David Isaac

....... So we are no longer a sporting association but now a limited company with paid directors. The change in the structure of the board means that never again will a fellow Territorian sit at the board table and input into decisions: Even if he has PhD in aeronautical engineering and a string of business degrees!Realistically, the board will now be dominated 'skills-based' Canberrans who are part of the inner clique, and if positions are salaried, it will change the altruism of serving the organisation, and the competition for positions. Vested interests will doubtless become yet more vested, now that money is involved.

The directors are NOT paid and can never be paid unless a resolution by the members agrees.

The statement that "The change in the structure of the board means that never again will a fellow Territorian sit at the board table and input into decisions: Even if he has PhD in aeronautical engineering and a string of business degrees!" completely lacks integrity because anyone can stand for the Board even if certain characteristics may be desirable, ultimately you and I as members decide who we vote on the Board; not the sitting board.

It is difficult to understand what would motivate you to suggest that ..."...the board will now be dominated 'skills-based' Canberrans who are part of the inner clique, and if positions are salaried, it will change the altruism of serving the organisation, and the competition for positions. Vested interests will doubtless become yet more vested, now that money is involved". When the information you base this statement on is just simply NOT correct.

We the members decide where our organization goes, we can either be a part of the bitchy problem or get off our negative asses and do something positive to ensure we maintain our right to fly. Yes right ... unless we are so involved in bitching, it is taken from us by the one and only organisation who I am absolutely convinced doesn't want us flying. CASA.

There was some discussion on the latest emailed newsletter from RAAus that some joint discussions are in progress between RAAus and SAAA. Hopefully that will be fruitful.

SAAA used to run some great educational events on the various aspects of aircraft building and maintenance at what was once called AusFly.

Camp David could be a reference point .....

Your quite right David it is just a simple (old mug storch driver opinion) ONLY, but i have to disagree in that the differance between the two alloys or ferrous casts is that simple. And, to add a little lightness to it,it,s quite possible that the theory behind an aluminium cricket bat is very sound engineering but they did'nt work out in practice due possibly to too much resonance as well. Cheers Hargraves

Does that include the distillery? Can I book a patch of verandah?

Haven't heard of this one can anyone enlighten me please?Phil.

7th, 8th, & 9th October.

An annual event put on by the SAAA and now shared with RAAus as of last year. A great event and a great location. Usually good weather because it is west of the divide.

weight ... weight ... weight and weight. Jabiru have had a serious weight advantage but at what appears great cost.

Lycoming and Continental in particular are not as constrained by the weight issues that RAA aircraft are and they have the advantages of $MMs in investments and research in engine design and decades of experience that Jabiru don't.

So Jabiru have to learn the hard way when they depart from aeroengine conventions I guess.

Sounds like a simple analysis, but I think we all agree it is far from that.

Ausfly Narromine ...

Yep Derek, I'll be there setting up Camp David ... LOL as we did last year. Hope to get there a day ahead this time.

Major thread drift, but relevant. I'm currently writing a POH for my home-built Jodel and I need help with the section on "In case of fire..."So far I have: Shut off fuel, close cowl flaps (to cut off airflow) and flood engine bay with fire extinguisher.

Perhaps David, with your unique qualifications you could venture some suggestions. I've read of pilots who have dived to pick up airspeed to "blow out" an engine bay fire. Aside from VNE considerations, is this tactic worth considering?

Kill the 'Master' electrical switch as well Lyle. If you don't have one fit one and make sure it disconnects the alternator as well or modify the alternator and kill the excitation circuit which will kill the alternator output. Electrical fires are likely and the Master switch is an essential safety device.

If you have an engine extinguisher make sure the engine compartment is sealed (cowl flaps closed) and Fuel and electrics 'off' before you dump it. Remember dilution of extinguishing agents ocurrs rapidly at speed; you will need a large amount well dispersed around the engine. Use it wisely. It may be your first defense, but I wouldn't hang my hat on it working unless the design is good.

