Greetings SAFE Members,
Let me begin by offering my apologies to all of you for the tardiness of this update. I carry the full responsibility for it being so late. To be honest, my flight training business has had me so busy these past few months, that I just haven’t had sufficient time to get an update written. But that doesn’t mean that SAFE hasn’t been moving ahead. We have been very busy on several fronts and some of the results of this effort will be seen in the next several days.
Topping the list is the launch of the new SAFE website. Beginning today our new website:https://www.safepilots.org/ is live. Thanks to the amazing energy and perseverance of Committee Coordinator Rich Stowell and our webmaster Jenny Furst we are finally launching this site. All the work is not done, and it is still a work in progress, however when visiting the site you will see many changes. Now that we are live,top priority is for us to backfill member information onto the site.We have already begun the process of populating the state-by-state Member Listings page and rollover map with information, and hope to have this completed within a week (our international members will be listed as well!).
As soon as that is done we will begin the process of registering SAFE members for access to the Members Only Area. Brian Robbins, our indefatigable data base processor / manager, will be sending out E-mails confirming your registration. These emails will automatically generated as we enter your information. Please watch for an e-mail confirming your registration (be sure to check your junk mail box in case it is directed there by your spam filter). Once you’re registered, you’ll have access to the SAFE member benefits. Please be patient, as Brian has a full time job, (as do virtually all the rest of us) and I can assure you he will get to this as quickly as he can.Once we’ve registered you on the site, (and you’ve received an email with your user name and password) you’ll have the option to join the RSS feed to receive key updates from the Board automatically. We encourage you to take advantage of this great feature of the new site. (For more information about RSS feeds click here) Amongst other features of the RSS feed, all future updates will be “sent” through this medium.
Once you are able to access the members only webpage you will be able to take advantage of the 20 (twenty) corporate partners offering discounts and benefits to all SAFE members. We all owe JoAnn Hill a hearty round of applause for her efforts on our behalf. At AirVenture we accepted the challenge to double our corporate partners within six months, and JoAnn has achieved this virtually single handedly. In addition, Julie Hubner and Michael Phillips have been hard at work preparing to launch a membership drive to meet the challenge of doubling our membership as well. With our new website going live, it won’t be long before we are able to launch our membership drive in earnest. I certainly hope that you will all be able and willing to participate in that effort!
I know that many of you are very concerned about when we will be able to offer CFI insurance. I will admit that I am still scraping egg off of my face relative to that topic, however in conversations with Ryan Birr over the past week, it looks as if we might very well have a plan in place within the next week to ten days. Because of interminable delays in working with Chubb Insurance, we have switched underwriters to Berkeley Aviation, with virtually the exact same policy coverages. The plan will still allow SAFE members to apply online, as well as obtain financing online. To view more details go to:https://www.safepilots.org/programs/safe-initiatives/cfi-liability-insurance/ .
In other SAFE initiatives, SAFE and Cessna have furthered their partnering in presenting the SAFE / CESSNA Safety Stand Down. Over the weekend of 9/19 – 20, SAFE Vice Chairman Mark Adams, SAFE MCFI Drew Chitea, and I attended the first Cessna Safety Stand Down, presented in Independence, KS. While there we were able to confirm the agreement between SAFE and Cessna in partnering to present this FIRC nationwide. In this agreement, SAFE Master Instructors will be able to present this FIRC in appropriate venues, with Cessna providing all of the handout materials, including aSAFE branded”memory stick” loaded with an amazing amount of information, as well as other goodies. Cessna will also assist in the promotion of the Stand Down, and will only seek reimbursement of their expenses. All other proceeds will go to SAFE and the presenters.If you are a Master Instructor and interested in participating in this endeavor please let me know.
For those of you who receive Flying Magazine’s “e-zine” sent out every Thursday, you may have seen that SAFE Master Instructors have been providing the “tip of the week” for the past several weeks. At this point it is still in an “experimental” mode, but early indications are that Flying Magazine is very happy with the results. If they decide to continue with this partnership (and every indication is that they will…) then SAFE will be providing them with many of their “tips”. If you would like to participate in this effort, first check out the following link:https://www.safepilots.org/programs/safe-initiatives/flying-enewsletter-pilot-tips/ to get more information and guidelines and to see sample ” tips”. Then if you have a tip you would like published, send it to me, and I will forward it on to Flying magazine.
I would hope that you are aware of the fact that the FAA has issued an NPRM on proposed changes to FAR parts 61, 91 and 141. The SAFE Board of Directors has been discussing these changes and has formed an adhoc committee headed by Directors Pat Knight and Donna Wilt to formulate an official SAFE response.If you would like to serve on this committee, or alternatively if you would just like to submit your comments to the committee, please contact Pat Knight at:PKnight@earthlink.net. For more information you can reference the NPRM at the following link:http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#docketDetail?R=FAA-2008-0938, where you can also submit your own personal comments, which I would strongly encourage you to do.
Don’t forget that coming up starting on November 21st, and continuing through November 27th, every member of SAFE will have the opportunity to vote on the revision to the by-laws, submitted to the membership for approval back on September 22nd. If you did not receive a copy of the proposed amended by-laws, please let me know, and I will get a copy of them to you for your review.
In news of upcoming events, SAFE will have a presence at the AOPA Summit being held in Tampa from November 5th – 7th. I have been invited to present a SAFE seminar, as well as represent SAFE in a meeting of the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee. I am also working on obtaining a space for SAFE members to have an informal gathering. With luck I will be able to work that out during the coming week. As soon as I can confirm a time and place I will send you all a notice. In the meantime I can confirm that we have secured our exhibit space at Sun N Fun. This coming year we will not be hidden behind a turboprop Bonanza, but instead will be located in space E-6, a prominent spot just east of Hangar A on a main thoroughfare to the flight line. As opposed to last year when we were hard to find, this year we will be hard to miss.
In closing this update I want to once again offer my apologies for the inexcusable lateness of this update. Hopefully with the opportunity to post all future updates on the website and disseminate them through the RSS feed it won’t happen again. Ihope you can all understand, and I hope that you all can say that you have had as busy a season as I have had.As the clouds in the North East become ice laden once again, I will have more time on the ground to tend to my SAFE duties. I am looking forward to having more time to devote my energy to the advancement of SAFE.
Have aSAFE day!
Doug
