SKAR Club Activity Startup

Hello all! This is Chris, President of SKAR club. I hope everyone is safe and getting ready to enjoy the holiday season. I wanted to send this email out to talk about the club moving into the future.

As many of you know, the club has been inactive for the most part since the COVID-19 pandemic started. I have floated the idea a few times individually over the past 6 months about starting up club activities, but have not received much feedback from those I have contacted.

In looking at the state of the club, I have decided that a few things need to occur;

  1. Club reactivation
    I would like to restart both the club launches and the club build sessions. Club launches will resume the 4th Saturday of the month starting in January 2022 (Jan 22nd 2022) . This will give us a few months to get ready, take care of any administrative actions that need done, and also give us time with our families during the holiday season. (It will also allow me an opportunity to get my shop back in working order and ready to host build sessions)

    Build sessions will begin again, hopefully starting the 2nd Saturday of the month in Feb, but a few things will need to occur first, which I will discuss a bit further down.
  2. Club Dues
    In preparation for the re-opening of the club, I will be looking at the finances. Anyone who has made a payment to the club towards club dues since Jan 1st 2020 will have those fees applied to their 2022 membership. Our club has sufficient funds to operate, and I see no reason to charge members for the time during the pandemic in which we were not operating.

    Further, if you are on this email list, or see this post on our webpage and have paid dues in that timeframe, but no longer wish to be a member, please contact us at president@skarclub.org to request a refund. I will need to know what form the payment came in, and the refund will be made back to the account that it came from if possible.
  3. Club Officers and Advisers
    Our club charter/bylaws require that the officers and advisers be elected once a year. Since the club has not been operating, we have missed two election seasons. I feel that it is important that moving forward we make sure we are operating in accordance with our rules, and as such am opening up the nomination period for those seeking to run for a position on the Board of Directors. The nomination period will run until the end of January. Elections will be held the second week of February. The newly elected officers and advisers shall serve a modified term of 16 months. If you are interested in serving on the board for the coming year, please email president@skarclub.org

    Until such a time as new Officers and Advisers are elected, I will continue to fulfill role as interim President, and will work with the last Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer to assure club operations and handover where necessary. As a reminder, the positions available are:
    • President
    • Vice President
    • Secretary-Treasurer
    • Senior Adviser Seat 1
    • Senior Adviser Seat 2
  4. COVID-19 Mitigation
    Before we start launching and meeting for club events, we will need to have a conversation about what we would like to do to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. My plan is to work with the current Board to come up with a plan, and then allow members to comment. We will take these comments into consideration and make modifications as necessary. Our goal is to find the balance where our members will feel both safe, and respected.
  5. By-Laws and Quarterly Review
    Once new board members are elected, we will need to review our By-Laws, member dues and plans going forward.

If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns about the club moving forward, please contact me, as always. I look forward to seeing all of you soon and resuming club activities!

March 9th 2019 Launch Canceled

Well everyone, I hate to bring the bad news, but unfortunately due to weather and launch site conditions we will have to cancel our launch this weekend. All of the rain we have been having has a lot of the southern california clubs canceling their launches, so if you manage to find one that doesn’t that you can make it to, happy launching!

Otherwise we will see you at the build session on March 23rd, or our launch on April 13th!

09Feb2019 Launch Canceled

Hello all,

Tomorrow’s weather calls for 50% chance of rain in the early morning, winds 10-20 mph with gusts up to 35. This combined with the excessive rain over the last two weeks with little time for the ground to dry creates a very messy launch site with winds detrimental to good launch.

On top of this ROC canceled their launch again this weekend, and so our monthly pickup of motors will not be coming through. I contacted BAR and asked them to ship the motors, but as of 4pm today (Friday) they have not yet arrived. Without these motors, most (maybe all?) will have no high or mid power motors to launch tomorrow, and some may even be out of model rocket motors.

Due to the combination of these events, we have decided to cancel tomorrow’s launch. I will let everyone know as soon as our motors arrive. Nov-Feb is always an iffy period for weather, but usually by March it clears up a lot, so hopefully no issues for a March 9th launch. If you have any questions, please address them to president@skarclub.org

Thanks,

-Chris

Launch is a go this weekend!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we are good to launch at the new location. Check out the events page, or the window to the left for more information. Remember we have a new launch location at Koehn Dry Lake bed! Hope to see you all there!