The old cliche...

Fail to plan...plan to fail. Yes it's Strategic Plan time again. I know some people struggle to understand the value of a strategic plan and instead focus on the "today" and an annual plan but as a club we need a broad outline of what we want and/or can achieve over the next 3-5 years. Things like changing the accounting software or deciding not to do much with the tow fleet, while important decisions on the day, are not strategic in nature. Having read the excellent document put together by Paul I have a few suggestions to start the process. Small things first...why do we roster on two instructors each day? The current arguement seems to be "we can not be assured that either will turn up, so roster two to reduce the risk that no-one turns up...". Hardly very positive, especially given that many instructors have a busy work load as it is and probably don't want to be rostered on every 3-4 weeks. And if two instructors do indeed turn up they end up being underwhelmed with the workload...especially from April to October. Lets try one instructor over the winter months but strenghten up the mentor scheme so that newbies have the option of plenty of instruction. Larger things...we need to constantly consider upgrading our fleet. The Janus is very old, GEO is now quite old and we have two under-utelised PW5's. As a target I would suggest we upgrade the Janus to a Duo-Discus, look to change a PW5 to a higher peformance single seater (club-class or similiar...LS4, Discus, ASW20 etc), and we should consider the long term replacement of the trainers GEO, GPZ. Tow-planes...it's time to review the tow fleet. I recognise that the Cub and Pawnee are adequate on most days but using 04 on light wind days is not comfortable for either the tow pilot or those people on the ground around the parachute hanger or Bunnings. This is primarily as a result of the Airport Board allowing Bunnings to be built (thankfully we haven't got other hangers to deal with...) but we do need to think this through. What type of towplane do we want?? Not fabric, water cooled engine if possible, more Horsepower (or at least a better climb rate), and maybe not Avgas powered. About 5 years ago I asked a team of three to go out and consider whats available, it is probably time to do this again... Membership...the really really large issue. Firstly, I need to twist the arm of my partner in crime and get the Youth glide program up and running. Realistically that will happen after the summer contest season... But we also need to target other groups as well... We need a Marketing Plan...or at the very least an agreed program to get people through the door...and keep them in the room. Night classes, Scholarships, Youth Glide, advertising, Press releases etc all form part of a marketing plan. Those are my thoughts...if anybody reads this far...