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National Sport Launch 2010
The NAR's National Sport Launch (NSL) is our premier annual sport and high-power rocket launch event. NSL 2010 is being held near Alamogordo, NM with flying activities during
May 29-31 and tours and other special events May 27 through June 1. Host sections are FLARE and SMRA, and the event director is Jim Basler The NSL 2010 website just opened and it describes the amazing assortment of tours of space facilities and the fun flying events that this team has organized for New Mexico's first NAR national event. |
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Pink Book 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 to Jim Filler by March 15. All members will get a mail ballot in May to vote on the proposals. This will be in a paper "Model Rocketeer" that also includes Trustee election and Bylaws revision ballots. |
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Section Safety Grant Program
The NAR Board has approved a second year of our program of cash grants of up to $250 to NAR sections for the purpose of purchasing equipment needed to enhance range safety at their flying fields. The document describing this program is still posted on the NAR website; all the due dates and provisions are the same as last year.
Applications from sections for equipment grants under this new program will not be accepted by NAR Safety Committee Chairman Andy Eng until May 1, so until then meet within your section to develop the shopping list of the stuff you need to make your flying range safer. See the program description for the items that we suggest.
Sections that received a grant last year may not reapply this year. |
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New Motor Certifications
NAR Standards and Testing Committee has announced the following new motor certifications, effective December 14, 2009:
Quest D5-4,6
20mm x 96mm
17.61 N-sec
24.0 gm propellant
Quest D8-0,3,5
24mm x 70mm
18.59 N-sec
22.0 gm propellant | |
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Message from the NAR President
Greetings!
Our "52 by 52" membership drive is well underway! As of today we have 4543 NAR members -- that means we have 657 to grow by July 31 in order to meet our goal of 5200 -- the biggest we have ever been. This will take a combination of good renewal rates by existing members who value the services we provide, and recruitment of new members who see value in joining. Please help your NAR grow by sticking with us at renewal time, and by recruiting the people that you fly with who are not members. Thanks to the generosity of Aerotech, Quest, and Semroc we are able to offer $30 in free rocket products shipped directly to new members within about 6 weeks of their joining: 2 rocket kits and a hat. And we offer a $5 cash "bounty" to any NAR member who recruits a new member, if the new member provides that person's name on their application. These will be paid at the end of the drive. It takes all of us to make the NAR bigger and better - please help us grow.
The safety codes that govern our hobby and that public safety (fire and police) officials look to for guidance on what is safe in rocketry are produced through and by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Every four years, our codes for flying rockets and for the safety and certification of rocket motors are revised through a long, formal, public process run by NFPA. The first code to be revised is NFPA 1125, which provides rocket motor safety and certification standards. The first step in its 18-month revision cycle was taken earlier this month in an NFPA meeting in Salt Lake City. I have posted on the NAR website a detailed report on what happened at this meeting that matters to you as a rocket flier. Revisions to NFPA 1125 that come out of this process will not take effect until July 2011. The flying-safety NFPA codes, 1122 for model rockets and 1127 for high-power rockets, will be up for revision next year, to take effect in 2012. Your NAR has been a leader in the development of these codes since they were first established, seeking to expand the envelope of what is permitted in our hobby as fast as the technical evidence and safety analysis that NFPA demands in substantiation of changes will permit.
The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) for 2010 is well underway, with 669 teams of 7th through 12th grade students registered from 45 states, an increase from last year. For more details on this tremendously successful NAR outreach program, see the TARC page on our website and the TARC competition's own website. If you would like to be a "mentor" (technical advisor) to a student team, please contact me so we can add your name to our list of available volunteers. If your section is contacted by a student team looking for a place to test-fly, please welcome them to one of your launches and help them out. And please list your scheduled launches on the NAR's online launch calendar to help them figure out where and when to go. These young rocketeers are the future of the NAR and of the US aerospace industry, and your support is building this future.
Be safe, have fun, and pay forward.
Trip Barber
NAR 4322
NAR President |
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Section Charter Renewal Process
The NAR's annual process for section charter renewal and for renewal of any NAR insurance certificates held by each section is underway; renewal packets will be mailed from NAR HQ the week of February 8. This packet includes a form that you need to edit (if anything is incorrect) and send in to NAR HQ immediately with your renewal payment of $25. There is no longer any fee for site owner insurance certificates.
The sections who have their renewals in to NAR HQ by March 6 will definitely have new insurance certificates in hand before the date that the current ones expire, which is April 4, 2010. If your section renewal is in NAR HQ after this, but by March 31 you will have your insurance certificates by mid-April.
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 total number of NAR members as of February 1, 2010 has grown compared to the total number you had as of section renewal time in 2009. The number you have this year is based on how many people our NAR HQ records say belong to your section. Any edits or adds that you make at renewal time will be reflected in next year's bonus program |
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Board of Trustees Election
In accordance with our By-laws, the NAR conducts an election to fill three of the nine positions on the Board of Trustees each year. Balloting for this election will be started by mail this summer and will close at the NAR Annual Association Meeting to be held at NARAM-52, Monday, August 2, 2010.
If you wish to run for the Board, or know someone you feel is qualified and will accept, the NAR is soliciting nominations. If you nominate someone other than yourself, you must include a letter from the nominee indicating his or her acceptance.
Nominees themselves should provide a resume/statement no longer than 400 words to be published with the ballot material in a paper "Model Rocketeer" in May. Be sure to include name, address, and NAR # with this. This material will be distributed in paper form to all members with their ballots. By NAR policy, the NAR will not publish any other campaign-related material, either paid or unpaid.
All nomination material (letters and resumes) must be received by the NAR Secretary no later than Thursday, April 1, 2010 . Send this material to:
George Rachor
NAR Secretary
33380 NW Bagley Road
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Nominations and resumes may be transmitted electronically with "NAR Nominations" in the subject line to the following mail address: george@rachors.com | |
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National Association of Rocketry
