VSA Newsletter – April 2018

An update on the activities of the state soaring association for our Victorian and Tasmanian club members

Arrival of the new mobile flight simulator
We have a new mobile simulator utilising Virtual Reality which was designed and built by Tom Wilksch, Adelaide who built our first mobile unit. The new unit will principally support pilot training at country clubs in Victoria as well as promotional activities. It is presently at Benalla for assessment by Instructors who are familiar with using the GCV simulator for pilot training. Roger Krueger (rogxk8@gmail.com) is managing bookings for the mobile simulator which should be ready for use by clubs in May.

Support for clubs
Sports Community P/L is an organisation with a range of online resources to support clubs achieve membership growth and improve their club management. The GFA have negotiated access for all GFA members to these resources.
Club Spot is FREE for all club volunteers of the Gliding Federation of Australia, and it’s easy to register:
1. Copy the link: https://sportscommunity.com.au/gfa-signup/
2. Register using the “Register Now” button and access Club Spot.
Sports Community have useful grant information on their website see: https://sportscommunity.com.au/grant-category/grants-open-grants/
This list is updated with all the latest grants available to sports clubs. In addition to this, please also check out the “how to win a grant” page: https://sportscommunity.com.au/grant-category/how-to-win-a-grant/

Aviate in April
Remember the April GFA membership promotion is now on – are you ready with your plans to promote gliding to other aviators or lapsed members?
1. Fly a Friend at any gliding club in Australia in April.
2. When they join GFA for 12 months GFA will repay 50% of the GFA membership fee to your club.
3. When the member renews in April 2019 GFA will again refund 50% of the GFA fee to your club.

Airworthiness Courses for 2018
Our VSA RTO Airworthiness officers Joe Luciani and Phil Organ will offer Airworthiness training courses in September/October 2018. There will be two one-week Form 2 Airworthiness courses held at Composite Components (Ballarat) for 5-6 candidates on each course. Preference will be given to club-sponsored candidates to continue to build airworthiness capacity in our clubs. Details on the courses coming soon.
In addition, the GFA will be sponsoring minor repair courses to be run by Authorised Maintenance Organisations in each State, including Composite Components at Ballarat.

Instructor and Coaching update
The latest week-long Level 1 instructor course was held in March at Bacchus Marsh with five attendees. Weekend refresher courses for existing instructors are continuing as well. Work on progressing a strategy for coaching in the VSA from our RTO Sports, Matt Gage, is continuing, in line with GFA work.

Progress on Open Glider Network (OGN)
Steve Trone has been progressing this project. Operational sites are now: Bacchus Marsh, Tocumwal, Mt Beauty, and Benalla, with forthcoming sites at Horsham and Bendigo. There are also independent solar-powered installations planned for Mt William, Grampians and Mt Buller.

Closure of VSA soaring forecast system
With the new GFA nation-wide forecasting service, the VSA RASP system has been closed. Our sincere thanks to Matt Gage, GCV for his extensive support of VSA RASP over recent years.

VSA Committee Update
The VSA has welcomed three members to the Committee: Robyn Lyall (Melbourne GC), Vivienne Drew (GCV) and Phil Henderson (Melbourne Motor Gliding).
As always, if any member of the VSA has any questions or feedback for the VSA, please contact us via the President, Ian Grant ian.grant.gliding@gmail.com or Secretary, David Cleland davidlcleland@gmail.com.
The VSA website has all our details and much more: http://www.gliding.asn.au/

Next Annual General Meeting and Presidents’ meeting
The VSA AGM and Presidents’ meeting will be held on Saturday 12 August 2018 at 1100 at Bacchus Marsh.