“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
– Col. Frank Borman, December 24, 1968
December 5th marked the last club meeting of the year. The meeting opened with a short Tech Talk. Duane Mayer gave a detailed step-by-step on how to build homemade rocket motor igniters. Thank you Duane for putting that information together. You have a very well established process.
After the Tech Talk, I presented a year-end report on the club’s progress this year covering membership, number of rocket flights & motors, and respective reports from each officer & committee chair. Attendance at club meetings has been very good all year round with lots of new faces. We had four guest speaker nights, five Tech Talks, and one hands on workshop. We launched 463 motors this year (307 at Southern Thunder) totaling 166 lbs of propellant or about 0.196MNs of total impulse. That number in perspective is equivalent to 0.014% of one Space Shuttle SRB, 0.33% of the Space Ship One propulsion system, 22% of a Black Brant X booster, or 5 hell fire missiles.
Nominations are now open for 2014 HARA Officers positions. Offices are President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, NAR Advisor, and TRA Prefect. Eligibility requirements are listed in the club bylaws available on the club website. Elections will be held at the next club meeting on January 9th, 2014. Per bylaws, voting members must be present to cast their votes. If you are interested in serving as a club officer or want to serve but have questions, please contact me by email or phone.
After the year-end report, club members discussed goals and activities for next year. Bill Cooke had some good suggestions that club members responded well to. Bill proposed a club project rocket and a student payload launch project. The club rocket would be high power and would serve as a launch vehicle for the student build payloads. Those activities align with HARA’s mission statement and I fully support the idea. We will make a formal proposal to the club following elections at the next HARA meeting on January 9th, 2014. Dave, Woody, Jesse, Jason, Duane, Bill, Art, Elliot, and I continued talking about the idea and other ways to grown the club’s membership and promote the club and the hobby within the Tennessee Valley. Some ideas were vamp up the website, host more local low power launches, host a night launch, engage boy scouts and civil air patrol groups, name our club rocket after a local weather man and get the news crew to cover the launch (I vote we name the rocket “Panic Dan” in honor of Dan Satterfield haha). We will continue to develop these ideas and come to the club when ready to implement.
The membership year will restart on March 1st 2014. We will host a membership drive beginning in January 2014. Those details will be presented after club elections at our next club meeting on January 9th, 2014.
In closing, I want to take the club for allowing me to serve as President. It has been challenging and rewarding. Together, I believe that we have grown the club’s core membership and seen a renewed spirit of fun and friendship. I would gladly serve as President this coming year if the club will trust me with that honor. Safe and Happy Holidays to you and your family. We will see you all at the next HARA meeting on January 9th, 2014 beginning at 7:30PM in the NASA ERC building. Thank you.
Daniel Cavender,
HARA President
