May 7, 2024
This is the semimonthly email newsletter from the Experimental Aircraft Association of Lake Elmo, MN. If you have difficulty reading this information, view it on the chapter website.
Board of Directors previews survey results
Chapter 54's Board of Directors met in person (mostly) at the Chapter House on Monday night with the results of the all-chapter survey the primary topic of the agenda. The survey was commissioned by the board to be sure the chapter's direction aligns with members' interest. Of the 79 current members, about 35 took the survey, which immediately raised questions about whether the Board got viable data to answer the question. The Board discussed how to present this data to the chapter at the regular monthly meeting next Monday. Most responses were self evident, but a few -- such as "do you feel valued and welcomed" -- are open to different interpretations.
The survey also sought to find areas of particular interest when it comes to volunteering, solicited ideas for future programs (i.e. do we really have to have a presentation every month?), and sought judgment on current offerings and events.
The Board also got an update from Jim Pearsall on planning for the fly-in August. Members should be advised that this is an all-hands-on-deck event and participation to help is expected from all members.
The Board also approved the purchase of baseboard trim to complete the interior chapter renovations for this year.
Boy, howdy, we're doing stuff!
This might be the busiest month of the year for Chapter 54. This Saturday, the chapter will host the first Young Eagles Day of the season, weather permitting (so far: looks chilly but clear). YE coordinator Dale Seitzer reports he's got almost 40 kids to fly and 5 pilots are volunteering their time and fuel to accomplish the task. This year, Leif Erickson and members of the Sodbusters RC Club are hosting an event at the chapter house at the same time to provide more information on aviation opportunities for those Young Eagles.
Then, on Monday evening, the Chapter hosts its monthly meeting. As previously mentioned, the results of the survey will be released and discussed. Then, chapter member Jeff Dale, who is also head of education efforts in the chapter, will display and discuss his "sim pits", for flight simulation. There will also be a major announcement about the Ray Scholarship program. The social hour starts at 7, the meeting at 7:30. The Cinema 54 feature is "Sully" and it starts at 5:05 p.m. Although the chapter survey revealed no particular fondness for Cinema 54, I'm continue doing it as I'm at the Chapter House early for setup and I like popcorn.
We're not stopping there...
Chapter member Evangelos Savvas has done a tremendous job organized the chapter's Flying Start Day, which happens a week from Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Chapter House. He reported last night that there are 10 people currently registered. It was also pointed out that the last time the Chapter hosted a Flying Start Day, only a handful were registered, but more than two dozen people walked in.
And the month will end (OK, the next month will actually begin, if you want to get technical about it) on Saturday June 1 when the Chapter House is open and the coffee brewed for the Saturday morning coffee and safety session. The House opens at 8:45, and Laura Hermann begins here Wings seminar at 9. Bring doughnuts or other treats; you'll probably get to eat them all yourself.
There's so much going on, you'll need a calendar to sort it out.
We've got you covered. And the fly-in calendar is apparently displaying the correct dates again. And, remember, too, that Bill Schanks is organizing fly-outs during the season. Be looking for his emails.
May Chapter Video
In this month’s Chapter Video Magazine, Charlie Becker gets you up to date on EAA happenings:
1.) International Young Eagles Day June 8th
2.) Chart it All Special
3.) Homebuilt Aircraft Council
4.) Ray Scholar Milestone - 500 Pilots!
5.) AV Chapter Camping
6.) AV Chapter Pancake Breakfast
7.) AV Forum Presenter Application
A perennial request for donations
It's the time of year when gardeners have to divide perennials and we have open arms if you have some to spare. Primarily, we're looking for early- to mid-season flowering perennials to gussy up the landscaping around the Chapter House as most of our plants are late-season bloomers. If you don't have perennials running amok in your garden, that's OK. You can just buy some for us. Our present need is one or two azalea bushes.
Now, about that wall
Dale Seitzer looked at our wall showing the "fleet" of Chapter 54 and remarked, "a lot of these planes are no longer here." And, he's right. In the recent Chapter House renovation, we limited the wall to only photographs of the birds of active members. But we only received one response to the request for photographs to add. We get it. Maybe you didn't have time to have a hard-copy printed. Or maybe you didn't want to spend the money. Or maybe you didn't read the newsletter and aren't reading this now, either. Let's make it easy for you. Find your favorite photograph, send a high-resolution to Bob Collins, and he'll foot the bill for getting it professionally printed. We're trying one more push to see if we can make that space relevant to the chapter. and, yes, we can always find something else to put there.
At the same time, we also have the virtual wall of the Fleet of 54. We've had better luck at getting this page updated. If you're not at either site, you can knock off two birds with one stone by sending your high-resolution photo.
David Becker, 1945-2024
David Dean Becker, born December 5, 1945, passed away peacefully in Chanhassen, Minnesota on Friday, April 19, 2024. Dave was the second born son to Walter and Alvera Becker of South St. Paul, Minnesota. After graduating from South St. Paul High School, he went on to earn his certification as a Tool and Die maker and was able to utilize his skills in the Army where he served his country as a machinist. In 1977, Dave was hired by 3M as a Systems Control Technician. After 30 years at 3M, Dave retired as a Senior Technologist. His retirement was spent pursuing his love of flying. See obituary >>
Problems? Let me tell ya...
Last week, we noticed that many, many pages of updates to the Chapter 54 website suddenly disappeared, and in their place were older versions of the page. After some local diagnosing, we guessed that we weren't the problem; the EAA content management system in Oshkosh - SiteCore - was. We checked with a few other web editors and then submitted a report to Oshkosh and over the last few days we've been working with the I.T. department of EAA to try to diagnose and solve what is clearly a systemic problem affecting the entire EAA chapters' websites. Why, just in the last few minutes, I noticed the Meet the Leadership Team page was gone (since restored).
Progress has been slow and we are not particularly optimistic about a happy outcome. The problem was originally traced to a template that had been changed, but fixing it did not solve the problems
This situation probably affects Chapter 54 more than any other chapter because ours is a very deep website that is updated almost daily and there's probably no other chapter that utilizes the website the way we do. We have at least had some functionality restored so that we can update the site, but the process of restoring pages that had disappeared is currently laborious and time consuming.
For example, almost all of our Young Eagles photos are gone from the live site. They remain in the EAA database but they do not appear on the live site. Each photograph requires the creation of a page and in order to restore the photographs, we have to republish each page. Each page has to be published individually and that process takes about 30 seconds. We have about 1,000 Young Eagles photos and each has to be republished one at a time.
In time -- and who's got that anymore? -- this will be done. In the meantime, you can help by spotting broken links and other missing or old information and reporting it to us so we can get it updated.
Chapter anniversaries
Recognizing the monthly anniversary of membership in Chapter 54
22 Years: Dale Seitzer (May 2002)
8 Years: Kevin Szalapski (May 2016)
6 Years: Cory Carlson (May 2018)
3 Years: Don Wishard (May 2021)
3 Years: Kelly Schmidt (May 2021)
3 Years: Susan Schmidt (May 2021)
2 Years: Keith Resar (May 2022)
1 Year: Stephen Brown (May 2023)
1 Year: John Tangen (May 2023)
The E-Beacon is a semimonthly newsletter highlighting news items from Chapter 54. If you no longer wish to receive the email, you can unsubscribe by sending an mail to facilities@eaa54.org.