Mike has entered the Northern Gliding Championships held at Sutton Bank in the first week in August. In 1989/90 Mike was the Northern Open Class Champion in his Jantar 1 Glider.
He then gave up gliding, to fly airliners, but as he has now retired from Commercial Flying,
he has taken up gliding again, and bought a 19 metre Kestrel glider, and thought it would be rude not to enter the Northern Gliding Championships again, even though he is a crumbly! 
As he managed first in 1990, he thought it would be a nice change to come last this year. Keep watching this space for results.
Well, after 2 months of repairing the trailer, putting in new instruments etc, I have to set off, even though my  variometer ( instrument for telling me where lift is) is not working properly. Wish me luck.
Well well well, I came 10th out of 23 competitors, which surprised me no end, 'cos I haven't raced gliders for 20 years, and had all the new fangled technology to contend with. It's all computers, gps  and loggers now, whereas I had to fly using maps, and cameras to record the turning points.
We managed 4 days tasks, not a lot, but the weather was not good at all. On the third day I would have come 4th, exept that I missed the second tuning point by 59 metres!!!!!!!!!!!. The logger was set to nautical miles, not metres. Ah well. wait 'til next year.

Melanie Ingram who works at Sports Framing Ltd.,now has letters after her name as she has just  passed the GCF Examination (Guild Commended Framer).
Melanie stayed on when the current owner (Mike Bond G.C.F.) bought the company 5 years ago.
She has worked away steadily during this time and has trained under Mike's supervision, culminating in sitting the GCF Exam (Examiner Steve McKee G.C.F. Adv.) who flew over from Northern Ireland to preside over the Exam.
Also sitting the Exam was another of Mike's students, Jackie Pinder, from Windmill Framing, Knott End, Fylde.
Both their passes were spectacular, in that both were down graded from an A to a B in one item only, out 92 items!
Mike managed 5 straight 'A's (92/92) when he sat the exam many moons ago, plus 100% in the writtens.

THE world’s biggest developing economy is asking a Chadderton school for advice on how to change its teaching methods via links with Chinese students and teachers. Radclyffe School’s assistant head teacher Ian Mulley has recently been a guest in Xishan, China, a district which already has economic links with Oldham. The visit has resulted in a sister school agreement between the Hunt Lane school and Tianyi High School, in Jiangsu province. Radclyffe has already hosted Chinese teachers, who have observed lessons this year on several visits. Mr Mulley’s return visit included an educational conference for Chinese professionals wanting to know how the curriculum is developed in England.  Mr Mulley said: “They are interested in a combination of the way We teach and what we teach. They have massive schools in this part of China ~ Radclyffe would be a small part of one. One had 10.000 students and 870 staff but they recognise that they have to change and become more open American and Australian professionals are also giving them help, he said and the opportunities the sister school agreement means for Radclyffe will be amazing he added “This is an opportunity for some of our staff and children to be ahead of the game “Not only is there potential inward investment for Oldham, but there will be educational links and cultural links, and China is the economy of the future. “We are interested in some Mandarin teaching and if our students can engage with China and perhaps visit  and make contacts , that will be even better".And he said his visit dispelled some of the myths there are about China: "It is a fascinating place. There is a lot of money and everybody was working". There is a huge amount of development and eveyone was bustling and seems happy. It  was not at all a regemented society they are open to change and I was very very impressed. The sister school agreement adds to Radclyffes international links With Bolivia and other schools in Europe. The visit earlier this month was funded by the Chinese government and other delegates included June Smith, Oldham Council s business development officer.

PRESENTATION . . . Ian Mulley left, hands a  painting to Mr Chen, the head of Tianyi High School in Xishan.

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