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MARS Board Meeting Minutes

January 24, 2024

Meeting started at 1900

Attendance: Meeting held online.  Attending were Tom Ha, Dan MacNeal, Todd Smith, and guest Robert Hilton

Membership Forum:

Discussion led by Robert of NYPOWER planning, committee, logistics, etc. Robert had many questions that were discussed. The board is in full agreement that NYPOWER will have all the features of past years, like a night launch, potluck, camping available, etc.

Presidents Report
Discussed the use and availability of the Swanson building at the Museum for Saturday meetings.

Discussed Larry Wakeman’s request for Scout attendance at the August launch. Noted that there is a requirement to get approval for primitive camping that the Scouts want to do onsite, and that the Museum requires campers to be members of the Museum.  The board will offer suggestions for established local camping areas to Larry. The board agreed to support their attendance, especially the rocket launching aspect.

Committee Topics:
Outreach – Discussed who will lead this and that Chris Jesewicz was offered the lead role. More to follow.

Launch Operations – Discussed the need to establish this committee.

Noted member concerns about the health of the club via conversations with Todd. Some members will be returning to the club.

VP Report
Discussed the MARS Facebook status. Tom provided an update on what’s been posted and what he plans to post. Noted that Tom is now an admin for the page/group as requested previously.

Cluster Ignition
Tom noted that this will be based on NAR guidelines and had closed further discussion on Facebook of the topic. After this action, a private email was sent by a concerned club member to Tom who discussed it in this meeting. No changes are planned to the club’s stance.

Member Concerns
Beyond the above, there were no specific concerns that had been brought to Toms’s attention since the last membership meeting.

Treasurers Report
Discussed ways to track membership renewals. Discussed bringing the budget to the membership meeting in February.

Old Business
Waiver Holder. Tom volunteered to become the FAA waiver holder for the club. Todd gave a large sigh of relief. Todd will put the two Toms in touch (Tom McCarthy and Tom Ha) to move ahead with this.

MARS Secretary. The position is still open. Since you are reading this, would you be willing to type up things like this? If so, please consider stepping up to support YOUR club. A couple of names were thrown out, but you are still reading this, aren’t you? Go ahead, step up!

MARS Membership meeting. Swanson building is available after discussion with the Museum.

Tom Cohen launch tower use request. Tom requested the use of the large trailer-mounted launch tower for a non-MARS launch in New York. After discussion, the Board agreed that the risk and liability of loaning it out while it has no registration and is not street-legal is too high to allow it off the Museum property at this time.

New Business
MARS Cert Team
The Board discussed the “cert team” for HPR certifications. There is no requirement that we inform the NAR of whom we will have testing or certifying HPR fliers. An item will be added to the next meeting agenda to create a list of volunteers that (if in attendance and not otherwise occupied) would be willing to work with those attempting JrL1, L1 or L2 certification flights. It was noted that L2 tests must be given by an officer of the club or a designated club member. This is to give and score the test, not to complete the pre-flight/flight/post-flight requirements for a certifier. That can be done by an appropriate person or team per the NAR process. Bill and MaryBeth have volunteered to be part of this already.

Action Items:
Todd to add an item to the next meeting to modify/approve the previous meeting minutes.
Todd to add an item to the agenda requesting volunteers to certify HPR flights.
Tom to provide Robert with contacts for the Syracuse Rocket Club.
Dan to be ready to provide the budget and request approval.

The meeting ended at 1900.

Respectfully submitted.
Tom Ha
MARS Vice President/Section Advisor