HOHNER’S CORNER OCTOBER 2007
THE OSHKOSH LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
Who says that being chapter president isn’t a fun filled experience with nothing but perks and plenty of volunteers so you don’t have to do any real work? Well I am now living proof. I was one of 33 happy and exclusively selected chapter presidents invited to attend a weekend leadership camp at EAA aviation mecca: OSHKOSH! As a child I loved summer camp; sharing barracks with a bunch of other guys, eating prepared meals in the mess hall, and participating in lots of activities organized by the camp counselors. It was like reliving my youth. There was only one main difference that I noticed; I am now less comfortable being around other guys in their skivvies than I was when I was a kid. But this only happened during quick jaunts to the showers and latrines. So other than that it
was just like summer camp.
The EAA lodge where we all stayed was actually very nice. Although it is a fairly modern building it was built with a rustic lodge motif. There were four bunks to a room but I only had one roommate. His name was Mike and he rode his Harley 75 miles to attend. One guy flew his Cessna 140 from New York State. Funny thing, he parked it in the main AeroShell Center stage area in the heart of the Oshkosh field, normally reserved for the Concord, Spaceship One and such. He said it was probably the only time he would be able to park there. In fact, his plane was the only one for miles around. The main lodge room/dining hall was very nice and served as the meeting place for a couple of meetings that were combined with our meals.
The primary mission of bringing chapter presidents together was to share ideas and experiences on how to improve EAA. Of primary concern was to keep the organization growing, attract more people into flying, and keep them flying. The Young Eagles program was launched years ago to help expose kids to the wonderful world of flying. But what else can we be doing? Many ideas were offered and a synopsis will emerge from our efforts. Every morning we were bused over to the EAA museum. It actually would have been a short walk from the lodge, but there is an active grass strip between the lodge and the museum that we were not allowed to walk across. A large, very nice conference room had been prepared for us in the basement. We had all the cookies, coffee, candy, pretzels, bottled water, soda and bananas we wanted all day long. This was great for me since I love bananas. Saturday was grueling. We started early, spent the entire day in this room with only a short break for lunch. Brainstorming can be very strenuous. It was a good thing they supplied all the snacks to help keep our energy level up. But for all of our hard work there were some rewards. We received a 30% discount in the museum gift shop. I used this to my advantage to purchase a handsome tan flight jacket with a genuine leather collar. It fits me very nice. But what was really cool is Saturday night after dinner we got a private, “behind the ropes” tour of the museum. We even got to sit in some of the airplanes! Like I said, just like kids at summer camp.
I joined EAA in 1980 and every year since I have digested every glossy page of Sport Aviation. Even way back then the organization appeared to be very large, international and very organized. After all, they had the glossy magazine to prove it. This little homebuilder’s club has continued to grow every year, and I, like many others, could easily see that it has become a large, very cooperate type of operation, with the top echelon probably drawing large salaries, smoking cigars and not really doing any real work. Nothing could be further from the truth! The head of the conference was Bob Warner and there were several other staff members involved in the conference. They all displayed a very concerted and genuine effort and sincerely were interested in our input. It was evident that they all are very dedicated to making EAA the great organization it is and I didn’t notice one of them ever smoke a cigar.
If there was one thing I came back with it is this: There was a wide range of chapters represented, from the very small to the large and successful with hundreds of members. Although our chapter has done very well, there were chapters with no more than us, or in some cases less, that are doing much more than us. We really are only limited by our own ambitions and dreams. So starting next week I will be selecting volunteers to rebuild the clubhouse, (just kidding.) But there is much more we can be doing, and with such a great group of people, we will be doing more fun and rewarding things. Included are some pictures of camp. If you would like to see the entire slide show go to:
http://tinyurl.com/2jto2z