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A small tribute from the members to Terry to mark his time as our Chairman.
Here’s what he said in an edition of Sloping Off after 10 years with us:
After 20 years as Chairman of Thames Valley Silent Flyers (TVSF) I handed over the reins. This was January 2003. We moved to Barton in May 2003 and I made enquiries about a local model flying club. By August that year I was flying models at Barton Cliffs, Stanpit & Fawcett’s Field. On 29 occasions I’ve run model slope soaring holidays to South Devon and attended too many in North Wales with TVSF.
Terry joined the Club about 18 years ago at least, when we were still meeting at the Stanpit Village Hall, and took over as Chairman shortly afterwards. Meetings soon moved to a pub in New Milton and a couple of years later to the Walkford. His powers of persuasion were very evident, as we enjoyed free access to the gloomy bowling alley, cut price sausage and chips at the winter meetings and very welcome access to the bar. Highlights of the Walkford included the Club auctions where he ran proceedings, the regular talks by both Club members and guests (it was easy to entertain the latter to a meal in the pub) and the introduction of a semi-formal agenda talk (and ramble!) by Terry to keep us up to date with the world. He introduced regular technique sessions which involved the Club’s experts teaching the rest of us everything from covering techniques to the mysteries of soldering, aerodynamics and electronics.
At that time we were pretty well limited to flying at Stanpit until one amazing day he announced that we had secured flying access to Strawberry Field. It wasn’t his discovery, but he and Malcolm Bird master-minded the eventual acceptance by the local council of our plans to use it as a permanent flying base. Everyone who drives to the site, unlocks the gate, parks, signs in and flies has Terry and his Committee to thank for this privilege. He has been the site owner’s contact ever since, smoothing over disputes with the land-owner to the left, liaising over dates and times, constantly keeping us up to date with the various issues at the field.
Indoor flying has had various meeting places since his arrival: the Two Rivers Meet main hall was the best, but very expensive and now fully booked. Bournemouth Uni was another venue but eventually he secured an agreement with Durlston Court School to use their gym, which has been running now for the past ten years or so.
When the Walkford was taken over by new owners we had to find a new venue. It was Terry who looked around for a new meeting place and settled on Bransgore Village Hall. After a start in one of the rather small meeting rooms we finally secured the main hall (complete with our own sound system) for what has become our most successful meeting place and an ideal venue for “show and tell”, the Bits Box, regular talks and best of all, things like the chuckie competition to bring us all together.
On the flying side, his interest in both power and gliders brought regular contact with WSA and Chalbury for thermal soaring, the use of Stanpit for the Friday evening series and various fun-fly events at Strawberry Field.
There is much more, which I’m sure Terry will be able to tell us at some length in his own time. But from the Club, Terry, very many thanks for your time as Chairman.
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