From the President…
Greetings Bayside members.
I have a few things to go over and clarify for everyone as there has been lots of information swirling around on these: the monthly meeting, the barbecue at the field, and our work party. So here goes.
There will not be a regular club business meeting for the month of December. As has been our custom, we will have a Christmas dinner instead. Several options were suggested and we have selected Hometown Buffet in Santa Clara Saturday the 16th from 6 to 9. We’ll have our own room in there somewhere and Jack will have another killer raffle for club members. Spouses are invited as well.
Although we won’t have our regular meeting, we will have the BBQ at the field on our regular day. That will be this coming Sunday.
And now the work party. Dave our field manager asked me to get some info out and let you know we plan is to have a regular work party every month. This will happen the same day as the BBQ at the field. So again, this coming Sunday the 10th. Please plan to help out wherever you can. More people means less work for each. We will close the field to flying from 8:00 to 10:30 due to planned work. We have four things on the agenda for this month’s work party.
I’ll describe each one along with the skills and equipment needed.
Adding signage – We will use some taller green ‘T’ stakes and need to grind off the nubs to make a flat surface to mount the signs. Then we will drill pilot holes through them to attach the signs. Plan is for six to get installed. The posts will be installed first then the signs attached. Two near the entry to keep traffic from following the smaller road to the right, two on the main road at the end of the drone track to keep traffic from going any farther into the property, and two to remind cars to tap the horn when crossing the end of the runway.
Mowing of weeds – We have permission to use the property owner’s mower again and I’ll bring my own. Focus will be the area on the other side of the runway but all weeds are fair game. Weed whackers would help for any area the mower can’t get to. We need people on foot to scan the area and pick up any large stones and broken concrete that could damage the mowers. Best to have some wheel barrows and shovels. Whatever gets picked up can be dumped down the slope by the pits, out of the way.
Sealing down runway seams – We had good luck with this last time and plan to continue the operation. Here we need to clear away any loose sand etc. from the seam area, apply the mastic with a putty knife and seal down the edge. We have to baby-sit the seam a few times until the mastic starts to really stick. Best to have a production line of sorts and work in teams of 3-4 guys. We have a leaf blower at the field, or bring your own. We have good brooms too. Need putty knives and solvent to clean up.
Building a box – We will construct a wooden box to house the batteries for the upcoming solar system. This will be one of the first steps to having some power at the field. Carpentry, saws, and cordless screw guns should get it done.
With regular work parties like this our field will really start coming together. Sometimes there will be less to do but like any project a little at a time will make real progress. Please plan to come out.