There was a small group of GHC members who lived north of GHC, which was called the Short End. Most of these GHC members rode together to get to the GHC club house during the racing season. It took a long time because of the traffic and the distance to the GHC Clubhouse. The group asked the GHC if they would be willing to have a pickup for their racing birds because of the traffic and it would make their life easier and they didn’t have to rush. That didn’t go over too well and GHC decided it wouldn’t be a good idea. Another year went by, and the Short End was starting to grow with new GHC members. The group asked again and verbally insured that the Short End members will stay members of GHC. Again, the main body didn’t like splitting the GHC Club. The group decided to start a Short End club since there was enough flyers that wanted a club close to their house.

The founders were Merl Emerson, Hugh McKinnis, Freddie Rivera, Jake Baird, Anthony Frontiero and Dave Donnelly. They decided to make the club an invitational club and named the club, the Florida Suncoast Invitational RPC. The FSI club then joined Greater Tampa Bay Combine so the members would still fly the combine. At that time GHC was part of the GTBC.

There was a feed store on State Road 19 just South of Hexam Road that most of the Short End flyers bought their feed. The owner allowed the FSI members to basket their birds on Friday nights. That worked out well for a while until one Friday night there wasn’t any electricity. The members grabbed their crates and drove to Merl Emerson’s place, The American King Cup and basketed the birds. As that store was going out of business, the group continued to ship the birds from the American King Cup. Several members shipped both GHC and FSI for quite a while. All the basketing and racing went on for two or three years. Merl Emerson was very involved with the American King Cup so he decided to quit the FSI and GHC club and devote all his time to his one loft race. So, the FSI members started looking for a new place to ship.

John Gallagher volunteered to have the FSI Group basket at his Flamingo Loft, One Loft Race area for a short period of time. Then Pete Yachimske had the group basket at his house on Hexam Road for another period of time.

It was then, Larry Rose offered the FSI Club the use of a small one room house with a small garage attached next to his house. FSI flew from there for several years. By now, the FSI club has grown to 50-60 members. Hugh McKinnis was then the FSI president, and he asked Frank Varriello to find property to have a club house. Frank found the property on Eskimo Curlew Road with an old beat up trailer on it. Several members contributed enough money for a down payment on the property. Larry Rose held the mortgage and after several years the club paid him off. The members tried to fix up the trailer and it lasted for several years.

Then, in 2019, FSI president, Dave Donnelly put a committee together headed by Hugh McKinnis to investigate replacing the old trailer. Hugh found a used classroom building. This suited what FSI was looking for. Several members donated money and most of the FSI members worked on clearing the land, getting rid of the old trailer. The classroom was purchased and installed in the fall of 2019. A lot of members helped installing the water, electricity, roof, fixing the inside and getting it ready for meetings.
Today, we have a large shipping building and refurbished classroom for meetings.