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Section Growth Bonus Program
The NAR Board approved a new program for 2009 to reward NAR sections that have increased the number of their members who belong to the NAR. After your section renews its section charter this year you will be sent a "bonus check" for $5 times the amount by which your section's number of NAR members as of January 23, 2009 has grown compared to the total number you had as of section renewal time in 2008.
This number is based on how many people our NAR HQ records say belong to your section. Have your members check their NAR cards to see if they show your section number on them. If they do not, have the member notify NAR HQ (preferably by e-mail using the new feature below) that they belong to your section so you can get credit for them. |
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Update Your NAR Contact Information Online
We have added a new feature to the NAR website -- a way for NAR members to let us know that their personal contact information (address, phone, e-mail, section affiliation) has changed. You can get to this form from the "Contact Us" button on the top of the main NAR web page, or use: www.nar.org/memberupdate.html
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NAR Convention & National Sport Launch
NARCON 2009 will be held March 20-22 in Wethersfield, CT (near Hartford), the first NAR national event in New England in over a decade. It will feature an emphasis on rocketry in the community and rocketry as an educational tool. The event website and registration will open the week of January 12 at www.narcon2009.org NSL will be held Memorial Day weekend (May 23-25) at Bong Recreation Area west of Racine, WI. It is hosted by WOOSH, the NAR section that ran the outstanding NARCONs of 2004 through 2006. Go to the NSL website for details and to register. |
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Call for NAR Board Agenda Items
The NAR Board of Trustees will be holding its semi-annual meeting at NARCON on March 20, 2009. NAR members who wish to propose agenda items for the Board's consideration at this meeting should send them to the NAR President by March 1. |
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NAR Teacher Grants
The NAR values teachers who use rocketry to promote interest in aerospace careers and in our educational hobby. Each year we hold a benefit auction at NARAM to raise money for the "Robert L. Cannon Fund" to provide grants of $500 to help these teachers. These grants honor the late Bob Cannon of Estes, who was responsible for so much of the hobby's early acceptance in classrooms.
Teachers in grades 12 and below who want these grants must apply by May 1 each year. The grant application is posted on the NAR website. Teachers do not have to be NAR members to qualify, so if you know one who is doing great things with rocketry in their class, please let them know about this NAR program. |
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Pink Book Rules Revision Process
The annual process for considering proposed changes to the U.S. Model Rocket Sporting Code (the "Pink Book") is now underway. Details are posted on the NAR website. Comments on this year's proposals are due by February 15. All members will get a mail ballot in May to vote on the proposals. | |
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Message from the NAR President
Greetings!
Your NAR needs volunteers. Every position in the NAR, except for one part-time person running our headquarters membership processing, is filled by an unpaid volunteer. It is only through the voluntary efforts of these dedicated members that the NAR is able to deliver its service programs. We do not have enough volunteers to do all the things that we want to do, and that you our members would like us to do. We will only become a better NAR if we get more of us involved in helping to develop and deliver services to other members at the national level -- and also through active NAR sections.
I have discussed with each of the NAR's national committee chairmen and key non-committee volunteers what assistance they think that they need. From this I have produced a "shopping list" of opportunities for new volunteers and posted it on the NAR website. Please look at this list and see if there is something there that the NAR needs done that matches your skills and interests. If you see something that you would like to volunteer to do, follow the instructions in the document and contact the appropriate person -- which is either the current committee chairman or incumbent in the position, or myself for positions that are currently vacant.
If you do not see a specific task listed that interests you but there is something that you would like to assist with, then write to that committee chairman and suggest what kinds of things you would like to do. If your interests are in a direction that is contrary to NAR policy you may get a polite refusal; but other than that I have asked the chairmen to do all they can to help new volunteers find opportunities to improve our NAR.
With your help as a volunteer, nationally or with your local section, we can all do something to make your NAR better. Please consider being a NAR volunteer, we need you.
Be safe, have fun, and pay forward.
Trip Barber, NAR 4322
NAR President
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7 Habits of Highly Effective NAR Sections
Here are seven key characteristics that the NAR Section Activities Committee has observed typically make a NAR section successful. Take a look at the list and reflect with your section about where you stand on each.
1. Launch Site - Rocketry is pretty dull without a place to launch; securing and maintaining a launch site is the most critical factor in NAR section success.
2. Leadership - Each NAR Section needs good leaders to organize and manage its activities. There are many styles of leadership; how can you make yours effective within the personalities of your section?
3. Enthusiastic Members - Successful NAR Sections are a group of members who bring enthusiasm to meetings, launches, and other section activities.
4. Realistic Goals - NAR Sections that match their capabilities with realistic goals tend to have happy members; goals change, so discuss them within your section regularly.
5. Critical Mass - There is a minimum number of section members required to achieve most goals; sections that match member-power with their goals succeed.
6. Adequate Funding - Make sure that your NAR Section has the funding to match the activities you have planned.
7. Communication - Your section members need to know what is going on to remain involved; successful sections have good forms of communication with their members -- websites, regular meetings, newsletters.
There is one final, over-arching attribute that deserves mention here - Keeping it Fun. Remember, this is a hobby and not work. While there are things we have to do that require work to achieve our section goals, if the effort becomes too much of a burden, then our enthusiasm wanes and our interest fades from rocketry to other forms of recreation. | |
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Reporting Malfunctioning Rocket Motors
Commercially-made sport rocket motors are designed to be safe and reliable. Before they can be sold they have to pass rigorous performance and reliability testing specified by the National Fire Protection Association and conducted by the NAR Standards & Testing Committee. When one of these motors fails, the NAR needs to know about it so that if it happens repeatedly we can ensure that the manufacturer is doing something about the problem.
If you have a model or commercial high power rocket motor operate abnormally at a launch, please report it through the NAR's "Malfunctioning Engine Statistical Survey", using the online form on the NAR website. |
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Sport Services Committee Chairmanship
The NAR Sport Services Committee is responsible for development and management of our high-power programs, including certification. The Level 3 Certification Committee (L3CC) supports them by managing the L3 certification process. With almost two-thirds of our Senior members certified as HPR fliers, the Sport Services Committee plays a very important role in the NAR. Carl Tulanko, who has served with skill and dedication as this Committee's
Chairman since 2003, has recently resigned and Art Upton has volunteered to serve as the new Chairman. Art's contact information is on the NAR website. Please thank both Carl and Art the next time you see them for their dedication and service to the NAR in this important volunteer position. | |
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Range Safety: Safety Stand-Down
Professional aerospace organizations historically have operated with a strong culture of safety consciousness. Because safety incidents in aerospace usually have catastrophic outcomes, people who fly have a strong and direct interest in ensuring that such incidents do not happen. Our aerospace hobby is no different. The NAR has a well-deserved reputation for being a proponent and expert on hobby rocket safety. We expect our members to fly their rockets safely every time, and to help show others how to do the same.
One of the techniques commonly used in flying organizations (particularly in the military) for refreshing their focus on safety is called the "safety stand-down". This is a period of time when flying is stopped and all those who are involved in flying gather together to honestly critique their safety practices and refresh their commitment to flight safety. As winter settles in and many of us find our flying opportunities reduced, consider doing a safety stand-down in your section or flying group. Take an hour as a group to review the Safety Code and the safety lessons learned from your past year of flying on what can go wrong on the field. Then agree on what to do differently in the future to avoid having those incidents happen again. The NAR has a " range safety tutorial" briefing posted online to assist your local training efforts. This briefing is a summary of the comprehensive analysis of sport rocket range safety done by a NAR team led by former astronaut and NAR Trustee Dr. Jay Apt in 2005 and posted on our website. | |
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