Suggestions for amendments to Constitution

[DonRamsay]

No, just that nobody wants to be led up the garden path again.

I don't know why you wasted the electrons communicating something as meaningless and unhelpful as that.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Don - If you really wanted to know what people thought, go back to the other threads about the problems with the constitution. Given all the feedback provided before the constitution was put to the vote and the vitriol from some it is no wonder people have given up. Why bother when all the feedback gets ignored. We just have to live with the discontent and consequences.

I think I need to communicate better what it is I was trying to do. As an ordinary member of RAAus, I have set out to review the current Constitution to see if it can be improved. Simple as that. I use the word "review" precisely as I have viewed the document many times, in many stages of development, previously.

 

This time, I am looking back on it having had the benefit of the experience of an election and an AGM and a Board Meeting. Now I am operating from the standpoint of a non-board member, with no axe to grind other than to get it as good as it can be.

 

I had hoped that anyone here who still felt strongly about specific issues that they felt had not been taken account of in the version that was approved by about 90% of members who took the trouble to vote, could list them here and, if warranted, I could draft a motion for a special resolution to amend the constitution.

 

I could have looked back through the previous thread on the subject but that was too full of acutely personal insults that I chose not to revisit. Also, I have no way of knowing whether the people who expressed serious objections then still held those views. Reading through hours of posts from people like KP who were secretly busy in the background setting up an organisation to compete with RAAus I saw as unproductive.

 

What I was offering (that nobody to date has taken me up on) was to seriously consider suggestions for changes and frame motions for a special resolution(s) that could be put to the next General Meeting of RAAus to achieve change. I offered that service because It seemed to me that nobody else had any plans to do anything like that.

 

Don

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Bull mrramsay ,you have been asked about the four stage inspections in the tech manual and you very slyly have dogded the subject.

Dear Mr Bull,

Your statement is both off-topic here and factually incorrect. Wer were discussing the Constitution not the Tech Manual in this thread and, if I recall correctly, I have written a great number of words on the subject that is off topic and won't be repeating any here.

 

If you have any serious changes you would like to see in the Constitution of RAAus, feel free to express them here or elsewhere.

 

Don

 

 

[turboplanner]

I don't know why you wasted the electrons communicating something as meaningless and unhelpful as that.

It seemed to resonate with some people.

 

 

[kasper]

But Don, what you as a member with history in this and the board continue to fail to realize is that your quoted 90% of members who were bothered to vote WERE basically led up the garden path by a very well member funded road show of exec and board members 'selling' only the absolute positives of a fairly flawed draft ... without that road show you might not have actually seen a sufficient majority vote for the draft.

 

But as I said to you at the AGM - I am out of fixing RAAus as the on the ground application (or complete ignoring of) the constitution by current management has me looking elsewhere for a flying body - HGFA and ELAAA are my new home

 

 

[DonRamsay]

. . .1. Don, you don't represent anyone other than yourself and why should any suggestion get your approval first

Ian, you are of course completely correct on both facts. I am not representing anyone else and nobody needs my or anyone else's approval to draft and present a motion for a Special Resolution to a General Meeting.

All I was saying was that if there is something somebody wanted changed but could use some assistance in getting the change done then I was happy to assist. However, if the motion would be something I would have to vote against, it would be hypocritical for me to assist somebody to draft such a motion. For example, I could never assist somebody to draft a motion to take RAAus back to being an incorporated association.

 

What I was also saying was that I am not the only one of 9,000 pilots who could come up with a good idea to change the Constitution. It is also true that the only changes that have been proposed in the last, at least 6 years, had my signature on them. Nobody else has taken the trouble to put a change to a vote of ordinary members in general meeting.

