Strategic Planning Session

If any of you noticed that a few of us were missing yesterday, be of good cheer! We had hoped the weather would be bad but it turned out better than expected.

Nevertheless, the committee were joined yesterday by a group of enthusiastic members, to work on the club's strategic plans for 2010 to 2014 and beyond. We invited a cross section of proactive members, from early solo to long standing veterans, on a fairly arbitrary basis, to get good representation. The response was terrific. Please accept our apologies if you would have liked to participate in such an event but were not invited. We did chose somewhat at random and it is no reflection on those whom we were unable to invite, simply because of the venue's necessarily limited capacity for numbers and the manageability of the group size for an effective workshop.

We had twenty four members in total who gave up a whole day to attend the workshop which was held at Goring Heath Parish Hall. There was a little bit of wingeing about the early start prior to the event but everyone got there and got really engaged in the topic.

It was an intense day and I am sure everyone felt exhausted at the end of it, but we made good progress in plotting scenarios, and identifying issues and opportunities for us to work on.

Rumours continue to abound about the likely future of the airfield, most of which are untrue, even when seeming to come from authoritive sources. The committee, and those who have been assisting with the club's affairs, were able to give clarity on the club's situation.

We left the meeting with some very positive statements;

• There is an exciting future for Booker Gliding Club


• We are in good financial health


• There is no bad news


• There are a lot of opportunities ahead

There is uncertainty about how the airfield may look in the future and the extent to which the council may or may not develop it. But we will emerge stonger, whatever happens, either with a stronger tenure on a much reduced airfield development than that muted or be handsomely compensated for being willing to move our operation to an alternative site.

Either way we believe we will be better off and that we have something to shoot for that is very exciting. Plotting our activities and focus certainly occupied a winter's day when we did not miss too much in the way of flying. We were spurred on by the knowledge that we have a great club with some very talented people who are capable of tackling whatever lies ahead.

In the immediate future, we are looking for someone in the club who may be a professional PR person, or someone who aspires to such, to help us with a communications programme. If anyone fits the bill we'd really like to talk to you.