Saturday October 25th 2003 will go down as a milestone in the history of The Bateleurs.  It was our first ever fly-in, master-minded and organized by Bateleur pilot extraordinaire, Steve McCurrach, in order to recruit much needed pilot members in Natal.

Bateleur directors , Bill de Pinho, Joe Holmes, Sven Kreher, Carol Zeederberg,  Chantelle (secretary) and I drove down to Emoyeni through some pretty bad weather on Friday afternoon, wondering if the event would even happen the next day despite forecasts for a clear morning.
Being hugged hello by the proprietor on arrival was momentarily astonishing until someone said ‘good to see you Steve’ and the realization hit that it was Steve McCurrach which immediately called for another and more heartfelt hug.
We were shown to our rooms by Brenda and Bryan who assured us that we could just leave our things there with the doors wide open while we explored the rest of our delightful venue: the bar, the air strips and hangars, and the hall for our presentation (in that order) – just perfect!
Bateleur stalwarts Paul and Sheila Dutton had already flown in from La Merci airfield in Paul’s Super Cub to join us.  Many gorillas (rum and cokes) helped us plan the next day’s presentation:
Steve as MC to roll the show; Sven to present our history, who we are, what we have done, where we need to go; Paul to talk about ‘maximizing flight time’ – spy in the sky; Bill to explain the role of SAAF, the missions and monitoring work it could do and the collaboration with SAC (satellite imagery); Carol, to co-ordinate all the imagery.  We had two videos on The Bateleurs to augment our talks – The Carte Blanche Maputo Elephant Count and National Geographic program on our recent transfer of lions from Pilanesberg to Swaziland.
Saturday morning dawned clear and bright and saw both Bill and me up with Steve (separately of course) for our first microlight flights. An elated Bill announced “I have to get one” as he climbed off, and, as for me, well, I had grown wings.

By 9.00 hrs more than 30 interested pilots and friends had gathered to hear more about us.  And it was a simply wonderful morning!   Everyone loved it – even those of us who absolutely hate public speaking. Everyone was interested and enthused and there was a togetherness seldom found in a group of strangers.  I was delighted to award our first three silver Bateleur coins to Paul Dutton, Joe Holmes and Steve McCurrach for their marvelous contributions to The Bateleurs.
Fly safely
Nora