 

If we look at your history, you supported the prevention of the younger generation learning to fly which thank God was later overturned

That's not quite correct the way you say it. Yes, I was a member of a Board that voted to set a minimum age at which a student could commence flying training. At the time, as you will recall, we had CFIs not acting with due diligence in allowing 9 year olds to take the controls. The Board decision was practical but not, I agree, the correct solution. Better to hold CFIs accountable for their questionable decisions to let 9 year olds take the controls than put on a blanket ban that was not imposed for GA. I accept that I was a part of that mistake and was glad to see it overturned. I am not sure what that has to do with people other than me making suggestions to change the current constitution.

 

You oversaw the greatest reduction in members funds that RAAus members have ever seen.

You are looking at the the outcome not the cause. The eventual run down in financial reserves resulted from Boards and managers (for years before I joined RAAus) allowing maladministration that ended up costing RAAus many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Late in my brief stint on the Board in 2012, the issues were discovered and by the time I got back on the Board in 2015, the money to repair the issues from the maladministration had been largely spent.

 

You pushed through a major change to RAAus which was incorrect in the first place

Ian, that's your view and you are perfectly entitled to it but that view was not supported by the 90% who voted in favour of the change despite your campaigning against the change. All it would have taken was 25% to vote against it and it would have failed.

 

and now you want to try and fix it

What I want to do is have another look and see if a good thing can be made better based on the experience we have had with it in operation through an election and an AGM.

 

Absolutely 100% true. Every single ordinary member of RAAus is entitled to raise a motion for a Special Resolution and have it presented at a General Meeting. My consideration in this case means that If I consider the suggestion is helpful that I will do the leg work to get it presented at a General Meeting. As I have indicated in another post, if my considered view is that a suggested change is not beneficial then I won't do the leg work as I would have to vote against it.

[kasper]

much clipped ... see if a good thing can be made better based on the experience we have had with it in operation through an election and an AGM.....

 

 

[Admin]

Don, you never once said anything like what you are now saying. What you said is completely different so I will quote you again

 

Post your recommendations here and I will give them full consideration.Not saying I'll agree necessarily but I will look very closely at them and into them

[Yenn]

Don. What is the sense of posting our thoughts on changes to the constitution here. I have posted them in the past and given detailed thoughts to RAAus. They have been ignored and I have been fed bullshit. So why bother.

 

It looks as if there will be an alternative to RAAus and those of us who don't like the way this show is going will be able to try change.

 

 

[Keith Page]

Yes just a simple case of reading to reply not reading to understand, nothing else.

 

What has my mind boggled ---- which equation was used so it could be said 90% of the members were in favour. Ummmmmmmm???????.

 

I think there were a few cubed routes multiplied by square routes the is a way to get a half a dozen quickly up to a few thousand.

 

KP.

 

 

[rhysmcc]

Clearly Don is trying to come up with solutions, why jump down his throat?

 

Don I'd suggest the election of directors and the Calling of meetings and who and when resolutions could be made needs to be clearly defined. I don't think letting the board decide how they get elected is the best option.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Best Don stays right away from constitutions and organization structures, but he could practice what he preaches and tell us what exactly this $1.8 million per year is for item by item rather than just meeting the demands of CASA. At that rate of leakage there are two options:

 

(a) going bust

 

(b) charging it to the members

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Clearly Don is trying to come up with solutions, why jump down his throat?Don I'd suggest the election of directors and the Calling of meetings and who and when resolutions could be made needs to be clearly defined. I don't think letting the board decide how they get elected is the best option.

Thanks Rhys, that is an area I think needs a hard look. If I ever had a qualm about the whole thing it was that the Board may have just a bit too much latitude.

 

If there is no good reason for the Board to have the absolute say about something then it probably should be written down in the Constitution.

 

Don

 

 

[SDQDI]

All I can say is good on you Don for still being here and still trying.

 

It is a bit depressing to have naysayers that whine and moan but when the shovel is offered they all clear out.

 

I've said it all before but here I go again.

 

I don't always agree with you Don but I really appreciate the effort you have put in in regards to the constitution and I know that I am not alone in that. Hopefully all the unhappy people can find satisfaction in the Elaaa and we can all move on to comraderie again.

