Cheers
Mark

You'd think I could do better things on my day off 
Thought I'd start a random series to see who actually visits the Noble forum 
No prizes, just the indisputable honour of being first to get it right
Easy one to start.....aircraft and location??

Cheers
Mark

Congratulations Tony - Your promotion to Master ATP Captain has been approved by the Board. Your promotion certificate is in the mail.

In the Board Meeting held yesterday, our time the following was resolved.

Minutes of a Board Meeting of Noble Air Virtual Airline
12/13th January 2013

Board Members Present:-

Roger Eve ? Chairman & HC London
Bryan Opalka - HC for Chicago ( also representing the Boston Hub)
Tom Stuchbury ? HC Manchester
Holger Treis ? AHC Frankfurt
Norbert Finger ? HC Sydney
Ed Watson ? AHC Sydney & Webmaster
Tony Forrest - HC Christchurch
John Barron ? AHC London & Personnel Director

Apologies

All members of the BOD were present


Minutes of Last Meeting

The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.


Matters arising

There were no matters arising other than those on the agenda.


Structure of the Board of Directors

There was some discussion as to how each Hub should be represented.
It was proposed that although many HCs would wish to be the representative it was not binding. A hub would be able to select a BOD representative who would have the full support of their hub and voting powers. This flexible approach would allow the right person to be selected for the job. This proposal received a unanimous vote.

There would only be one vote from each Hub.

RE proposed that as chairman he would step down as London HC, and would not be his hub's representative, and would not vote on proposals, other than giving a casting vote in the event of equality in a vote. This proposal was also accepted unanimously.

Bob Mumford has agreed to take over the role of HC of the London Hub, but would prefer to wait until the new website/forum was up and running. The BOD gave its consent to this appointment.

It was clear that in the future it would be appropriate to have pilots join the BOD who had special skills or roles within the VA, e.g. the webmaster and personnel director. These members would NOT vote on proposals unless they were the sole representative of their hub at that meeting. This was agreed unanimously.

Members agreed to think about specialised roles that might be helpful for the VA as a whole before the next meeting.


Update on the San Francisco, Dallas Fort Worth and Boston Hubs

KSFO:- RE reported that he had contacted John Resch from SFO who had been updating their roster. He stated that only one pilot, Milt Honeywell, has been sending in flight reports in the last few months. He also stated that he too had not been flying and felt he should resign from the Hub. RE had emailed Milt more than a week ago but so far had not received a reply. This would put KSFO at great risk of closure. The feeling of the BOD, as KSFO was the original hub for the VA , it should not be closed.

KDFW:- Joe Frisch had originally promised to contact RE after Christmas with a possible replacement HC and a list of the present pilots with their email addresses. He had now emailed RE and stated he would not be able to do this until the end of January. It was agreed to give him that leeway, but that would be all. In the meantime RE had contacted David Franklin and Charlie Harris and offered to show them the PIREP system. It was hoped that David might be prepared to take the HC role.

KBOS:- Bryan Opalka (BO) had made contact with a pilot at Boston, and it was hoped that he would take on the role as HC.


Update on the New Website/Forum (inc. transfer of the nobleair.com domain)

Ed Watson (EW) informed the meeting that he had been considering either starting from scratch or modifying the current model website on the nobleair.net domain. He felt it was sensible to continue developing the website he had already produced, the meeting agreed.  The forum would be integrated and each hub would have its own ?page? for hub specific information etc. There were various discussions on aspects of the new website including the logon arrangements and the need for a guest area for potential pilots to see the forum activity and to even post questions.

EW agreed to have an operational website and forum for the BOD to view at the next meeting.

As there had been no progress on transferring the nobleair.com domain, RE agreed to contact Joe Fritsch and get this underway. Hopefully Joe would liase directly with EW.


Communicating with our Pilots

There was a consensus that the minutes of the BOD should be made available for all pilots to read. Only items that required privacy for individuals would be withheld. Initially it would be the responsibility of the HCs to publish these minutes, but once the new website was fully developed there would be an area for the minutes to be displayed.

The messaging system on the PIREP remains a very useful format for passing information. HCs may continue to email their pilots as and when necessary.




Any Other Business

Holger Treis (HT) brought up the question of callsigns. The NBL and NA prefixes caused some confusion. No one at the meeting understood how these two options had come about. The VATSIM registration uses the NBL call sign and as there were no strong feelings against this prefix it was agreed that all pilots would now use the NBL prefix. EW would look into what was necessary to make the changes without upsetting the PIREP. Individual pilots would need to change there logon details for TeamSpeak.

HT also reported some problems with using the autoPIREP and also was unsure of the various ways in which flights could be selected. EW helped HT with the database on his PC after the meeting. RE agreed to ?meet? with HT on TS to go through the flight selection processes etc.

There was some discussion about the NA logo that was used on the VATSIM pages. BO agreed to look out a couple of suitable logos and circulate them for a decision on what should be used.

As he had been asked to do so by two of the London pilots RE brought up the possibility of changing the NA livery for the anticipated future repaints. There was considerable discussion around the repainting of FS and third party aircraft. The meeting concluded that the current livery was very good especially in the new HD formats and would not be changed. There was discussion on the colour of the NA lion (red/yellow) but no decision was made. It was agreed that the country flag on the rear fuselage would be replaced with a Noble Air flag.


Date of Next Meeting

There being no further business the next meeting was set for 9th February 2013 at 2100 GMT/Zulu, and the meeting was closed.

The subject for this meeting would be predominantly the new website/forum.

But Hey, didn't we have some fun though. Great VFR flying using VOZ scenery. As Mark said, very pretty island. It was a first for me as I have only ever flown in and out of Hobart and Launceston in A320/B738.

Regards,
Gary.