January AGM resume
At the AGM various changes were implemented including reducing the committee to Chair, Brian Richards; Treasurer, Alan Jones; Secretary, Mike Kemp. There are to be no changes in fees this year meaning £10 for a printed newsletter & £7.50 for an e-mail copy. Meeting fees are to remain at £2 for a members night & £3 when we have a speaker.
This years Jolly Boys Trip is planed to cover E.Yorks & N.Lincs with Sunday April 29th the preferred date. Thanks go to Kevin Jarvis for offering to act as “kit-man” taking care of the groups laptop, projector etc.
The February meeting will feature a presentation by Brian Richards of his US West Coast & Alaska trip
February Meeting resume
Last year Brian was fortunate enough to visit the US West Coast & Alaska on a dedicated spotting tour covering a mix of civil & military airfields. We saw excellent presentation ranging from US military museum exhibits thru modern airliners to the bush planes & freight haulers of Alaska.
Our March meeting features Mike Draper discussing aviations place in the Biafran war & the consequent relief efforts,
March 2012 resume
We were able to welcome well known aviation researcher & author Mike Draper to the branch for his presentation on the Biafran war. He explained the background revolving around ethnic & tribal differences resulting in civil-war within Nigeria. His personal involvement flying an Anson & meeting others involved from church-aid leaders to arms merchants lead to a fascinating talk.
A group of members took advantage of the TAG Executive aviations enlightened offers of airfield at Farnborough with a some hangar access & coach-bound tour of the airside areas of this busy executive airport. Another visit is planned for Oct 9th, contact the secretary if interested.
Our April meeting will be slide-show by Nigel Kemp & Rowland Benbrook on their stint as “guest marshallers” at Heathrow
April 2012 resume
Through their involvement in the North Weald marshalling team Nigel & Rowland were able to sample marshalling the heavy birds at Heathrow under the eye of Simon Newbold BAA training manager at LHR. A great collection of shots gave a demonstration of scale of larger types plus the tight detail that goes into keeping LHR functioning.
The May meeting will feature Grp Cpt’n Tom Eeles who though an RAF officer was assigned to an FAA Sqdn flying Buccaneers from aircraft-carriers
May 2012 resume
Group Captain Tom Eeles gave an interesting illustrated talk on flying the Buccaneer from aircraft-carriers. He spent a tour of the Far-East as part of the wind-down of the British presence in Singapore. The highlight was hearing how a Bullpup missile fell clear of his a/c as he landed, luckily it cleared the deck without hitting anything landing harmlessly in the sea.
The June meeting is to take on May 30 with the Fly-In brief & member’s slides
June 2012 resume
The Fly-In brief by Phil took very little of our time so we spent a leisurely evening watching members assorted slides.
Our July meeting will feature member’s slides
July 2012 resume
The evening started with a short de-brief by Phil on the Fly-In which despite the weather’s worst efforts was a success with many interesting aircraft on the ground. It was followed by a slide-show from the Bitburg Aerofair by Nigel Kemp who along with a few others provided the marshalling team.
Our August meet will be a member’s slides night.
August 2012 resume
Tonight we had the pleasure of viewing some of Dave Mason’s photos taken on his recent tour of the Far East. Featuring fascinating shots of classic propliners mixed with the latest airliners, general aviation types & preserved military. The evening closed with an interesting collection of scanned images of the 60’s & 70’s by John Tietjen & a more recent trip around the Midlands.
The September meeting will be a member’s slides night
September 2012 meeting resume
The meeting started a debate on our branch website options. Following a presentation by Michael Jones of a Blog style site featuring all the options suggested in August it was decided to adopt the with Michael acting as Blog-Master. I’m sure all will agree that Michael’s offering is a superb effort in which the branch will be justifiably proud as it develops. Credit was given to the efforts Alan Field had made in the past with his site & he has opted to dedicate his efforts to a site for the Marshalling team & North Weald which I’m sure we’ll offer him best wishes. We’ll obviously add a link to this in time.
The meeting then proceeded with a short slide show from Mike Kemp’s “summer” visit to North West France featuring a selection of visitors at the French RSA Rally at Blois. Brian Richards also presented a varied selection of slides from his extensive travels. John Tietjen closed the evening with some images from the recent LAA Rally at Sywell.
The October meeting features member Colin Potter with his “Civil Aviation at Ipswich Airport 1930 – 1997– a local boys view”, £3 at the door with a small raffle.
October 2012 meeting resume
At our October meeting we were treated to an excellent talk on the history of Ipswich Airport by Member Colin Potter. This took us from the Purchase of the land at Ravens Wood in the late 1920’s through to the Airports unfortunate closure in 1996 and featured some fascinating and often humorous stories from the Airports diverse history. Those who weren’t there missed a wonderful evening if you get an opportunity to hear a talk from Colin again don’t miss out next time.
The November meeting will feature our Annual Photo Competition and talk on aviation photography by Nick Challoner
November 2012 meeting resume
Our November meeting featured the Annual Branch Photo Competition. A review of the evening including the winning photos can be found here The evening also included a Presentation on Aviation Photography By Our Judge for the Evening Nick Challoner which can be read here
The December Meeting will be the Annual Aviation Quiz Night – Mike Prior Trophy
December 2012 meeting resume
The December meeting featured a Quiz set by Phil Kemp. Partial views of a/c noses, tails, colour schemes etc to identify started proceedings. Other sections covered first flight dates, airline failure dates and airfield designator codes which proved testing but excellent fun with Nigel Kemp winning followed by Brian Richards in 2nd place.
Many thanks to Phil for setting a challenging but not too severe a test of our aviation knowledge
After the Christmas break we return on Weds 9th January with a general slide-night with the AGM set for Feb 6th, a reminder to all that I stand down as Secretary in February so please consider if you’d wish to take on the task.
Mike Kemp
Air-Britain Stansted Branch 
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