Nacho and the gang did an amazing job with the BBQ, especially because it was a last minute kind of thing!!! He managed to raise around $1,400 in cash donations last Saturday (I need to re-count some extra cash from a couple of envelopes to the total), so that puts us in the neighborhood of $11,200 raised so far! 🤩

I want to give a shout out to all you super generous donors out there, both local and visiting! We are so appreciative of your caring and hope you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor very soon. THANK YOU!!! 🙏😊

In case you haven’t seen it, this is what the new shade structure may look like (designed by one of our own architect pilots, Jai Pal), once we have all the funds in place. If you haven’t yet, there’s still time to throw some cash into the pile. The more we raise, the better the facilities will be! Our final fundraising goal is being calculated by those who know what they’re doing, so I’ll wait to share the numbers with you as soon as we have them.

Sad to see you leave the professional side of paragliding, but I’m sure you’ll still come out to fly! Life shouldn’t be all about work. It’s awesome that you can retire fairly young and get to enjoy the rest of your days as you see fit. Who knows,… maybe it will be too much freedom, you’ll get bored and will come back. 😄

I’m probably biased, but I think that instructors can & do make good/effective board members. They have way more to lose than any of us if AJX is shut down, so it’s in their best interest to make sure that the club is successful and continues to function as long as possible. We’ve had HG/PG instructors on the board for as long as I’ve been around (which is not that long,… about four years), but I know that Tim, for example, has been on the board for a long time and he’s done a lot of good for the club.

Personally I don’t think we should exclude instructors from running for board positions, but I can also see how an instructor with dishonest or selfish motives could wreak some havoc on the other schools, and/or the club, if they’re allowed to go unchecked. That is why we have to nominate and vote for the people we believe will do a good job. If you want to make sure the club does well, you don’t necessarily have to volunteer to be on the board, but you do need to get involved in the nomination & voting process.

Maybe some years we get it wrong, but keep in mind that the board does have the power to vote on relieving another board member of their responsibilities if they see wrong-doing, or severe lack of participation in club matters. As long as the majority of the board members are reasonable and well-meaning people, it should work out. 😅 Of course my opinion on that is amendable.

Dear Critics,

David (and the rest of the board) has had a lot to deal with this past year. If he had known what he was signing up for, he probably wouldn’t have. 😆 His only goal has been to try to make AJX a better, safer place to fly and to keep it going for decades to come.

Being the Safety Director (as well as our most excellent web/weather station guy) and taking his position seriously, he’s been trying to do what he believed was the right thing to do without letting politics cloud his judgement. This “Crash vs. Outlanding” debate could have been settled, or even avoided, if everyone involved had communicated with him in a timely manner. Since his requests for more info went ignored and he witnessed the incident from start to finish from the air, he had to go by what he himself witnessed and what the student communicated to him.

Now,… maybe you think David is being overzealous here and you think he should do better. There’s nothing wrong with offering suggestions on how to handle these things, but to get verbally abusive toward him because you don’t like what he said, that is not acceptable. Who’s going to want to volunteer for any of the board positions, when they see how we treat our volunteers?

Volunteering for a Board position sounds like fun and games, until you have serious business to deal with. If you’re new to this place, you may not realize what it takes to keep AJX alive and well. It’s like herding feral cats!!! 🐅💣🐆🦁🧨😵 There’s no way you’re going to make everyone happy all the time.

I challenge any of you to sign up next time and show him how it’s done, if you think you can do better. He’s calling it quits, and two people are currently running for the Safety Director position. The other positions are going completely uncontested, and very few of our members even bothered to vote (voting ends Friday, by the way 😉).

Nobody here means any harm to the club, but if you see us doing something you feel is bad for the CSS, chime in like a civilized human being and we’ll be more than happy to consider your argument. 2020 has been hard on all of us, so please have some compassion for the volunteers. One of these days maybe you’ll be “The Man” and have to say, or do unpopular things. 😄

That’s pretty funny Tim! 😂 Thanks for sharing. We need more stories please!!! 🙏

There will be some shade where the existing concrete is, but most vertical structure (like the box and wall) that cause turbulence will be gone.

Jai Pal’s plans look neat for sure, but it makes me wonder if the new structure will cause turbulence for us paragliders making our figure 8’s right behind it. 🤔 Also that dirt road that’s getting covered by a shaded area, don’t we need that open for emergency vehicles to be able to drive onto the grass in case of emergencies?

David just put together a  nice sketch that creates a great classroom area with a couple of harness hang points, picnic tables separated from the classroom by a wall, paraglider storage area, guest seating and kitchen area. We’re also discussing a shaded glider packing area with artificial grass. We definitely need protection from sun, wind chill and occasionally rain, so that’s more to think about.

Whatever happens, I’m sure that we will end up with something better than what we have now. 😁

Here’s a list of things we could probably use:

– Sun shade
– Wind shade
– Rain cover
– Picnic area
– Kitchen with sink, BBQ, fridge & trash
– Temp glider storage
– Shaded glider packing area with artificial grass
– Classroom area
– Hang check for HG and PG
– Guest seating (a.k.a. peanut gallery😄)
– Mayhaps somewhere for guests to tie up dogs?
– Maybe reserve toss simulator somewhere?
– Visitor Info wall for rules and safety.

– Charging station

– Lights for when it gets dark and people are still hanging out during event, or taking a test, etc.

What the hell?!? 😂😅