On December 9, our annual Christmas Dinner and Awards took place at the Woodstock. Despite a few technology failures that prevented the slide show and video from being played, a very enjoyable evening was capped off by off all things, a trivia contest. Surprisingly, it had nothing to do with airplanes :-) When the scores were tallied, a three way tie resulted so winners were drawn from a hat and received beautiful hand made glass ornaments donated by Lorraine Jarvis.
Two awards were given out. The first was the TOLR award (Take Off to Landing Ratio) which went to Jack Graham. Jack had several take offs that didn't result in a landing but well aware of the award, he tried to hide the evidence by crashinig (er...landing) the planes deep in the woods...never to be seen again. However, there are spies everywhere and the word got out.
The Member of the Year award was presented this year to Mel Crewe. As you all know, Mel has been an active member for several years and has taken on the informal role of chief photographer, a role he enjoys and fills quite well. This past year, he added chief cook to his list of responsibilities, taking care of all aspects of our funfly barbeques from acquiring the food and drinks to cooking the burgers and hotdogs (whenever Chris didn't have his trusty Coleman at hand). Never stuck for a story (he has thousands - just ask Stephen), Mel always manages to find a joke or tale to tell any time there's a crowd (that means more than 2). Congratulations Mel.