Following my request for the club to consider funding some kind of slipway or location hire for an event in the South West ( there is plenty of money in our funds according to the accounts so it could be something we do for other areas too ) I have been in touch with the Helicopter Museum in Weston super Mare. They are based at one of the old Westland sites and the SRN craft were Westland designs. They seem really keen to host a meeting.
This is only in the very early stages but I have had a very brief discussion about holding a weekend event at the Museum, likely next year, with a hover-in on one day where we can static display or take part in a low speed gymkhana ‘round the cones’ type activity and a Bristol Channel or River Avon based cruise on the other. There is an adjacent campsite and they have an small grass air strip that we could use for the hover-in activity.
The Hover-in would be to draw people to the Museum ( a charity ) and be a social for us with a BBQ for members (even if they come without a craft), and we could do the cruise as a charity event to raise money for BARB hovercraft rescue at Burnham.
My initial thought is to ask HCUK, S.W. Hover Group, HCGB, BARB, the Fire Service and other local marine services, Air Training Cadets and Sea Cadets to join in, plus Weston Beach Rangers, Coastguard & RNLI. This would hopefully breath a bit of life back into local hovercraft activity, make operators aware of the pitfalls and benefits of our area, promote Westland hovercraft at the Helicopter Museum, raise money for the Museum and BARB and give us all an interesting weekend.
This may be wildly over ambitious, but if it is possible would any of our members be interested in attending and/or assisting in running it? Do you have any other ideas we could incorporate or use instead?
We would need it to be adopted by one or all of the main clubs to cover the organiser’s insurance and give some street cred....and weather dependent- always a risk with an outdoor event.
Can I have comments and expressions of interest please as there is no point in doing the initial fact finding unless there is support. Obviously this isn’t a request to commit, but if we know there is a good amount of interest I can see if it is actually possible .... or just a pipe dream.
Any thoughts or interest in the comments please ! :-)