The park is open to the public. One or more group can't have exclusive access to areas of the park. A lawyer would've been able to argue that for the club and threaten a lawsuit if necessary. It would've been best of course if there was a lawyer in the club or a good friend of a club member for cost purposes.

I'm afraid it's too late for any of that now. The dog/horse/hunter people won that battle with better representation.

The club hierarchy thought it best to be nice to try to get our way at these meetings. We don't live in a nice world. Now we got the shaft.

Scott

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Scott D. Hansen
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WOOSH NAR Section #558

I like to jest, but obviously this is a fairly sore topic. I don't have the history of club membership that you all do; thus, my opinion on the matter is little more than a hunch. That said, trying the "nice" route is not always the worst way to go, and oftentimes the best. Approaching the matter with a show of legal power and implicit (or explicit) threats of lawsuits may well have backfired. After all, once you poison the waters, those you affronted will always be looking for ways to defeat you...and eventually find a "legal" way to do it. Though approaching this respectfully did not change the present result, approaching it in a threatening posture might have ended worse. Just my thoughts.

As both Mark and Chad stated, we will have to make the best of it. Perhaps Mark has a bit more details he can share. Looking at the runway East of access road F with Google Earth... Perhaps hip waders would be a wise investment.

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- Scott, NAR 91621
Woosh #558

There has been talk of a boat.

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www.wooshrocketry.org NAR Sec. 558
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unstable by design

-"Nice": The "dog people" have never played nice...ever.

-I agree that it's absolute bull that they now have exclusive rights to areas of a public multi-purpose use facilities; after all rocketry was included in the stated uses of the area right from the start. TWA has been flying there since 1996.

-This is not the first time that an agreement was made between the ranger, rocketeers, and dog people that was revoked or changed without explanation shortly thereafter.

-It is true that one of the higher-ups that has say in the use of Bong Rec. Area is a "dog person".

New site Exploration
-On the brighter side, moving East gets us away from the giant ponds and that woods that eats a lot of rockets North of the typical Lot F runway site. In my 15 years of going to Bong, I explored the area East of Lot F on the runway for the very first time this weekend. I'll admit it wasn't intentional, apparently nylon shear pins get brittle in 0 degree temps, which led to a main shaken out at 5,000' and a landing in the SE corner of the park. My observation is that the runway East of lot F is every bit as good as the area to the West of F. There are indeed several low areas that may accumulate water; but admittedly, I'd trade sporadic micro ponds for the big ones North of the old site.

Drifting:
-If the wind is out of the South or South-West, we have significantly more non-hazardous recovery area than at the old site.
-If the winds are West or West-Southwest, you have the length of the runway, but Wolf Lake becomes more of a concern than the past.
-North winds: ugh, same limited recovery area as the old location. TREES!
-East: on the fairly rare occasion that we have East winds, this should work well; though a failure to deploy the laundry could put a rocket in the Wolf Lake area, which could be bad.

I have mixed emotions; I very much do not like the dog people pushing us around, and this is nothing new. On the other hand, Bong has always presented challenges for anything but modest flights; I don't think the new location changes that much. Regardless, I am truly thankful for Mark, Frank, Bob, and others who continue to do their best to secure and preserve rocketry activities at the Bong.

-Eric-

Scott,

The Master Plan for Richard Bong Recreation area was established back around 1974, in the master plan model rocketry was mentioned as an activity that the park would consider for evaluation for the Special use zone (the runway). One of the preferred activity's that was listed was dog training and field trials, as this was an established activity long before WOOSH or TWA or what ever was established. In fact it mentioned that the area was used by the American Kennel association for field trials in the 1960's. It is clear that you have not read this document let alone know where to find it so you can read it.

We are not evicted from the park it's a big place we are moved to a location out of the State licensed Class 1 field training grounds.

I don't know where you were when I held meetings with posted agendas regarding this topic, this was all done last year, It sure was quiet from you.

During those meetings I pointed that we needed help from members, I called our local state reps, SLI and UW Wisconsin and discussed this in much detail and we were open for suggestions So where were you?

In fact if I did not pursue the agencies that I did I'm sure we would have been evicted, so where were you?

But now that its all said and done why do we have to listen to your "I told you so attitude".

The Prez.
Mark Hackler
WOOSH NAR 558

This is great stuff! I fully agree and support this approach.

Be this a wake-up call, In these times being a dedicated hobbyist requires more than building knowledge and such. In order for this hobby to survive we must become politically active, to me this is a sore spot as I despise dealing with lawyers and politicians I just wanna fly rockets.

After all who has time to deal with the politicians, well I can answer that, all of us...

Because after all of our launch fields have been taken away from us by other special interest groups because they are better connected politically.

We wont have anything else to do.

Mark