A dive with the cowl flaps open and fuel and electrics off may work to extinguish the fire as a last resort. A rapid side slipping decent even past Vne would be my choice if the fire was established; side slipping will tend to keep the heat off the fire wall. If there is no fuel or power it seems reasonable that you could have a good chance of getting it out. In any case there will be little left of the aircraft if the fire is established at altitude so Vne wouldn't rate too much unless I got the fire out then I would care about speed.

Then you have to find a suitable landing spot ....

Just some loose thoughts on the matter. No one really knows what would happen other than it would be a very unpleasant experience.

The RAA article unfortunately confused the two type of Li batts. They called a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery a Lithium ION Phosphate. Pity, that is one article that should have been technically correct.

Year well maybe David. The day that the government puts the rights of the shareholders/members in front of the rights of the banks, big 4 accounting and audit firms, the offshore owners and the receivership industry will be the day that hell freezes over (have you checked global warming lately?)

Two things there Don is pushing his yes vote...The other RAAus is a member based organisation.. What do the members want, not the board.

KP

RAAus is a member based organisation whether it is an incorporated association or a company Ltd by guarantee. The members have the same rights and the directors of both are also members.

I don't get your point ... In fact I would argue that members rights are better protected in a company Ltd by guarantee because company boards are accountable to the Corporations Act and Regulations. Members can therefore have a little more clout if it turns pear shaped.

Cant argue with that Tubz. I am sure we all want what you would like to see.

Because David, it is very simple...if you have 5 directors it only takes 3 to pass a motion, a real nice little clique group of three to run the entire RAAus and to change that will force the members to jump through hoops at great cost

I understand your concern, but where do we stop and have some measure of confidence in who we ALL (under the new constitution) vote in as directors.

Yes, but instead of doing it right now you have decided to not listen to the members and make them have to force a general meeting with 100 signatures and ensure it gets 75% of the vote...how much time and money is that going to cost RAAus not to mention the members own pockets due to you not asking them now. You people are wasting our money in all this as this will go on for years...you are destroying our beloved RAAus

ANY member (with a seconder) can put a special resolution to the Board and the Board is required to put that special resolution to a member vote at the next general meeting called by the directors. They have no choice, all it takes is two members and a good argument.

There is NO 'extreme force' involved.

VOTE NO so the members can do this properly and have the right to have the number of board members that they want and not be told by just 3 people how many board members those 3 want

I am having difficulty understanding your issue with the above statement.

3 directors do NOT decide how many directors there will be. The 3 hold office in a caretaker mode and MUST call an election to take the board to a minimum of 5 before the end of the year. They can do that by calling a general meeting or an Anual General Meeting. But they MUST call an election.

So the only directors who can call an increase over 5 after the interim election are those 5 (or 6 if they chose 6) after the election and they are limited to a max of 7 under the new constitution; additionally the members can increase the directors to any number they see fit by special resolution at any time.

I just don't see an issue, personally I am happy with either 5 or 7; there is a argument to support 7 in preference and an argument that 5 is sufficient.

I must express my considerable disappoint with this email from Rod. The Board has been working on this particular proposal since early in 2015. In that time it has been discussed and approved by the Board without objection from any Board Member. The last occasion when the Board met face-to-face, the consultation draft that was to be presented to the information session at the conclusion of the AGM was presented to the full Board and again, there was no dissent. The information session at Bundaberg was broadcast over the net and was available for virtually every member who wanted to to participate in the discussion on the day or subsequently at their own convenience.It is true of course that some important aspects including the Members' Charter had not been drafted by that time but the requirement for a Members' Charter was concreted into the draft Constitution.

 

To publish these concerns, at this late stage, after the period when changes could be made before the vote, and without ever recording these concerns with the Board, raises serious concerns about the bona fides of this approach. That there are significant errors in the document that a Board Member of Rod's very long service should not have made, is concerning. To publish such inaccurate comments neglecting to check your "facts" smacks of ordinary negligence and demonstrates a sub-standard understanding of either the current or proposed constitutions. A cynical person could be forgiven for thinking that the mass of errors were not mistakes but intended to mislead. Intended or not, until the true facts are known by members who received Rod's email, members are being misled. Rod is recommending to members to vote "no" based on things that are demonstrated below to be factually inaccurate.

