Airport Watch April Meeting Minutes

Meeting Minutes for April 2, 2024

Board Present: Dan McInerney, Jackson Skelly, Dave Blocher, Laura Hayden, Jackin Jain. Board Absent: Mike Klimczak, Kelly Roller

Note: The Executive Board and General meetings were held via Zoom.

Meeting was called to order by Dan McInerney at 7:00 pm.

1) Treasurer's report: current bank balance is $3,600.00.

2) Laura Hayden discussed our first newsletter going out.

• Very happy with the content and a lot of people read the first version. Laura presented our open and click rates which were excellent. In addition, our bounce rate for return emails was extremely low.

• Very happy with the number of people that signed up for our discord channel.

• Laura wants to put into our newsletter a section from the more experienced photographers on photography tips. If you are interested in contributing to this section, please contact Laura Hayden at laura@atypicaladventurestravel.com

3) Jackson Skelly mentioned that he is working on updating the member application and renewal process, so that everything can be done electronically. Members will be able to join, pay and order vests online. The hope is this will be up and running by the end of April 2024.

4) Dan McInerney mentioned several things about upcoming events.

• Midway Trained Disaster Drill. No date has been set.

• In the next month or two, we need members go to cargo operators at O’Hare and ask if we can get a tour of their facility and possibly an airplane. Most likely will be during the week, so we can connect with the station manager at the cargo companies.

• Will set up a special meeting with Mike McCabe who is an air traffic controller at O’Hare. He will give a presentation on what he does as a controller. Will have question and answer session afterwards. Mike also mentioned that he has a friend that is a 787 pilot and will try and get her to one of our future meetings.

5) Our special guest Mike McCabe, a controller at O’Hare discussed his job and the different parts of O’Hare where he works. Mike was very informative and provided a runway map to help with understanding of takeoff and landings. In addition, Mike shoots video content for ORD_NATCA. If you have images or videos and you want him to post to their socials, please send vertical shots of planes with the main or outer towers in the image. If you want to tag ORD_ NACTA and want them to repost your image, put ordairportwatch in the tag, so they know it's from our membership. If you can, include the flight number and date.

6) Meeting was closed at 7:35 pm.

Respectfully submitted by Dave Blocher