SLOPING OFF...
...the Newsletter of Christchurch and District Model Flying Club for September 2022
My involvement with the BMFA, by David Shipton
About five years ago I attended the National Centre at Buckminster to see for myself what the facilities were like. I liked what I saw and although the site was still under development it was a nice place to fly, and full of potential. Having a conversation with Manny (The Centre manager ) it became apparent that they were still looking for volunteers to help with maintaining and developing the site, so always up for a challenge I signed up for a Thursday volunteering session and found the company of the group most pleasurable and the work very satisfying. So much so that I am now a regular volunteer and contribute most weeks, coming from an engineering background I regularly get involved in the maintenance and repair of the vehicles and equipment, other tasks involve copious amounts of woodwork and general building work so there is always plenty to do. Currently I am leading a project to setup a workshop in the large barn for use by the volunteer group, a much needed space to house the tools and equipment that we have been kindly donated by the members of the BMFA. Over the last year we have been involved with the centenary project making pulley systems to hoist the models into the roof space, this was a great time to review my welding ability using kit that was donated from a member in Wales, it also involved a bit of work at home making components on the lathe in my workshop. The first pair of pulley blocks were tested out using my 14kg 1/3 scale Sopwith Camel, all went well and it has stayed in place as part of the exhibition. The other blocks were used to lift tubular frames which held the smaller models. A rather unusual task was gluing carpet on the walls to hold the timeline legends and photos, a tricky task as we had lots of pipes to negotiate whilst holding up 10 metres of carpet and spraying contact adhesive in mid air, also trying not to cover my helper Gillian in glue.