304-plus years of service in museum volunteers gathered for impromptu party
With sparkling apple juice, the Royal Canadian Air Force March Past on a tablet and a specially decorated cake, volunteers at the Greenwood Military Aviation Museum turned their weekly work-session coffee break into an opportunity to mark the 100th anniversary of the RCAF.
April 4, volunteer Major (retired) Sophie Saulnier led the group’s nod to some of the traditions of the annual Mess dinner: April 1 marked the centennial of the RCAF, officially formed in 1924.
“I’ve been dying to try something new with cake decorating – called frozen transfer,” Saulnier said. She started hobby cake decorating in 1995, and has since become a cake decorating program leader for 4-H youth and offers to make cakes as wedding presents for events she’s invited to attend.
“What kind of an excuse could I try this with? April 1 marked 100 years of the RCAF, so we’re celebrating that, and all of you awesome volunteers.”
Many of the GMAM volunteers will have had long experience with Mess dinners typically held on or near April 1 through their careers. A tally through the room of about 15 people totaled 304 years of RCAF service among them.
“And 262 days!” added one fellow.
“The air force was 30 years old when I joined,” added another.
A few of the volunteers were not in the RCAF, but turn up regularly at the museum to help with aircraft and equipment restoration, display creation, flight education programs, archiving and more. Saulnier, a former RCAF aerospace engineering officer, typically volunteers presenting the history of the RCAF in the Grade 6-level Flight Education program tours, and works on upholstery restoration projects. She re-upholstered five passenger and two cockpit seats in the GMAM’s display Expeditor, the seat in the Linc trainer, and is working on a cargo net system to cover the two tail doors on the GMAM’s display Hercules. When the museum opens the plane in the summer for tours, it’s very hot, and a cross-breeze from the two opposite openings would be a relief to volunteers, and visitors.
“You are a bunch of people that are here for a bunch of reasons, and you’re the ones preserving history for the RCAF,” said Saulnier. “We don’t celebrate your work enough!”
Saulnier carefully planned out her frozen transfer cake art: she had a picture of the RCAF crest, flipped it and then printed it. Taping it to parchment paper, she traced the reversed logo’s edges in black buttercream frosting, then filled in all the rest of the colours in more frosting. The frosting art was frozen on a cutting board, then carefully lifted off and flipped onto the surface of her homemade, RCAF-blue iced cake top.
“It worked – I had to do a few repairs near the wing ends,” she said – but once cut, served and being enjoyed at the coffee break by the volunteer group, you’d never know!
Greenwood Military Aviation Museum volunteers raise a glass in a toast to the Royal Canadian Air Force, taking time at their April 4 coffee-break to mark the April 1, 1924 birth of the RCAF.
Major (retired) Sophie Saulnier put years of experience as a cake decorator to work, creating an RCAF100-themed treat for the April 4 Greenwood Military Aviation Museum volunteer coffee break.
