Still Number One!
Around
this time last year, I did a bit of research on state populations, numbers of
PICs per Wing, and numbers of missions flown by Wing. I thought that we in New
Mexico were probably pulling our share of the load, and we were. In 2006, the
New Mexico Wing flew more missions per capita (state population), and more
missions per PIC than any other Wing in Angel Flight West. We were Number One!
I
just did the same research this year and guess what? We are still Number One
in both categories. Based on flights per capita, the ratings are as follows:
First
Place: New
Mexico Wing: One
flight per 11,978 residents
Second
Place: Washington Wing: One
flight per 12,626 residents
Third
Place: Idaho Wing: One
flight per 13,356 residents
Fourth
Place: Nevada Wing: One
flight per 13,643 residents
Fifth
Place: Utah Wing: One
flight per 15,532 residents
None
of the other Wings flew more than one flight per 20,000 residents.
The
same thing holds true in flights per Pilot in Command.
First
Place: New Mexico
Wing: 4.24
flights per PIC
Second
Place: Arizona Wing: 3.46
flights per PIC
Third
Place: Idaho Wing: 3.06
flights per PIC
Fourth
Place: Nevada Wing: 2.80
flights per PIC
Fifth
Place: Utah Wing: 2.79
flights per PIC
We
might be small, but like Avis, we try harder. We are still Number One!
--
Dan Telfair, Wing Leader
Congratulations on our 1,000th mission!
In the course of 2007, we
flew our 1,000th mission on July 31st! The mission was
flown by John Courtright from Albuquerque to St. Johns, Arizona. We flew a
total of 167 missions this past year. Thanks to all who helped with this, from
outreach to coordination to flying.
The graph below summarizes
our missions flown from the inception of the New Mexico Wing in 2000 through
2007, a total of 1070 missions. The largest growth component in our missions
has been the addition of veteran flights originating in New Mexico and West
Texas starting in 2005. The number of veteran flights has grown from 23 (15%)
in 2005 to 82 (42%) in 2006 and 76 (46%) in 2007.
An important new component in
2007 is the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department, requiring
transport of staff and foster children to locations to meet potential families
for adoption. We flew 27 missions this past year to assist in
the relocation of these young people.
We continue to have a
significant number of mission cancellations for lack of pilots. This past year
we had many more missions cancelled for lack of a New Mexico pilot than for
weather, once missions had been requested and assigned. Thirty percent (71) of
mission requests had to be cancelled for lack of pilots in our wing. Only 15%
(33) of our missions were cancelled because of weather, either in New Mexico or
in an adjoining state. While we’ll probably never have all our mission
requests filled by pilots, let’s try to reduce the percentage next year.
How can we reduce the number
of disappointed passengers? By flying missions! In 2007, 3 command pilots
flew 50% of our missions; 15 flew 90% of our missions; 23 (of a total of 40)
flew all 167 missions.
We have a number of command
pilots who didn’t fly a mission in 2007. For those of you who didn’t, we
recognize there are many reasons, but please consider taking a mission in 2008.
The graphs below represent
our flying history since inception of the wing through 2007, and the number of
missions by month for 2007. The big peak in June represents the addition of the
adoption missions for New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department.
Missions by Year
-- Richard Hoover
AFW
- New Mexico Fundraising
As
many of you know, Angel Flight West needs to raise funds to pay for the staff
and facilities in Santa Monica. They try, with some success, to obtain grants
from charitable organizations in all the states served by AFW, but it is always
a challenge. They have to pay contractors to write grant proposals, which may
or may not result in grants. Additionally, some of these contractors don't
know a lot about what actually goes on in the separate Wings. And because
money is tight, the states have never had their own budgets.
Although
it is not a part of the Wing Leadership Team responsibilities, we recently
decided to try our hands at assisting AFW in fundraising. We also thought that
if we raised the money, we should be entitled to a share of it to spend on our
own programs here in New Mexico.
We
started with a proposal to Con Alma - a New Mexico organization to which AFW
grant writers had written proposals for the past three years, none of which had
resulted in grants. We thought that with a zero for three record, we couldn't
do any worse, and at least our proposal wouldn't cost AFW anything. Sandi
Hoover and I wrote a proposal, and sought the help of a professional
grant-writer in Taos, who, in return for a free flight lesson, agreed to write
the evaluation section of our proposal for us.
This
proposal resulted in a grant for $14,000 - the first grant ever received from
Con Alma, and the largest grant ever received from a New Mexico organization.
We were one for one - batting 1000!