 

 

[frank marriott]

Hopefully all the unhappy people can find satisfaction in the Elaaa and we can all move on to comraderie again.

Should you predication occur SDIQ , then I would hate to even thing about rego and membership fees for the ever increasing H.Q. "Senior Management Team" & of course don't mention the "paid directors" in the new constitution. If you believe the political style crap that it is not being considered, then why was it included -

 

For those who think they are too important and need paying for their time, just go and see how much they will be missed.

 

Should the outcome of the current approach result in a substantial reduction in membership and registrations then the outcome MAY be positive, the empire builders and mega spenders would no longer be there, and control of RAA could quite likely be returned to the "members" - an original idea but it is possible.

 

 

[rhysmcc]

It's interesting to read the magazine is discounted again... does this mean members who don't get it will be paying more for the pleasure (off topic but since Don is gone this thread is useless much like the forum is becoming)

 

 

[turboplanner]

It's interesting to read the magazine is discounted again... does this mean members who don't get it will be paying more for the pleasure (off topic but since Don is gone this thread is useless much like the forum is becoming)

The magazine should be a stand alone cost centre.

If that is done it's easy to see the income (newsagent sales, advertising sales, contribution component from members subscriptions)

 

And it's easy to see the costs (allocated staff cost and expenses, production etc)

 

With everything out in the open, the answer to your question is clear.

 

If the magazine is making a profit, it can be discounted as a form of RAA advertising without drawing any more members subscription funds.

 

If the magazine is being produced at a loss, then additional money has to come out of members subscriptions or they have to be increased.

 

If everything is not out in the open, then who would know.

 

Under the current Limited Company constitution, where is your right to know?

 

(and if you say, well that's something which can be added, the answer is no; what people were told they were getting, not necessarily officially, was a professional Company structure as against the "cricket club" Association.

 

The current limited Limited Company constitution doesn't have that structure; it's very much in the hands of what the directors want to do on a daily basis.

 

To fix it requires a holistic approach, and you are not going to get that on a forum.

 

For example, around seven years ago I first raised issue with the Association constitution which were restricting board members from representing members and controlling their association, meeting processes and a lot of other things. Over time I put a few hundred hours into it, communicating with other members, including Don, and industry people, and while we posted a lot of good material, which was posted on this forum, the usual battles reached such a crescendo that all the posts were deleted, and that part of Association history is gone forever.

 

Virtually none of the key thing we discussed at that time were ever put into the Association constitution, and the Limited Company constitution gives even less power to the members who own it.

 

As we all know, RAA is an interesting case where out of around 9,000 members, less than 500 vote, it has no monthly meetings, and there is a complex time scale and voting procedure just for a member to move a resolution.

 

I've suggested several times for members to sit down and read the Limited Company constitution, and see what they got, because that would be a good start to recognising whether there are issues or not, rather than wait to be beaten up issue by issue.

 

My reading of it tells me there's a lot of work to be done, but the scale is too big to be done in a forum.

 

And there are apparently bigger issues than the constitution anyway.

 

Don has mentioned (RAAus & ELAA post #71 18/10/16) "While it costs RAAus $1.8 million to do CASA's bidding, if CASA had to do it for themselves, it would cost more like $10 million."

 

No details, no references, just a throwaway line, but that is virtually the entire income of the Company at today's Member Subscription rate!

 

To me, that's way more urgent than making changes to a constitution right now.

 

 

[storchy neil]

Wonder if some that just want to fly and cant be bothered with politics of our organisation are going to take NOTICE turbs not likely

 

When if ra falls over Elaa will pick up the remenents that are there for the taking think about that Neil

 

 

[turboplanner]

The key issue in representing members by using a Limited Company is that everything has to be paid for and this ultimately means much higher fees.

 

Membership apathy will continue until the fees start to bite.