 

To publish a document that had not been seen by any Board member other than the author has resulted in numerous misleading statements being made that could easily have been corrected before it was sent out.

 

Rod, you can not make out that you had no part in this document. It was drafted on your watch and presented to all on the Board in face-to-face meetings and via the Board Forum with no adverse comment from yourself.

 

 

If this is the case why did you leave it this late to raise these issues? Would it not have been better to have had the discussion within the Boardroom and then present a document to the members that you could fully support and that was error free? I've only been on the Board since the lead up to the October 2015 AGM but I have never seen any concern of yours in relation to the reform proposals.

 

As you certainly know Rod, there is no possibility of "adverse rules being introduced without RAAus member approval." You know that to introduce any rule into the current constitution or the proposed reformed constitution Acts of Parliament (not constitutions) require that 21 days' notice of a proposal to move a motion for a Special Resolution is required to be given to members and that for the motion to be passed, at least 75% of the members (present or by proxy) voting in General Meeting must approve the motion for it to be adopted by RAAus. You even mention this requirement below when arguing against the 75% pass mark. So if you knew that, why make the misleading statement here?

 

Regional Representation can actually be a disadvantage. For example in a less populous region, at best voters get to vote only once every two years and only for 1 of the 13 Board Members. If there is only one candidate they don't get to vote at all. Under the proposed reform, members in a all regions get to vote for all candidates and with only 5 to 7 on the Board, it is highly unlikely that anyone would get elected unopposed as happens very frequently now. As aviation law and regulation is national not regional, and communication costs are a fraction of what they were when the current RAAus constitution was written, there is no great need for regional representatives. It is very easy to just pick up the phone and speak to whoever in RAAus you need to speak to.

 

This I suggestion is a distortion of what will actually happen. If the Board is to be reduced to a sensible number, and having as many Board Members as employed staff is not a sensible number, not all of the 13 current Board members can be members of the new Board.

 

Currently, for all but a few of days per year, RAAus is run by the Board Executive of President, Secretary and Treasurer. The people who occupy these positions (not necessarily the people who hold them now) will be the initial Directors who sign the paperwork to facilitate the move from one form of incorporation to another. That is just practical. Next, as soon as is practical after RAAus has settled into its new form of incorporation, the initial Directors must call an election to build the number on the Board from 3 to a max of 7. If RAAus operates in its new form of incorporation from say, 1 July 2016, then notice of elections, calling for candidates and conducting votes and counting can proceed virtually immediately. In any case the initial Directors are obliged to run the election as soon as is practical. As you know the process of calling elections through to seating the people elected takes several months under the current constitution. It will not take any more or any less time under the reformed constitution.

 

With 5 to 7 Directors and modern communications, there will be no need for a Board Executive and no mention of one in the reformed constitution. Whereas now RAAus is governed by 3 Directors (the Exec) under the reformed Constitution it will be governed by 5 to 7 Directors . . . all year round. There will be more Directors in oversight with 7 on the Board than there was with 13 on the Board.

 

This appears to be a deliberate distortion as well. Rod appears to be mixing the transition arrangements with the ongoing arrangements to make out there will be fewer General Meetings each year and the right of ordinary members to attend Board Meetings halved. Rod would know that I signed the Special Resolution that created the obligation for the RAAus Board to have an additional General Meeting each year approx 6 months after the AGM. Exactly the same provisions that are in the current constitution carry over to the reformed constitution. RAAus Ltd can't have an Annual General Meeting until it has been operating for at least, guess what? One year! This appears to me to be a quite cynical attempt to make something look worse than it is.

 

Perhaps Rod, you should have a read of Cl44.2 of the reform constitution which requires the Board to meet face-to-face twice per year. There is no reduction in the number of Board Meetings members can attend. Accident or deliberate misleading?

