Older News & Diary


Dec '07 The OUGC Training Week + the Holiday Period

The week was marred by bad weather and strong winds. Those who turned up had some fun for a few days, and then spruced up all the MT, fixed flat tries and prepared the vehicles for winter (it seems to have arrived as I type this).

There are plans to fly on New Years Eve (during the day!) then celebrate the coming great season (during the night). A notice will be made discussing arrangements for this.

The Online Shop has come online (on the Trial Lesson page), so now you can buy Trial Lesson vouchers at any time!


Nov '07 The AGM is on November 17th, 7:00pm, in the Bar

AGM Update: You should by now have received your email from the chairman giving details of the election results. A brief summary is: Directors - Nick Kelly, John Delafield and Pete Cadle all voted in. Committee - Secretary - Dan Grey; Estates - Carol Winfield; PR - Alan Smith; House - Marie Mitchell; MT - Ken Hartley; Operations - Terry Mitchell; and Treasurer - George Tvalashvili. As you can see, some new blood.

Club Trophies Awarded

Chairman's Trophy

Awarded to the Member who, in the opinion of the Chairman, has made a major contribution during the last year to the Club Operation
Clive Dalzell

Most Meritorious Flight of the Year

This trophy is awarded to the Club member who, in the opinion of the Management Committee has made the most meritorious flight during the year
Jed Edyvean for his 750 km flight in his Nimbus 3

Member of the Year

The Member who, in the opinion of the Management Committee has made the most progress during the past Year
George Unpronounceable (Tvalashvili)

CFI's Trophy

The CFI's Trophy is awarded to the Club member, who in the opinion of the CFI, has been the mainstay of the flying operation during the past year
Alan Smith

The Alfar Memorial Award

The Alfar Memorial Award is awarded annually to the Windrushers Gliding Club member who, in the opinion of the Management Committee, has made a significant voluntary contribution to Club operations without thanks or favour.
John Wright

The LX Cup

Awarded to the Member who, in the past year, has completed the fastest handicapped 200km closed circuit task
Dave Watt
203 km in 1hr 50 min 14 sec at a handicapped speed of 106.3 kph (actual speed 110.5 kph)

Forum link moved to the Member's Area used to view your online flights and accounts details.
And the flights and accounts have been updated on 15/11/07, as has the flight search option.

Xmas party news for those that missed it.

Eavesdropping on the November committee meeting (not the official minutes)

Oct '07 News Alert Bonfire Night and Early Morning Soaring

Read about bonfire night here.

Free, gratis, zilch, nada, a big fat nothing to pay on glider hire before 11am!

We are please to announce that with immediate effect there will be no soaring fees on any flight in a club glider completed before 11am! Just pay for the launch and soar away until your hearts content - well until 11am anyway. This only applies to flights made at the home site, and if you continue soaring/flying past 11:00am, this extra time will attract soaring fees - there is, of course, no need to land by 11:00am. This also only applies during the winter season (the exact definition of which has still to be made, but obviously the next few months are definitely wintry ones.)

Happy flying...

 

Oct '07 Midweek Winching and much more

Online flights and account have now been updated to the end of September. We will try to update them every week or so.

As the winter is now fast approaching, it’s time to look at our winter programme of flying.

We will be winch launching all day on Wednesday’s and Friday’s, initially until the end of October. All are welcome, especially instructors.

Mike Pettican is organizing Friday evening lectures starting on the first Friday of November. Lectures will begin at 7.00pm and last typically for a couple of hours. The lectures will be as follows:-

  1. Friday 2nd November – Bronze, Theory of Flight
  2. Friday 9th November – Bronze, Instrumentation and Radio
  3. Friday 16th November – Bronze, Met part 1
  4. Friday 23rd November – Bronze, Met part 2
  5. Friday 30th November – Bronze, Human Factors
  6. Friday 7th December – Bronze, Nav Theory
  7. Friday 14th December – Bronze Nav Practical
  8. Saturday 15th December – Bronze Written Exam
  9. More to follow next year!

On Saturday Mornings Mike Pettican will be coordinating an early morning flying group, in order to take advantage of the new free soaring fee’s before 11.00am initiative. RESMIGS (Really Early Saturday Morning Idiot’s Group) will begin at first light on Saturday 3rd November and will continue until the duty team arrive. If there are any able and willing instructors and winch drivers out there who are able to help on Saturday mornings, please drop him a line at Michael.pettican at gmail.com

 

Oct '07 They're Back and Eavesdropping

The Cranfield contingent are back with us, from 6th Oct. onwards, and the OUGC boys and girls will be boosting the number of ab initios dramatically from 13th Oct.

I've been eavesdropping on the October Committee Meeting - read what I heard.

 

Aug '07 Forum link added to the menu, more Regionals images

As some members have lost the link to the forum, it has been added to the Members menu.
Please read the General Forum Rules about posting (at the top of every category).

