Monthly Recap.  The Lunch-Bunch group met at Callaway Gardens Pine Mountain airport on Saturday, October 21^st for a fun lunch and park outing.  We had five airplanes and 13 people attending. We had a fine lunch and socialized at the Gardens Restaurant where the fireplace had a warming fire, and the service and food were extraordinary.  We also held our membership meeting and elections in October. See the meeting news section below for more details.

Trip News.  Our next exciting trip is to Dillsboro, North Carolina, to ride the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad Tuckasegee River excursion train on November 4, 2006. The excursion train departs Dillsboro Saturday afternoon at 1 PM, travels to Bryson City, and returns to Dillsboro getting back at 4:30 PM. The fare is $45 for adults and $21.60 for children.  We will have dinner at the Jarrett House, a local landmark, spend Saturday night at the hotel, and return home on Sunday.  The nearest airport with an FBO is in Franklin, NC (Macon County, 1A5). The airport is in a mountain valley about 13 miles southwest of Dillsboro (ground transportation will be provided). Macon County is a VFR only field, so if the weather isn't good, Asheville (KAVL) is the nearest IFR field, or it is a 2-3 hour drive from Atlanta. Although we are past the deadline, there may be room to go along.  If you’re interested in joining in, please reply quickly to trip captain John Horton at jdhorton@bellsouth.net for more information.

Lunch-Bunch News.  The next Lunch-Bunch will be Sunday, November 12th, Habersham County (KAJR) in Cornelia, Georgia. We’ll meet between 10:30 and 11:00 AM and walk to the Runway Fish House Restaurant for lunch. Sherri and Paul will send an email reminder, but they would appreciate you telling them as soon as you know you are going by emailing them atlunchbunch@georgiaflyers.org 

I also want to tell you about the December Lunch-Bunch event that you won’t want to miss. We will be heading to Jekyll Island (09J) for a great buffet brunch at the Jekyll Island Club. We also went there last December and had so many attending we overflowed the room. So get your reservation in at lunchbunch@georgiaflyers.org as soon as possible so Sherri and Paul can plan accordingly.

Meeting News.   Our October meeting was a big success where 25 members assembled for socializing and a surprise presentation by member Sandy Thomas. Sandy put together a fantastic video of the Louisville trip sponsored by Sandy and Dick Lyon. Sandy’s skills as a photographer and director were apparent in the entertaining video. I am sure Sandy will make it available for viewing to anyone who asks.  Following Sandy’s presentation, Paul and Sherri Platt reviewed photos and highlights of other trips this year and Lunch-Bunch events.  We certainly appreciated the efforts of Sandy, Paul, and Sherri to put together the quality photo reviews of this year’s trips and events.  We even received a new member during the meeting when John Tefft joined. John had attended a previous meeting and he and his family joined us on the previous day’s Callaway Gardens Lunch-Bunch outing.

This was the last regular meeting of the year. Our next get together and meeting will be the 2007 kickoff meeting in January.  The date, as well as the location, is not yet determined.  I will have that information in the December newsletter, as well as having it on our website calendar.

Following the membership meeting and elections, the steering committee met and we are crafting another exciting flying year, with several trips, events, and Lunch-Bunch outings planned.  We used the information we gained from a membership survey conducted during the membership meeting to adjust our 2007 plans to better align with the needs and desires of our members.  If you could not attend the meeting and would like to give us your input on the survey, let me know and I will email you a survey form. More information will be available on our website when we assemble next year’s calendar.

One important date that you need to get on your calendar is February 10, 2007. That is the date for the Valentine’s Day Dinner Dance at the St. Ives Country Club. The event will be in the evening and will replace the Christmas Party that was becoming increasingly difficult to schedule and a conflict for many of our members during the busy holiday season.  While we don’t have firm plans for the event, I can assure you that you will not want to miss it.

Elections.  At the October 22^nd meeting, the membership reelected the current steering committee to continue their functions for the 2007 flying year. We were not able to find a relief for Dan Barta, who resigned his position as programs committee chairman. If anyone would like to investigate taking that position, call me or Jim Turner. We would be glad to discuss the duties with you. We always appreciate members who are willing to take on even a small amount of the work needed to keep our organization strong and fun. The reelected chairpersons are:  Jim Turner, Board Chairman; Paul Gundermann, Secretary/Treasurer; Paul Platt, Website Maintenance; Sherri Platt, Trips and Events; Keeley Miller, Membership; Ron Deering, President; John Horton, Website Maintenance; and Katie Malone, Sunshine. 

Sandy & Terry moved to Marietta in 1993 and have been members of the Georgia Flyers since 1997. They have flown the same Mooney 201 since 1983, and are now based at RYY. Sandy was an officer of the Georgia Flyers for four years, including President in 2001. They enjoy long trips, such as Albuquerque, Cape Cod, Key West and Bahamas, as well as the social activities. On their own, they flew to the Caymans, and this year to Maine. As Louisville natives, they sponsored the Keeneland trip in 2001. With Dick Lyons, they sponsored the 2006 trip to Churchill Downs. Sandy has attended EAA Oshkosh since 1979, and occasionally gets Terry to join him.

After Vanderbilt engineering school and an MBA from Washington University (St. Louis), Sandy was an Army officer at the Pentagon with temporary duty in Korea and Germany. He was a roaming information technology executive and consultant in New York City, Chicago (where he got his pilot’s license in 1979), Philadelphia (where he met Terry in 1983), and Boston. In 2002, Sandy was the Libertarian Party candidate for US Senate from Georgia. He is now a full time instructor in the marketing department at Kennesaw State University.

Terry grew up in New Jersey with her three sisters and a brother, and graduated from Rosemont College in Philadelphia with her twin sister. She immediately went to work for IBM, where she has remained for 32 years. They live in east Cobb, and enjoy travel (including SCUBA diving), photography, car clubs, genealogy, cooking, history & fiction. Their children, Carolyn and Frank Krieger, are graduates of Westminster Schools and Georgia Tech. Frank, married in 2005 to KC McClelland, is with a national consulting firm in Los Angeles. Carolyn is in her final year of dental school at the Medical College of Georgia.

Check out their family and travel web site is http://web.mac.com/sandy.thomas

Watch for December’s newsletter where our membership committee chairman, Keeley Miller, and his wife, Nita, will appear in our next “Meet a Member” article.

If you would like to be featured in a newsletter, please call or email me. It is painless and helps other members get to know you.

 Ron Deering