 

Either Rod has not read the reformed constitution or is making a statement deliberately intended to mislead. The reform constitution does make a provision for Board members to be paid fees for Board Meetings however, no fee can be paid unless it has first been approved by the members in a General Meeting. Directors, initial or otherwise cannot, as Rod falsely suggests, be "a self nominated executive moving to paid positions with no accountability in terms of an election until October 2017". I'm having great difficulty to see that this misleading statement is not intended.

 

This presupposes that Directors will ask to be paid fees and that the Members will agree to pay fees. There is nothing, as Rod knows full well, automatic about Directors receiving fees. Rod now seems to be arguing that we should stick with 13 on the Board which I have not heard anyone else endorse except one Board Member who might not be elected in a tighter poll.

 

If it is unfair that only natural persons can vote, then it was unfair under the current constitution. Perhaps Rod is just worrying that he could have three votes, one as a member, one as an importer and one as a FTF operator? Not going to happen Rod. You'll only get one vote like you get now. Perhaps if Rod was serious about good governance he should have declared his vested interests as an importer and FTF operator?

 

Perhaps Rod has forgotten about the requirements that Part 149 places on an organisation like RAAus to have a disciplinary procedure? Part 149 has not been enacted yet but it has been promised by CASA for 2016 and RAAus needs to be compliant. The release of the draft Dispute Procedure has been delayed until it is thoroughly vetted to ensure it fits RAAus culture and is acceptable under Part 149. "Disputes Procedure" rather than Disciplinary Procedure because all issues in this area start as disputes but not all finish with disciplinary action being taken.

 

Firstly, we don't need to call a General Meeting to move a Special or Ordinary Resolution. Any member may move such resolutions and they only require a seconder for them to be put to the members for a vote.

 

Secondly, it was a Special Resolution moved by myself that had the minimum number for an ordinary member to call a General Meeting from approximately 500 members to 100 members. It was this SR that facilitated calling the GM at Queanbeyan in 2013. The provision in the reform constitution is exactly the same as in the current constitution. Odd that if Rod was familiar with both the current and proposed constitutions he would have known that and wouldn't have written what he has here. Perhaps he isn't all that familiar with the two constitutions just nervous about possibly losing his seat?

 

Oh dear, looks like Rod hasn't read the Associated Incorporations Act or the Corporations Act. Can't blame him for that, they are not what you would call "page-turners". I once tried to change the 75% down to two-thirds but had to rip up the Special resolution because I discovered that the 75% is set by the Act and nothing in a Constitution can go against the provision in the Act. To save you diving for copies of the Corporations Act, I can tell you it requires a 75% pass mark as well. Another fail because Rod has been quoting problems that don't exist and solutions that are not necessary because the problem does not exist.

 

Incidentally, about 20 Special Resolutions that I proposed over a couple of years received the 75% pass mark from the members. It seriously isn't that hard if you are proposing something that the members agree is sensible.

 

So, you are being asked to delay the reform process on a series of false premises as demonstrated above.

 

Perhaps now you can see why I get a little tetchy when people who should know better knock the reform on the basis of a considerable number of misleading statements.

 

Rod, will you now send out another email to all the people you have misled and correct the errors that have been shown to exist in your mail out? Or are you happy to leave them relying on your misleading statements?

As I said in an earlier post I would ring the Preso to discuss this and we have had a preliminary email exchange. I was disappointed to learn that it is alleged that Rod had supported all the board resolutions on the new constitution right up to the final draft and now is promoting a NO vote based on untruthful information at a level that indicates a complete lack of understanding in a number of areas.

I have great difficulty with this kind of behaviour from an elected individual.

Perhaps Rod may like to provide an explanation on here as to what is really going on ... Why he supported all the board resolutions and now after the 21 day notice period is gone is standing against a decision he voted to accept as a board member.

I don't have a problem with a dissenting view as long as that dissenting view is known at board level, however, to support reform remaining silent at board level and to then without further consultation torpedo the process, is irresponsible and unprofessional and certainly not what I would expect from someone I elected.

Maybe there is an obscure reason ... Let us here it Rod; otherwise I allege that what you have posted is mischievous and irresponsible.

