Thanks to All for Their Efforts and Willingness to Help

Newsletter November 2013

Even though it has been pretty quiet as far as club news so far this year, I would like to bring everyone up to speed on the latest information concerning the Alpha Omega Club. Of special interest will be the Conference in Panama and our new website coming on line in January or February, 2014.

We have put together a team of Regional Coordinators to carry on the work that Eli Behat had been doing so well for us these past years. His contributions and efforts are appreciated by everyone, especially myself, and I plan on tapping into his wise advice as we go forward.

I had many volunteers to help after the enjoyable Dublin Conference and A/O dinner so we have divided up the tasks at hand into regions with coordinators to match those within IFALPA. I’ve asked the coordinators to try and locate those A/O members with whom we’ve lost touch. We have already added several members to our current mailing list. I’ve also asked that they help in the organization of the A/O dinner when the conference is held in their region.

Thanks to all for their efforts and willingness to help.

Here are the Coordinators:

Europe: Steve Last, Ted Murphy Asia Pacific: Brian Greeves, Stu Julian North America: Paul Rice, Dennis Olden Caribbean/South America: Miguel Marin Middle East / Africa: Salvador Gayon Montreal coordination: Miguel Marin, Gary Wagner Website and database coordination / Historian: Steve Last

Thanks to the efforts of Miguel Marin who works at ICAO in Montreal and has walking distance access to IFALPA HQ, we have a very up to date list of A/O members. His daughter, Laura, did an intern stint at IFALPA this past summer on behalf of A/O. She researched all IFALPA award winners and compared them to our current mailing list. I really appreciated her great work! Our mailing list is up to date, but there are many missing addresses. Miguel was also able to meet one-on-one with Don Wykoff, IFALPA President. Don was very receptive to our efforts and agreed to put out an introductory letter to his leadership under his and my signatures. Don has also asked Valerie McLeod, IFALPA Communications Coordinator, to be the IFALPA focal for A/O. She has been very helpful, but I would ask that any questions for her go through either myself or Miguel for continuity.

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit IFALPA HQ in Montreal and had 2 days of really good meetings with their staff. Miguel was also able to join and we made good progress on a number of items. We were able to get to know the professional and dedicated members of the staff on a personal basis. In particular we met with Valerie McLeod (A/O focal from IFALPA), Jeremy Eldridge (IT/Website focal at IFALPA), and Kelly Bennett (IFALPA Office Manager). Frank met with other members of the staff including Carole Couchman (Senior Technical Officer) and Mike Jackson (ICAO Representative/Director Technical).

Following is helpful information for the IFALPA Conference in Panama:

Panama Conference Information: o Conference dates set March 28 – March 31 o Hotel – Riu Plaza Panama Hotel - http://www.riuplaza.com/en/hotel-riu-panama/ o All Conference activities including the Award’s Dinner on Saturday will be at the hotel o Global Pilots Symposium – March 27 o Local activity information for attendees still being worked on by the IFALPA staff and Panama members o Official Conference registration should be out by January and I will forward a link to all – eventually there will be a link on the A/O website

Alpha Omega Dinner – Sunday, March 30 o Place and time TBD o Miguel Marin (A/O Regional Coordinator) is working with contacts in Panama to find a nice place

Other Events in Panama at the same time: o Panama Canal 100th year anniversary o Presidential Elections end of March WEBSITE information – being worked by Steve Last and the IFALPA IT focal. o Two phase implementation . 1st Phase is to have similar information as we have now up and running in January 2014 to include:  History  News  Members names and e-mail addresses – password accessible  Link to IFALPA  Link to Conference page . 2nd Phase to be up and running next Summer after conference to add:  Personal information to be updated by individual A/O members to include: o Name o E-mail o Awards o Company o Phone (optional) o Address (optional) o Short Bio (optional)

Of interest

 Our A/O ties (over 40) are in a cabinet at IFALPA HQ and the needed amount will be brought to Conference by Valerie or one of staff members.  Thanks to the work of our Regional Coordinators we now have 85 members on our current mailing list.

Next update after the Conference Registration is available.

Frank Santoni A/O Coordinator