The annual dinner took place on the 11th January complete with its own Oscar style award ceremony.
"The PR award is going to Graham Tanner in recognition of his work in being the co-ordinator in chief for the TLEs which helps raise the public awareness of the club. I've not been at all creative in what to award - have just gone for a bottle of wine."
Stephen O
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"As Treasurer, I thought I should make a finance-related award, so I have decided to give it to someone who has saved us loads of loot by repairing and making new items which would otherwise have had to be bought, which would be a bit of a drogue, so the award goes to Paul Bryant. Your penalty for this is you get to keep this (Member of the Year Cup) safe and polished for a year, but I hope you will enjoy this (bottle of wine) in mitigation".
Steve B
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"Spirit of Gliding Award" aka "Best Field Landing".
"Runner up has to be Ken Reid for local soaring in the K8 and landing out within site of the White Horse at Alton Barnes. Ken obviously needed to be reminded that the K8 doesnt quite have the penetration of the Duo Discus.
The clear winner is of course Chris Bessent. Chris has had many many field landings this year, too many to mention them all, but the most notable occurred on the 22nd August. The weather gods appeared to be smiling for a change so a 300 was set to Elkstone (North of Stroud) and Sackville Farm. The weather of course deteriorated to a mostly blue grovel and when given the choice of turning Northampton and heading for home Chris declined and "bravely" pushed on straight into a field at Milton Keynes an epic 90 km from home as the crow flys.
However Chris tasks did extract the most out of an otherwise mediocre summer and it is this spirit that has earned him this award.
A 2013 Aeronautical chart will be issued to Chris upon its release."
Jim
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"After having a struggle to come up with an idea, I have decided to give my award to Paul Prentice for having the courage to fly as P2 with me as P1 on my first mutual flight, it being his first mutual post the "Heavy" landing."
Nigel
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The inaugural "DCFI Award for Flying" goes to Philip Morgan
A citation is out thus,
"On a warm and sunny day back in May, yes we did have one, Phil took off to fly around the country, for some reason (unknown) he chose to follow Chris. Chris decided to crash, fortunately for Chris he didn't, but more fortunately for Phil he decided he couldn't watch and in flagrant disrespect of the rules of sea turned his back on his friend, charge and wing-man and resumed his task onwards. Sometime later, actually 5hrs 24mins later a blur of an LS3
Hence and thus, mainly for dereliction of duty of CFI, Phil gets the "DCFI Award for Flying", secondarily he gets it for his first 300 flight and a Gold and Diamond leg.”
The prize, a winch launch voucher, to be claimed retrospectively for a flight in 2012 of 300 or more kilometres.
Pete S
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Colin awarded a bottle of wine to Peter Mason in recognition of doughnuts… that he purchased… …every Wednesday… …for Colin to eat… …and everyone else.
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In recognition of fast progress to solo, Phil awarded a bottle of wine to Selvam.