Damien Dyer has put up a nice collection of images from the Regionals at Flickr. He also generously contributed some of the shots we used during for the Regionals pages.

Just in case you missed it, we won the last round of the Inter Club League, held at Bicester on the 4th/5th August. But didn't win the league.

 

July '07 Weather is live Oops, the computer is dead!

As most of you know, the old weather station was replaced with a more advanced one, snapped up at a bargain price from eBay a month or so ago. And now we have the weather data live on line to view from the comfort of your own home. The link at the top of the weather page takes you to its virtual instrument display.
Bicester airfield current weather conditions

As the computer that updates the weather page is dead, please wait until we replace it before using the above link!

You should soon receive news about your account statement as well.

 

June '07 OUGC Reunion

Oxford University Gliding Club have been a feature of flying at Bicester for over 30 years. They provide a huge amount of the man (and woman) power for weekend flying, with an endless supply of retieve drivers, winch drivers, duty pilots and general glider-pushers. As well as enough ab initios to keep all our instructors current. Many of its members have gone on to become instructors or take up other forms of aviation, sometimes professionally.

As many of the ex-members have kept in touch with each other, a reunion event is taking place on 2nd June. We hope to see some old faces (comments about grey beards will not be appreciated!) and some not so old ones (the offspring of ex-members). Perhaps this will become an annual event.

UPDATE: Tim Freegarde has put a few of the images online. There were (at least) 18 of us OAPs attending, plus family members. Not everyone is in the group shot.


May '07 General News

Sadly, Geraldine our catering lady, has decided to have a rest from the heat in the kitchen. We will miss her and her cakes. But luckily for us, Liz Pike and Marie Mitchell have been volunteered to help out for a while. Be nice to them, we need the food. We are currently looking for a permanent replacement caterer, as these lovely ladies emphasise they are only helping out temporarily.

On a happier note, Terry Crow did his 50km to Grandsen on May 23rd, when the WeatherJack score was a 2.

 

April '07 The 18th was good

500km and 5 hours
Bob King did Windrushers' first 500km of the current year in his ASW27b, K5 - who needs span, only the old guys.
Details: -

And Terry Crow did his 5 hours.

April '07 The AGM

Saturday 14th April
The Annual General Meeting of Windrushers G.C. will take place on Saturday 14th April 2007, at 7:00pm in the club bar. You are urged to attend.

The Start of Season Party will follow this with food £6. Geraldine needs to know the numbers attending so buy your ticket soon - email her if you don't buy a ticket in advance.

Update: New Chairman, and new Directors, details will be added to the Club Officials page soon

April '07 The Portmoak Trip

Rhian did her 5 hours, George Tvalashvili converted to the Junior and got all his Bronze and Cross Country soaring legs, Sebastian Cassel did all his Bronze and Cross Country endorsement soaring legs (all by his 8th solo!!) and Phil (not to be confused with Phil) did her general flying test (thus almost completing her Bronze, field landings to be done soon). so, another successful trip away, with everyone broadening their experience.

April '07 General News

Max and Sue are back from Down Under. Max will start work after Easter Monday, to give him time to acclimatise to the gravitational fields being the right way round again.

Terry has fixed the sit-upon mower and also the blue retrieve vehicle - it now has a starter button rather than being hot-wired via the lights . Marie test drove the mower for an hour on a large area of grass, so now it's your turn to tidy up the caravan surrounds.

 

Feb. '07 Alfar's 50th Party

Saturday 17th February
A party to celebrate Alfar's 50 years of gliding.
Free food.        Free disco.      Some free booze.
Start: 1900      Food: 2000
Dress: "Make an Effort" rather than "Just in off the airfield".
Club Members and their guests are invited.
(Hands up those who thought 50th was his age...)
Update: - About 120 or so people turned up to say "Well done Alfar"!

Jan '07 New CFI Announced, Newsletter Available

Wednesday 17th January
For those who do not receive club emails, the directors have announced that, with immediate effect, Peter Brown, aka Bloggs, will be our new CFI. He succeeds Gary Binnie who, as mentioned in the December Committee Meeting Minutes, decided to stand down after two and a half years in the post. Peter currently owns part of the ASW20 BL, 196, having previously had part of the Pegasus 742. Peter is also a Basic Instructor Examiner and a staff instructor at the RAFGSA Centre.

If you didn't receive a copy of the recent January newsletter, we have placed a copy online as a Word Doc. It should open as normal in most modern browsers.

Jan '07 PFA Snowball Rally

Saturday 13th January
The PFA will be holding their annual Snowball Rally here. It's been scheduled on several occasions in previous years but been hit by bad weather and cancelled. Let's hope they can manage to fly in this year.

We now have a few images from the event, although we'd welcome a few more.

