Marketing

From what I've seen, the event has been beyond successful so far. I do think it would be good to add another hour into the event (1700-2100z) instead of the 1800 start. Whereas most people that work finish at 1700 and probably couldn't make it until later, we wouldn't lose anything or have bored controllers as the traffic level would still roughly be around what we're getting at the moment anyway as there is the non-working student community who tend to finish school/college at around 1500 anyway. Adding an extra hour would also give more controllers a chance to get on the roster as I have noticed that some controllers, mainly S1s haven't been able to get online for the event due to the amount who express their interest to control. Doing so would give an extra two slots to fill in for GMP & GMC. 

Some may call me bias but I think we should keep the event at Gatwick so members have an expectation/knowledge of what's happening every week and where they have to fly. It would be good to have a routine, the Swiss normally do well with their weekly Geneva and Zurich events too which have been going on for a long while now as well as some other divisions/VACCs who have their weekly events. I think it's all about routine and after some time it's what attracts the pilots, not that we don't get any but I think my point is clear! ?

Lister

I agree with Louie that consistency and simplicity is key. I control at Zurich as well and the regular Tuesday night event there always draws a good (and international) crowd because it is always the same and people don’t have to check event news/banners/forums to know it is on. I think we have enough controllers to support Gatwick on a Wednesday and Manchester on another night as regular events.

On 01/02/2020 at 10:52, Jack Edwards said:

I think we have enough controllers to support Gatwick on a Wednesday and Manchester on another night as regular events.

This could be something we look at in the future - me and Loui are just conscious that having 2 weekly events, plus an event at the weekend every other week (roughly) is a lot. I know some might argue that this isn't a bad thing, but we don't want to bite off more than we can chew. I think also having this many events sort of depreciates the 'value' of them, we still want pilots and controllers to be excited to fly/control.

On 31/01/2020 at 15:36, Louie Lister said:

From what I've seen, the event has been beyond successful so far. I do think it would be good to add another hour into the event (1700-2100z) instead of the 1800 start.

The issue I think we'd have here is getting the area control as lots of these controllers tend to work regular hours.

On 31/01/2020 at 15:36, Louie Lister said:

Some may call me bias but I think we should keep the event at Gatwick so members have an expectation/knowledge of what's happening every week and where they have to fly.

Some might call me biased too (why would anyone want to have a weekly event at Manchester for example) but I do like Gatwick because it's plenty big enough to handle large amounts of traffic. It allows S1's to get involved (unlike having it at Heathrow for example) but having the endorsement better prepares newer controllers for a heavier workload that you'd expect during an event. That being said, if we were to move it around, where do you propose we go? Do we stick to the bigger, more popular places, or do we visit smaller airfields?

7 hours ago, Ben Wright said:

The issue I think we'd have here is getting the area control as lots of these controllers tend to work regular hours.

We always have this issue, however, we've never not had London controllers online for any of our events so I'd argue this isn't much of a factor as it's normally made out to be!

7 hours ago, Ben Wright said:

 Do we stick to the bigger, more popular places, or do we visit smaller airfields?

Keep it to Gatwick, it's a simple weekly event that needs routine and consistency. It's not like were never not going to have any other events anyway, we normally visit the smaller airfields in the upcoming months. For example, we've just had the Newcastle overload. 

My vote would be to keep the Gatwick event weekly and to continue with the over events along side.