The Range Head,
March 1999

by Jack Hagerty, LUNAR #002

HELP WANTED

Our changeover to the new generation of worker bees is just about complete. However, we still have one important job to fill, that of equipment setter-upper/taker-downer. While important, this isn't as hard as it seems. There are always lots of people around to help, but what's needed is someone who will supervise the operation. I've been doing it for the past six months or so in an interim capacity, but I can't do permanently because 1) I've got enough to do running the rest of the club activities, 2) I don't have a vehicle with a tow hitch and, 3) I'm not a morning person (no snide remarks, Warren!).

Filling in for the past few launches has shown me, though, that the job is smaller than I first thought. For one thing, you don't have to worry about equipment maintenance (that's being taken care of by Bill Orvis). Also, there are lots of members who have trucks/vans/SUV's who can pull the trailer out and put it back afterwards. Basically, the job entails taking the responsibility to see that it gets done. You don't even have to be there all the time. If you compile a list of a dozen or so regulars, you could coordinate this important function ahead of time. There are lots of people already who know how our field is set up, and once we get a formal list of them it should be fairly easy to cover any absences.

TWO BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS

For those of you into competition, and/or scale modeling, I've got a couple of items you should really be interested in. First, after a year and a half of having me jump through hoops, Ed LaCroix (the NAR's Provisional Events chairman) has approved my proposal for "Science Fiction/Future Scale" as an event for competition. That means that all of you who have been building models of Tintin's Moon Rocket or von Braun's proposals from "Collier's" magazine can fly them in competition for points.

Second, is an opportunity to actually fly them in competition. Larry Shenosky, our member in Petaluma, has offered to set up a regional contest in May or June. He's offered to be Contest Director and LUNAR will be the host. Actually, since Larry has his own NAR section up there in the far north, he'll be flying for them (which is what makes it a regional rather than local contest). Larry says he'd like to rack up some points going into NARAM. We've already extended an invitation (or tossed the gauntlet, if you will) to our friends at BayNAR, and Larry is going to invite the SARG club from Sacramento. This could turn into a really big deal and a lot of fun.

For events, Larry's thinking about some standard duration and altitude events plus the newly approved F/F Scale and possibly even R&D for the truly ambitious. We'll keep you informed; watch this space.

NARAM

As long as we're talking about contests, here's the big Kahuna. I just got the official NAR fliers for this year's NARAM (the NAR Annual Meet) which will be held in Pittsburgh, PA this year, August 7 - 13. I've got four of them, so if you have any interest in attending, let me know. We can always run off more.

MAILING LISTS UP AND RUNNING

The electronic mailing lists which I mentioned in the last issue are now up and running. In mid January Lynn Kissel populated the lists with all of the e-mail addresses we had on record. To recap, the three lists are:

1. LUNAR-announce -- announcements for the entire membership.

2. LUNAR-general -- general discussions among the membership.

3. LUNARclips -- LUNAR 'Clips mailings. Pretty much the same as 1, but only for items having to do with the newsletter.

Lists 1 and 3 are "moderated" which means that anything sent to them has to be approved by a moderator (Lynn and myself for list 1 and Lynn and editor Tom Hail for list 3) before being sent out. This is to hold down the number of postings since they go to everyone in the club whose address we have. List 2 is unmoderated and is open to anyone to post to. While it was originally populated with the same addresses as the other two, many folks have opted out of participating since the discussions can get quite involved and generate quite a number of postings. If you don't mind the volume, though, it's a great way to tap into the collective wisdom of all the self styled "rocket scientists" in our group.

Now that the lists are running, we won't be automatically signing new members up to the discussion list as they join; they'll have to do so deliberately. If you're new to the club and want to get in on the discussions you'll have to subscribe. To do so, send some e-mail to: