Saturday 27th February

Today at North Hill was mostly for the brave. 
 An actual temperature somewhere between 0 and 5 degrees throughout the day, but together with a strong north easterly wind, meant the onesies were out in force.  Good organisation meant a first launch around 10:00am.  
CFI Martin got straight on with giving James F a hard time for his  BI acceptance checks.  A simulated launch failure, followed by an aerotow and then more launch failures.  
Welcome to the DSGC Instructor team - James (Martin W)
 Meanwhile there were a few card checks on the short list, the product of the lack of flying this winter no doubt, plus a smattering of training flights.  The instructor/student ratio was excellent, presumably also linked to the lack of flying.  

A short brighter period prior to a long lunch gave Martin W and James S the chance to find an actual functioning thermal taking them to 2000ft.  This warmed everyone up slightly, but after lunch the wind had stepped up a notch.  There was some lift to the north east of the airfield, but it was patchy and difficult to stay in (for amateurs anyway)!  One wrong move and suddenly 4 down seemed to be everywhere.  Further card checks and some 'currency' flights followed by the obligatory hangar landings.

Many thanks to the instructors that hung around in the bitter conditions all day and those members that spent 3 hours in the winch ;)

A good day to gain some blue card experience. - Tim P

Meanwhile Chairman Lisa  was representing the Club at the BGA Conference in Nottingham picking up some useful gems and admiring the fancy kit for sale.

Steve addresses the Haggis (Graham)
In the evening, DSGC are claiming the latest Burns night supper of 2016, with a magnificent haggis being piped into the Clubhouse. There was great catering from Cheryl & Graham, brilliant speeches, corny jokes, lots of toasts, plenty of singing and thanks to Chris C for running the show. - J&P