Shortly
thereafter, an anonymous benefactor approached me on behalf of a private family
trust, and asked me to submit a proposal. With Richard and Sandi Hoover's
help, I wrote another brief proposal. In less than two weeks, we had another
grant for $10,000. We were two for two, and still batting 1000!
Then
we approached a third donor organization, the Domanica Foundation. Their
normal procedure is to have a requesting organization submit a Letter of Intent
(LOI) and a Proposal Summary Report. Based on those two documents, they would
decide whether or not to invite the organization to submit a full proposal. We
wrote an LOI and a Proposal Summary Report and submitted them for their
consideration. After not hearing anything for a month, we thought that we had
failed to make the first cut. Then, a few days before Christmas, we received a
very nice letter and a check for $5,000. It seems that they were sufficiently
impressed with our LOI and Proposal Summary Report that they decided we did not
have to submit a full proposal! We were three for three - still batting 1000!
In
the last quarter of 2007, we obtained three grants, and brought in $29,000 for
AFW - more money than they have obtained from New Mexico donors in any full
year since Angel Flight West - New Mexico came into existence. Added to this
success, we wrote a requirement into each proposal that a certain amount of the
money raised would remain here in New Mexico to be spent locally on supplies,
equipment, meetings, travel, etc. For the first time ever, we have our own
budget for the New Mexico Wing - almost $5,000 for the year. That still
leaves about $24,000 to be spent in support of the Santa Monica office. The
icing on the cake is that none of these proposals cost AFW anything for
contract grant writers, and almost nothing in staff time. We did all the work,
like everything else we do, without compensation. All funds received were pure
profit.
I
still do not believe that fundraising is part of our responsibilities. Our
job, and our contribution to Angel Flight, is to fly missions. On the other
hand, batting 1000 is kind of nice.
--Dan Telfair, Wing Leader
Outreach
The constant and continuing
goal for outreach is to ensure that everyone in New Mexico needing the services
of Angel Flight knows about us. If we are too effective however, there is
disappointment from cancellations caused by too few pilots.
In 2007 we tried to maintain
that fine line - informing agencies, clinics and hospitals so that there is
effective use of our pilots, but not finding so many new opportunities that
people who need us were left either with “Plan B” – or worse yet, no way
to get to the medical services they required.
The New Mexico Wing has
received updates on Outreach activities throughout the year – so the
equivalent of the dreaded Christmas letter isn’t going to happen here. If you
are interested in all the details, they are still available, but suffice it to
say that we have participated in many health fairs, retreats, speaking
engagements and conferences, communicating with caregivers in the health
community as well as individuals who are interested in either their own health
or that of a loved one.
I would like to make special
mention of a recent flight since I’m sure that it was quite significant to one
11-year-old boy. In August, I talked with a wonderful organization –
PB&J – that is working hard to improve families at risk and reduce
the continuing cycle of incarceration. We discussed our potential to help with
transportation of children to visit their mothers at the Grant’s Women’s
Prison. Jose was scheduled to fly for a day visit, but it was cancelled due to
weather. It looked as though the second opportunity for him to go from
Alamogordo to visit with his mom in Grants was also going to be cancelled as it
is so a long flight for any ABQ based pilot that winter dark occurs before
getting back home from Alamogordo. Major James Colebank, an ALM pilot picked
up the flight, allowing us to help PB&J make a young boy’s life a little
brighter.
Once more, my thanks to ALL
who have assisted and made time in their busy schedules to cover events. They
as well as I have been told by at least one person that we have helped a
relative or someone they know, and they are the best references we could have
for outreach. Angel Flight is wonderful to talk about because all of you are
so generous and giving of your time, energy, and ability as pilots, not to
mention the actual value of your gift to the community.
Looking ahead to 2008: Dan
has already described our success in receiving the Con Alma grant – and
now we have to fulfill the tasks we promised to accomplish when we applied for
it.
There is a wonderful meeting
of goals in Con Alma’s aims in New Mexico and Angel Flight’s mission... we both
seek to remove barriers to health care for those New Mexicans who do not have
the capability of financing transportation to care, or who are underserved
because of their rural location or the impoverishment of their area and lack of
medical facilities.
We proposed in our
application to specifically target 10 counties – Colfax, Doña Ana, Eddy,
Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, and Taos. Within these
counties, we will make a special effort to recruit pilots in concert with our
outreach to clinics, hospitals and other health facilities. We are also
creating a manual so that social workers, case managers and others can
comfortably be our liaison to those persons who need our services.
