Canadian Women in Aviation

It was nice to see a number of new faces as well as our regular members, thanks to all for attending! Thanks also to Lisa for giving us a tour of the hangar and to the members that provided sugary (and healthy) goodies.

Minutes for the September monthly meeting are now posted.

Our speaker was unexpectedly called away and it is unlikely that she will be available to speak at our meeting this Wednesday. We will try to re-schedule for another time.

Stephanie Zalatnik has confirmed that she will be available to talk to our group about her 6 month stint working in the Antarctic with the British Antarctic Survey team. So make sure to attend our next meeting on September 16th to hear what it's like to work on the other end of the world! (Meetings are open to the general public, no fees or sign-up required).

Our member Brenda C. will be giving a brief talk at the end of the August 19th Meeting regarding what people are looking for in a scholarship application. Brenda was recently involved in the Millennium Fund scholarship review of which she is a past award winner, and is willing to pass on a little of her insight. This is in preparation for an upcoming get-together to discuss this year WAI International's scholarships for those interested in applying.

The date has been set for our next Social Event outing to the Nanton Air Museum on August 22. We will be carpooling down, just contact Deborah Kominko (or info@cwiacalgary.ca) to let us know you are interested in joining us. Anyone (members or non-members) are welcome, exact times and costs to follow.

Everyone worked hard to get presentation boards, flyers, business cards, and even candy airplanes ready to go for both of the events. The events were well attended and a number of flyers, etc. were handed out; it was an excellent opportunity for us to get our name out there and meet some of the other groups involved in our local aviation community. Special thanks go to Bill Bulek who did a phenomenal job with our chapter presentation board! (Check out the pictures section)

We felt that there must be community newsletters and flyers that are willing to add the information about our meetings for free (or very cheap) and a few people have stepped forward to look into this.

If you have come across any sort of newsletter like this, please either forward the information to one of the members or just go ahead and put in an advert that denotes our name, location, and when the meetings are held.

Advertising and other areas that we can use to help increase our membership will be a focus for the coming year and all suggestions are welcome!

A number of members that have previously applied to the WAI International for Scholarship have suggested that we hold a review session when the 2010 Scholarship are announced in Sept/Oct 2009. This would include meeting at someone's house (Deborah tentatively offered hers, as did a few others) and those that have gone through the process would help those of us who have not, with understanding how to apply, how to approach people for letters of recommendation, etc. This type of review session has been done in the past and it is felt that it is well worth resurrecting!

As many of you know, we have committed to having a booth at both the Airdrie Airshow (July 22) and the COPA Convention 2009 (July 17-19) and we are looking for help staffing the events.

Dates, times and contact info is below, and there is more information on the attached minutes.

Airdrie Airshow - July 22, 12:00-21:00 at the Airdrie Airport.