Every year HGC awards a series of trophies (shiny or otherwise) to various of its members, for things ranging from epic flights to epic fails. In a break with tradition this year we decided to split the awards ceremony from the AGM and hold a separate dinner instead. This was held at the Laichmoray Hotel, organised by Mike and Stuart, and turned out to be a great success with 30 members attending across all groups based at Easterton.
Prizes were awarded by our hardworking CFI Mike (who deserves his own award frankly) as follows:
Duration in a Club Glider - Alexander Naylor, who managed 4 hrs 52 min in CLOO, almost a Silver duration!
Honourable mention - Rob Douglas, for 3 hrs 14 min in JMY, and later completed his 5 hrs in his own glider.
Height - Robert Tait, for 13,773 ft attained in his Silent Electro at the UKMSC at Aboyne.
Honourable mentions - Colin Thomas and Mike Black in R1, and Stuart Naylor in the Nimbus, again at the UKMSC.
Ladder Distance - normally this goes to one the usual small group of elite cross-country pilots with excessive wingspans, but to shake things up this was awarded instead to an aspiring cross-country pilot, Ian Tait, for several noteworthy flights on the BGA Ladder (and threatening to dethrone his dad in the process).
Honourable mention - Ross Borland, who has also been making a name for himself on the BGA Ladder.
Meritorious Flight - Ian Tait, for a long hard attempt at a 300k in the Silent Electro.
Honourable mentions - Adrian Morgan and Rob Douglas for their respective 5 hrs.
CFI Shield - Stuart Naylor, for efforts in glider maintenance, instructing and motor-gliding, but in particular for taking lifesaving action at the scene of Geddes' accident last year which ensured he is not only still with us, but actively getting back into gliding again.
Honourable mentions - Martin Knight, for being a keystone member of the club and keeping everything from our website to our ground equipment to our actual ground in good working order; John Thomson for his tireless work as Safety Officer and enthusiastic instructor; John Bisset for a great deal of behind-the-scenes work to keep the airfield running; Anne for long service as Treasurer; Julian for cheerful support and excellent catering, and many others (basically the whole club, really).
Monkey - this is the one we are all most interested in, and this year a selection of (mostly) anonymous misdemeanours were put to a vote for the membership to decide which was the most egregious. The shortlist:
- Signalling “All out” instead of “Up slack” to the winch while distracted,
- Leaving the shower room heater on unattended for over 48 hrs and turning the room into a sauna which warped the door with its intense heat,
- Having the biggest hangar-hog (*cough* Nimbus *cough*) taking up space on the airfield,
- Simply being Adrian (although there was not sufficient evidence of specific misdemeanours to pin any one particular event on him),
- Landing R1 in a particularly difficult field for retrieval on the last day of the UKMSC,
- Failing to shut down the bus at the end of a training day and finding it still idling away the next morning,
- Forgetting to lower the glider trolley while putting an aircraft into its trailer, thus gouging three long scratches into the canopy, and
- Gently and gracefully groundlooping the CFI’s beloved glider after it was trustingly loaned to a competent instructor, fortunately with no damage…
After much consideration, it was decided that our long-suffering CFI Mike Black wins the Monkey this year, for leaving the bus running overnight for over 12 hours.
So he did get an award after all…