Marin County 99s

WINTER PLANNING 2012

Kitty Houghton, Pat Pittelkow, BarbaraO’Grady, Beth Behrens and I gathered for our annual planning session for a year of fun and flying. If all the fly outs come to fruition it would be a wonderful thing. Unfortunately ‘Willie Winter’ has decided to make a late but cameo performance delivering the much needed wet goods. Being that our winter was so delightful we can’t complain. There have been a few date changes so please note on the copy of your Activity Calendar. Harris Ranch was moved to 3/25 (which was rained out). The day or overnight trip to Paso Robles has been pushed back to the 21&22nd of April. With all this rain the poppy- popping hillsides of the Salinas Valley will be brilliant.

There’s lots to celebrate; we have 5 new members who bring lots of enthusiasm to our group. We will be pairing up and mentoring the new arrivals to help anyway we can.

The 99s International elections are coming up. I can highly recommend Martha Phillips for President and Jan McKenzie for V/Pres. They are the best people, capable and experienced to lead our global community forward. If you haven’t voted yet please send in your vote for Martha and Jan.

The Air Race Classic is a go. This year will be invested in infrastructure arrangements; hotels, contracts, insurance). As we close in on 2014 the pleas for help will go out. Stay tuned. This year’s ARC start will be at Laughlin, NV. If you are down that way in June it would be a hoot to watch the pageant.

Plans for our Mountain Flying Seminar in McCall, ID are moving along. So far Kitty, Julia, Susan Royce, Rich Behrens and I are committed. There will be a day of ground school orientation and a day of flying with a flight instructor. Days are long in summer Idaho and you’ll be more than thrilled with all they have to share.

Awhile ago one of my patients graced me with four big boxes of aviation ‘stuff ’; simulator systems, and controls, hand books, O2 system, life vests, hand held radios and much more. These items came out of a flying club at Gnoss that had disbanded. We will be making an inventory and advertising to sell in the PAPA and Gnoss newsletters.

Kitty has been busy flying with Light Hawk, an aviation watch-dog group that partners with environment organizations to evaluate terrain, check for intrusions, monitor mining tracts, Delta River management and forest health. If you’d like to share your time and skills contact www.lighthawk.org for qualification, program coordination and their mission board.

It was a great meeting, lots was accomplished, food was delicious