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January 2000 meeting minutes (1/11/2000)
On January 10, MASA members gathered at the new Science Museum in
St. Paul for the first club meeting of 2000. About 20 people
were in attendance as Russ started the proceedings at about 7
pm. Some of the information passed along by Russ:
- The monthly meetings will be held in classrooms at the Science
Museum at least through May of this year.
- The next launch will be on January 29th at Sunrise Park Middle
School in White Bear Lake.
- For continuing members, your year 2000 dues are now
payable. You may pay at an upcoming launch or meeting or
fill out the form and mail it in
along with a check. Remember, your dues help the club meet
its financial obligations.
- We need 5 insured NAR members in order to get NAR section
insurance. If you carry or plan to carry the NAR
individual insurance, please let Russ know. [It looks like
we won't have a problem coming up with 5 people.]
- The Events schedule on the web site will be fleshed-out soon
with more details of upcoming meetings.
- On that note, any ideas for topics or events to enliven club
meetings this year would be very welcome. Last year, the
most popular meetings were those when we had some sort of
building session.
- Joe Kimmes and Art Gibbens have volunteered to work together
to produce the MASA Planet newsletter. The newsletter will
come out at least twice this year and possibly four times.
If you have ideas, suggestions, or material to contribute to the
newsletter, please talk to Joe or Art.
- Additional volunteers are being sought to:
- Find topics for club meetings and plan club events, and
- Help coordinate launches, find people to serve as RSO/LCO's,
and/or store the boxes of launch equipment between launches.
- Please contact Russ if you're willing to serve! [To have
a successful club, we need people who are willing to pitch-in
and help!]
- A short discussion ensued about the NAR/TRA joint action
against the BATF. Alan Estenson and Bob Brashear
contributed some information on the current situation. If
you fly or plan to fly large motors, your donation is essential
to funding this ongoing legal action. See the NAR
web site for more information.
- Russ and Damian informed us that the club financial situation
looks good as we begin the new year. We did give a gift
again to the owner of the sod farm in Blaine. There will
be no increase in dues.
- Russ also passed along "thanks" to Alan for keeping
up the web site and to everyone who helped-out at the launches
last year.
Bob Brashear told us that the Southern Minnesota Tripoli group is
investigating information that recently came to light. It
seems that, back in 1957, Minnesota had its own version of the
"Rocket Boys". In southern Minnesota, there is a
"historical marker" along a highway that commemorates some
amateur rocket flights by local youth.
To finish the "official" part of the evening, MASA
President Russ Durkee presented the second annual "MASSY"
awards. [These are just-for-fun awards that Russ dreams up.]
First, Russ had a red ribbon for Ken Jarosch for the "Made
My Day Award". At the July launch, Ken brought along
a box of rockets and gave them away to kids that came to the launch.
Prang Awards
- A white ribbon was presented to Glen Overby for his Aerobee
300 lawn dart.
- A red ribbon went to Larry "Horse Killer" Schwartz
for the cruise missile flight of his 2-stage Fat Boy at the
November launch. [We won't elaborate any more on that
subject except to disclaim "No horses were harmed during
the shooting of this rocket"]
- A blue ribbon went to John Knoll for the heartbreaking [but
really spectacular] loss of his incredible NCR X-Wing.
Upstanding Rocketeer Awards
- A white ribbon was presented to Lee & Mollie Frisvold for
both the great flights of their 2-stage Fat Boy and for their
ability to dominate the streamer duration competition.
- A red ribbon was presented to Art Gibbens in honor of his
incredible 2-stage Saturn V.
- A blue ribbon went to Bud Herema. In July, Bud drove a
long distance to come to our Apollo 11 Commemorative launch with
his impressive Saturn V, launch pad and gantry. It was the
highlight of a great day of launching rockets.
The Rocketeer of the Year Award went to Carl Persson.
Carl comes up with interesting and unique projects such as his
"Humpty Dumbty" and the Saturn 7. What's more, he
keeps developing and improving his rockets until they work
perfectly. Carl also is known for his incredible rocket
photos.
To finish off the evening, rocket talk and rocket projects were
discussed and examined as we watched some of Carl's video footage of
recent MASA launches.
(Alan Estenson)
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