 

Dec '06 OUGC Training Week and New Year's Eve Party

The OUGC Training Week was a great success, with four days of flying and a few lectures on the non-flying day. We even managed to get Kjell Konis off solo, so he could impress his mum when he goes home for Xmas!

Geraldine is planning a New Year's Eve party/meal. The date is, surprise surprise, 31st December. Tickets are £10 each. If you intend to turn up for some of her outstandingly excellent food, then either send her an email at or add your name to the list in the kitchen. It is vital that Geraldine knows how many people are going to turn up for what will be the last social event of the year.

 

Nov '06 Anne and Derren have done it!

Looks like the fairy tale has come true (Beauty and the Beast). They done gone got married. We have photographic evidence as well

Nov '06 Message from the Chairman

The Chairman has made an important announcement on the future management structure of the club.

Nov '06 Xmas Dinner Announced

The organisers have announced the dates for the annual Xmas Dinner. This year it is being held on 25th November. View the advert/details. (Includes contact details for booking.)

Nov '06 Turn Up Early!

The clocks have gone back. The days are getting shorter. So if we all turn up earlier, say before 9:00am, and get the kit out, we can still get a reasonable amount of flying in.

The Bonfire Party was a great success, with well over 100 people turning up, including a large number of our kiting members and many Weston-on-the-Green infiltrators. The attempt to drink the bar dry failed, but only just. And with good weather for gliding as well, the airfield was very crowded on Saturday (although headaches seemed to reduce the numbers a bit on Sunday.)

And so far, people have been heading the note above about starting early to squeeze in enough flying in the shorter days.

Our weather station is online at last, although the temperature probe is apparently living in its own little (extremely frozen) world at present. Hopefully it will give real temperatures soon. Bicester live weather

 

 

Oct '06 Off to Foreign Parts

Max and Sue Kirschner are now in the land of Oz, applying their organisational skills to Bennella Gliding Club, and are soon to be joined for a short time by Mike Pettican. We hope they enjoy themselves, but not so much that they forget to come back here.

Oct '06 From The Chairman

Periodically the Chairman, Alan Jenkins, sends out information for members to read, but as email is not quite 100% reliable, it gets duplicated here as well. His latest communication, dated October 11th 2006, can be read here as a Word document, including the exciting Logo competition.

Oct '06 Regionals 2007

The date has now been set for our very popular Regionals Gliding Competition - mark your diary now for 21st - 28th July 2007. Beg someone to crew for you and turn up for the gliding event of the year!

Oct '06 Derren Selected!

Congratulations to Derren Francis who has been selected for the British team for the Standard Class at the Europeans Championships in 2007, in Lithuania.

Oct '06 Party On Dude! - Firework Party

Our annual Fireworks Party will be on Saturday 4th November 2006 this year! We expect to see all of you there enjoying yourself - anyone noticed NOT obviously enjoying themselves will be used as a guy for the bonfire. Geraldine will be providing more of her truely excellent catering. And the Committee Minutes say that a good fireworks display will be organised, so it must be true.

Oct '06 New Website

The re-designed site is now online (obviously, as you're looking at it now). If you find any broken links or a favourite page is missing, please notify the webmaster, .

 

Sept '06 Change of webmaster

The Windrushers web site will have a new web master from Monday 14th August. Due to increasing pressures in my 'day' job, much to my regret I have to make some sacrifices and looking after this web site is one of them. I have always looked upon this work not as a chore but as one of lifes more pleasurable activities and having seen it through it's birth, the web site now needs a new direction and emphasis. This requires more time and energy than I can give so I must hand over to someone else.

The new web master will be John Wright, an extremely skilled and creative web designer, who has already made a major contribution to the web site with his competition web pages. I know John would want to hear from you about any ideas you might have and is looking forward to taking over the reigns.

I would like to thank everyone who has helped me so much the last two and a bit years. All the contributions over the years to this page and the web site content have been down to you. Thank you. In particular my thanks go to the CFI, Gary Binnie, the many photographers particularly Ken Hartley and Nick Kelly, and the WGC committee for their unstinting support.

Clive Dalzell

 

August '06 The BGA needs your help!

The CAA is proposing the mandatory use of Mode S transponders in ALL UK airspace.

Make no mistake, this signals the end of ‘free air’ in the UK. Every pilot will be affected and the BGA needs as many people as possible to respond to the CAA’s RIA (Regulatory Impact Assessment – the consultation vehicle). You can’t duck out of this and hope it will go away. A lot more on this and how to write to the CAA on the BGA website.

August '06 Chairman's Report 2006

This is available online - report - as a pdf document.

August '06 Bicester Weather Station

A new service will be starting at Bicester soon run by Skylink offering current weather and a webcam. Currently the link shows weather at Cherwell but once the weather station is fixed it will show Bicester weather. Weather forecasts can be obtained as well. As soon as our weather station and webcam go live all flying members will be emailed.