has some stuff but needs pickups to transport - Joseph, Luke, etc...
​Steve to put up sign up sheet – See Sign-up Genius link on Halloween Fly-in info page
 
USHPA Film Fest 2018 at UCSD 11/17? Or at Palomar with a fly in 11/17/18

• Kim is working details to get co-sponsorship with a UCSD sports club to bring the costs down to a reasonable level.
• Default / Back-up location will be Palomar
• For more info see and follow the Film Festival Event page

A few days after the meeting, the Board determined that Palomar would be the best Event location from the proposed locations.

Other Club Business:
Memberships:
Dues the same for next year, approved by board unanimously

Lots of people not renewing but still flying:
Ask em to join if u see em. Best tactic in my experience - present it as an essentially voluntary and supportive action, of little cost - a way of protecting and maintaining our sites and doing right by your fellow pilots.

SDHGPA 2019 Elections
SDHGPA Board Nominations & appointed committee positions for 2019 will open at the next scheduled meeting in November. Please think about how you would like to be support your flying community in this next year.  Elections will be in Dec - Jan via mail in ballots. 

LiveTrack24 SDHGPA Group
Steve R- everybody should use LiveTrack24 and sign up for the SDHGPA tracking group, so we can find em. Any tacking device dealio from satellite Spot or Garmin inReach type to cell phone app can be linked and combined in LiveTrack24. Our Livetrack24 Group is a good way for us to merge all of the different tracking devices and methods into one location for our SDHGPA group to quickly and easy access pilot locations for retrieve or emergency purposes.

A good practice is to use both Satellite and phone app for tracking for redundancy and that the cell apps can fill in more data points between the 5 or 10 min satellite tracker data send intervals. (If using phone for tracking, it is a good idea to also use a back-up battery supply)

​Bill D. - everybody that doesn’t have a dedicated SOS-sending satellite tracking dealio is basically committing suicide. But if they want to go with wimpy-ass LiveTrack, whatever. Maybe we’ll come find em, maybe not.   And off we go into the abyss . . . 

Topic Discussion: ​ Weather Tools
Great talk by Chris Cote on weather-casting tools and how he uses them to crush the rest of us in XC-land. If you missed it, it’s your loss. Or gain - if you or I tried to fly in some of the crazy conditions he calls “awesome”, we would just be scared out of our minds and likely give up paragliding for golf. 

Cheers, 
Dave Metzgar