Welcome to the August edition of your favorite Flying Clubs Newsletter—the award-winning Club Connector!
This month, we look at how the AOPA Flying Clubs Finder tool helps clubs find prospective members, as well as providing networking opportunities with other clubs. In Question of the Month, we dig into the details of the Finder, how it works, how go get your club listed, and why—and how—you keep your club’s information up to date.
Our Safety feature this month is about Pre-Flight and In-Flight Weather Resources —very timely for this hot, humid, and convective time of year. As always, we’ll share the FAASTeam’ s Topic of the Month as we present them to our own clubs, such that all safety officers always have a topic for club meetings.
Events in Review
2022 AirVenture was spectacular, not only for the airshow, mingling, talking aviation for a week, and especially the Flying Clubs events!
The Flying Clubs Social was excellent. More than 70 flying club members attended, which featured great food, cold drinks and a short presentation on the accomplishments of your Flying Clubs team. So far this year we have helped start 11 new flying clubs nationwide, bringing our program total to 207…and we are not seeing any relaxing of demand. So, if you are thinking about starting a new club—or want help in revitalizing an existing club—please give us a call.
We also celebrated the formation of the 200th You Can Fly flying club – congratulations to the team at Lake Shelbyville Flying Club, based at Shelby County Airport, Illinois.
Looking Forward
So, what’s happening for the rest of the year? We’re glad you asked!
Keep an eye out for email invitations to our very popular Flying Clubs Workshops sessions. We’ll be running three workshops this year, one each in October, November and December. Topics will include: Managing your Club; Pilot Proficiency for Clubs; Growing your Club; Engaging your Members; Maintenance Considerations; Insurance for Clubs.
By the way, all three will be live, remote. That is, they will be beamed, live, from AOPA HQ in Frederick, MD, using GoToWebinar, such that we can reach every corner of the country.
We also have a number of other events on the calendar. Drew will be attending the annual Wings, Wheels and Keels event at Hummel Field, VA on Saturday 24th September and then the annual Fly-In at Simsbury, CT, the following day. Steve will attend the 90th anniversary (yeah, 90—they formed in 1932) celebration of the Reading Aero Club based in Reading, PA, on October 1st. We hope to see you at these events! On the same day, October 1st, Drew will be supporting the second annual Latinas in Aviation Festival hosted by the College Park Aviation Museum.
