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Hondo, Texas
June 19th, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
After a Successful 2005
Event, EAA Southwest Regional Fly-In Reorganizes for
Growth
President Stan Shannon
today announced that the Board of Directors of the
Southwest Regional Fly-In - The Texas Fly-In - had
voted unanimously to reorganize itself.
"Now that we have
successfully relocated to an airport which is nearly
ideal for a major regional fly-in," Shannon said,
"it's time to adjust our organization's officers and
staff to promote growth."
SWRFI will now have a Chairman of the Board as well
as a President, and two Executive Vice-Presidents.
Current President Shannon hopes to develop another
officer to take over the duties of President,
allowing himself to become only Chairman of the
Board.
Harry Cook of Kerrville,
Texas is now Executive V-P in charge of all Air
Operations at The Texas Fly-In, and Norris Warner of
Pipe Creek, Texas, will take charge of all Ground
Operations as the other Executive V-P.
Six other
Vice-Presidents as well as a Secretary of the Board
were elected Executive Officers of the Fly-In.
Ten other members of the
SWRFI Board are Directors who are not officers but
carry out important functions at the annual Fly-In.
All of the SWRFI Board
must be current EAA members.
This Board reorganization is not the first such in
SWRFI, but the fourth. Like preceding ones, it has
come about as the result of growth and change.
The Southwest Regional Fly-In began in 1963 at
Georgetown, Texas, spearheaded by the late Tony
Bingelis, home-builder of personal airplanes and
prolific author of books on the subject. The
organization comprised only a handful of EAA
Chapters and every meeting had 30 or 40 attendees,
with the result that little got done beyond the
barest essentials of scheduling a get-together.
It was noteworthy progress when in 1965 the first
actual fly-in program took shape.
In 1975 the SWRFI moved to Schreiner Field (ERV) at
Kerrville, Texas, and began to thrive - and
reorganize. More EAA Chapters got involved, and
each chapter sent two directors to meetings of the
fly-in Board. There was no required
attendance; different people from the same Chapter
would show up at successive meetings. Such
haphazard continuity meant that meetings were
chaotic, drawn-out affairs dreaded by many and
shunned by some. It was Management By Large Group,
and leadership turnover was high.
Nevertheless, more and more Southwestern custom
airplane builders flew to Kerrville for the event.
Overflow attendance at the SWRFI made for problems.
Not least of these was the growth of Mooney
Aircraft, whose production plant was expanding and
taking more open land for its facilities. Despite
the many attractions of the pretty little city of
Kerrville, its airport was really not big enough.
Some leaders at the time wanted to keep the SWRFI
small. Many other members saw that the fly-in had
outgrown Schreiner Field; the leadership eventually
voted in 1998 to move the fly-in to Abilene.
The following year SWRFI restructured itself with
Director from each Chapter, and attendance
required. This made the SWRFI Board smaller and
more efficient, but attendance at Board meetings
remained unreliable and continuity continued to
suffer. This led to the formation of an Executive
Committee, including three Directors-at-Large, who
did the actual work of running the fly-in.
SWRFI held forth in Abilene five years, in the face
of poor weather and worsening attendance. The Board
arranged for a professional survey which revealed
that the membership longed for nothing more than a
return to the Hill Country near the center of the
state. Kerrville was still too small, and other
airfields declined the honor.
The response: in 2003 SWRFI moved to that part
of Texas where the Hill Country begins - New
Braunfels (BAZ) - and the next year reorganized
again into a self-perpetuating Board - Board members
elect other Board members - whose structure tracks
that of most U.S. business corporations.
In only the second year at New Braunfels, a cold
front and heavy rains on the eve of the fly-in
revealed that while BAZ was about the right size and
in a good location it lacked comprehensive drainage,
sufficient ramp space and adequate capacity for
handling a high
volume of airplane traffic, particularly on the
ground.
A new search for a suitable fly-in venue brought the
SWRFI to Hondo, Texas (HDO) on the southwestern edge
of the Hill Country. The airfield at Hondo was once
a major U.S. Air Force training base and has been
well maintained over the years since. Its four
major
runways and vast ramp space provide precisely the
facilities required for a large gathering of
home-constructed airplanes and their builders and
admirers. No airfield is perfect, but HDO comes
very close; the 2005 Fly-In was a great success.
Indeed, the only thing left for The Texas Fly-In to
do now is grow. With non-profit institutions, just
as with profit-making ones, especially those linked
to technological innovations, the rule is grow or
die.
It follows that the EAA Southwest Regional Fly-In
must again reorganize its Board of Directors, and
this has been accomplished.
Now the hard work begins to prepare for the next
event beginning May 12th, 2006, at Hondo, Texas.
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Contact: E. D. Yoes, Jr.
Secretary, SWRFI
eyoes@stic.net |