.......... but it still doesn't make any sense for me for the Board to derive a strategy for reform and then argue against it.

I get it right most times however like most mortals I do not always succeed. On the voting numbers (minimum) required to call a General Meeting in the current RAAus Constitution proposal it is quoted as....General meetings of Members

 

18.2 If at least one hundred (100) Members or 5% of the membership, whichever is the

 

lower, make a written request to the Company for a general meeting to be held....

 

With a membership of 8000+ a 5% membership would require a 400+ member petition, or the lower number of 100 as was quoted.

Don, myself and a number of others drafted the resolution that saw that clause accepted, it was because of that resolution we were able to call the general meeting at Queanbeyan in 2012.

The new constitution is the same and rightly so. BUT THE MEMBERS DO NOT NEED to call a general meeting to put a resolution for constitutional change. So you don't need 100 members to make a change, you are misleading the members in implying so.

Any member can put up a special resolution for change and it must be put to all the members in accordance with the constitution at the next general meeting called by the Board.

Did you raise any of these matters with the Board at the time these matters were discussed?

There are a couple of other matters I consider you are incorrect on but I don't have time tonight to respond, I have to catch a 6-00am flight to Lala land ... LOL

There are a number of incorrect statements about the constitution in Rod's statements, but in fairness to him I suggest he was referring to earlier versions.

For example it does not take 100 members to put up a special resolution and force the board to call a meeting. There are a couple of others, like where he states the Board will be paid; that cannot happen unless by resolution of the members. But Rod's point is valid, there is a reasonable argument to get it right before we vote on it.

The more this goes on the better it may be for the Board to cancel the 14 May meeting and enter into more consultation so the resolution can be reput to the AGM. It would actually save some money, it would no longer need a special meeting just for the resolution. We have an AGM every year.

I need to talk to the Preso and see what the general feeling is.

OK - I am stopping all posts on this website until further notice.Today - after a 16 month battle with RAAus tech on the registration markings display on my 95.10 trike - RAAus president writes to me cancelling my aircrafts registration and saying it has to be re-registered under 95.32 because I was wrong on the Tech Manual requirements because apparently RAAus has no power to register 95.10 trikes ... despite having registered trikes under 95.10 since 1988!!

 

This feels like a complete piss take and close to persecution - where the f&&& to they get off redefining the RAAus power to register to cancel my aircraft reg - and they do not even provide any LEGAL ADVICE setting out why they come to this conclusion.

 

So until tomorrow when I can find out what the hell they are up to I am signing off because I FEEL that my posts on here are influencing operations of RAAus to me as a member.

I don't countenance that concept for a singe minute. The Board is way more professional than that and the very thing they stood against when they took office.

There will be legitimate CASA induced technicality for sure.

Chin up buddy, keep talking and get on to the RAA and sort the issue with them.

David, I remember after all this that a list of things that potential Board members had to comply with was released and one of them to sign a confidentiality agreement. Now I can't put my hands on it right now, I am trying to work albeit from home due to my severe cold, but I recall it wasn't all that different and I remember it still prohibits board members from discussing with members what happens at a board meeting unless it is formally released by RAAus...I could be wrong

BUT, it no longer exists in that form thanks to Don, so no longer applies and will NOT apply to the new corporate structure.

Is this written into the proposed constitution or is it an assumption?not an assumption as ian was very up set that when he was on the board he had to sign that order and was bitterly opposed to it to not sign it ment he heard nothing in camera or not

so now since 2010 6 bloody years later going down the same path thanks ian neil

Don Ramsey was the one who called the Board to account and had it properly changed as one of the first 'new blood' directors.

..... With a smaller board, which I agree on, it will be even harder as a smaller buddy group can be formed

Since Don also admitted signing this gag order, it appears to be fact.

I think you will find Don signed an agreement to maintain those things that had a quality of confidence as confidential, quite reasonable, but I would argue unnecessary. Directors have a duty to maintain 'confidentiality'. He didn't sign a 'Gag order'.

Don, please clarify.