Our goal is to provide 60
flights to persons in these counties, so please watch for these flights and
help us in these areas. These counties all have at least one general aviation airport
that is appropriate for our use, and we expect that the opportunities for
missions will be shared with new pilots in those more remote areas who will
want to fly for Angel Flight when there is a clear need in their neighborhood.
--Sandi Hoover,
Outreach Coordinator
"Threefers"
To
one extent or another, we all like to rack up missions, to help out our Angel
Passengers, and for bragging rights. I am probably one of the worst for trying
to rack up bragging rights. There is a secret though to doing both, with more
bang for the buck.
I
always check the Missions Available page of AFIDS to see if there are any
missions to and from the same facility, or to and from a nearby facility, on
the same day. The ideal is to fly two or more passengers coming and going -
thus covering four or more missions on one round trip! I have never managed
that, but I did recently manage three missions in one round trip.
David R. & Thomas S. with 2 Tango Tango in Portales,
linking with AFSC pilot for Abilene
On
December 6, David R. and Thomas S., both veterans, needed to travel from the VA
Hospital in Albuquerque to their homes in Abilene, via a link in Portales.
Gary Lee D., also a veteran, needed to travel from his home in Abilene to the
VA Hospital in Albuquerque, also via a link in Portales. As it turned out, Roy
F., an Angel Flight pilot and good friend from AFSC, was bringing Gary Lee D.
as far as Portales, and picking up David R. and Thomas S. in Portales to take
them home to Abilene. I requested and was given the two missions to take David
R. and Thomas S. to Portales, and the mission to bring Gary Lee D. from
Portales to Albuquerque.
Gary Lee D. with 2 Tango Tango in Portales, headed for
Albuquerque on return flight
Thus,
Roy F. and I both got credit for three missions, and carried three Angel
Passengers, at a cost of only one round trip each. It is theoretically
possible to fly four, five, or even six missions in one round trip, but I have
never been able to do that. The best I have done so far is “threefers”.
However, I am still looking for opportunities for “fourfers” or more.
This
past year, we tried to initiate a program whereby the Albuquerque VA Hospital
would schedule appointments for out-of-state patients so that we could carry
more, coming and going. To date, nothing has come of that, but we will try
again in 2008. With “twofers”, “threefers” and “fourfers’, we can do a lot
more good with our limited flying dollars. Hopefully, these missions will
become the norm, rather than the exception, in 2008.
-- Dan Telfair, Wing Leader
New
Mexico Wing Meeting
Our
wing meeting was held November 17, 2007, between 11:00 and 13:30 at Monroe’s
restaurant on Osuna. Fifteen members and guests enjoyed delicious to-order
meals served by Monroe's excellent wait staff. The guest of honor was our
new AFW Executive Director, Michael Nanko.
Michael gave a talk on his vision for AFW, and expressed his appreciation for
all that the New Mexico Wing has done to support AFW in general, and to support
him personally. He also presented first mission wings to David Cummings
and Tom Stinnet.
David Cummings receives his first set of Angel Flight
wings from Michael Nanko. David joined Angel Flight in September 2006 and has
flown 4 missions in his
V-35 Bonanza.
Tom Stinett receives his first set of Angel Flight
wings from Michael Nanko. Tom joined us in October 2007, got his orientation, and
flew as mission assistant in the first two weeks. Tom flew his first mission as
command pilot in November. Tom now has a total of 3 missions in his Cessna
182.
Michael
also brought sufficient door prizes so that, by the end of the drawing,
everyone had received at least one prize - all courtesy of AFW.
After the luncheon and business meeting, Wing Leader Dan Telfair gave a talk
and slide show on his and Zia's 5,200 mile flight around the Australian Outback
in a rented Cessna 182. The meeting adjourned promptly at 13:30, as
scheduled.
Hasta
La Vista; Auf Wiedersehen; See you Later
All
three mean the same thing. Zia and I are going away for a while, but we will
be back, and we look forward to meeting again with all our good friends and
fellow members of Angel Flight West - New Mexico. We are off to Australia for
three months of relaxation in a tiny Outback town in the center of Queensland -
750 miles from the nearest large city.
Our
"retirement" here has become impossibly complex, due to the variety
of volunteer activities in which we have become engaged. We finally decided
that enough is enough. Hence - the escape to Australia. We are giving up just
about all our volunteer activities and responsibilities - all save one. We are
not giving up Angel Flight. Richard and Sandi Hoover have very kindly agreed
to cover AFW-NM Wing Leader duties for me while Zia and I are gone, and to take
over management of the Con Alma project - our big deal for 2008. I am sure
that, during my absence, you will all give them the same support you have given
me.
See
you later!!
-- Dan Telfair, Wing Leader
