AlfaRomeo

I like Mark's approach of looking beyond whether you comply to whether that rule should exist at all. However, while it does exist you have to comply. If you don't like it - get it changed. But, until it is changed you must comply.

Mark, are you still in Canberra? Going to the Meeting on Saturday? Are you able to persuade as many as possible in Canberra to come on Saturday? We need to get the maximum attendance to show the Board that this is not all a big beat-up by a handful of malcontents with time on their hands and nothing better to do with it than grumble. And for any who can't come, perhaps you could persuade them to give you their proxy and come along and vote as you see fit based on what you learn at the Meeting? I could be wrong but I think you might have once run for the Board, Mark. We could use someone like you with your clear vision that can identify systems and processes that are not beneficial. Bruce, it must be the job of the Board once they've done the basic compliance things to be taking us forward based on our min regulation, min cost, max (safe) fun. We must start to challenge everything. We have annual registrations that are not needed because we have 100 hourly / annual inspections. We have annual renewal of Pilot Certs when we have bi-annual flight reviews. We need to cut down on the paperwork that serves no useful purpose like Aircraft Condition Reports that are not pink slips or safety/airworthiness checks. But, sadly, this Board doesn't seem to be able to get the basic compliance stuff right and then have to spend all their waking hours fixing the failures instead of lobbying for us to make real progress on the things that matter.

I could be wrong but I thought we got a half-year financial report last year with the Magazine? Or did it just go up on the website?

I'm not convinced you need to wait for the sanitised audit reports to be released - after 9 th Feb? You can work out what went wrong to a degree with some simple organisation theory. First audit report comes in and a quick review of the problem showed that there had been big mistakes being made in the Tech Mgrs area of responsibility for years. Action - Get a new Tech Mgr but no criticism of the CEO allowed. Next audit. Surely the new Tech Mgr can't be responsible? Would not have had time to get his feet under his desk. No criticism of the CEO allowed! Next audit . . . Bloody CASA moving the goal posts (yeah, sure). No criticism of the CEO allowed. Fourth failure . . . Sack the Tech Mgr, no criticism of the CEO allowed. Not the CEO's fault because the Tech Mgr is responsible to the Exec. The Exec are not at fault and no need to tell the members because it is all the members fault for not sending in the right paperwork. Pat the CEO on the back for a job well done as he slips out the back door as the crisis reaches a crescendo. Crisis? What crisis? We, the Board Exec, are rolling up our sleeves and fixing the problem. We are winning the battle. The piles (of the huge backlog) are, after only three months starting to go down (Really?) Could this be description of a fabulously functional organisation? My personal policy, when I moved on from one job to the next, was to sign a "mea culpa" with a 6 month "use by date". In other words I gave those who followed me 6 months in which they could blame me for everything that went wrong. After that they were on their own. Lee Ungermann and John Gardon are not responsible for this mess. Their successors have had more than three years to find and fix the problems. This Board had the problems pointed out to them by CASA and they failed four times to take the correct management action And are not managing the fix up in our lifetimes. Wait until they have to come clean on Feb 9 and see how big the backlog really is. Blaming Boards of yesteryear, when half of them were on those Boards is ludicrous. Blaming the members for poor RAA record-keeping systems is an affront to our intelligence. Keeping the members in the pitch dark until aircraft are grounded is insidious.

The above says a lot without going through all the documents in detail. The first report was received by RAA just before Christmas 2011 And distributed to all Board Members on 6 Jan 2012 But, until now, the Exec have kept the follow up reports to themselves. And the members didn't know there was a problem until aircraft registrations were declined. The follow ups were well spaced through the year. NO EXCUSE!!!

But in this case, it was the responsibility, in order, of Treasurer Reid, Executive Runciman, Middleton and Reid and then the whole Board, and, 404, as you say, none of them did it. Some 7 months after the end of the financial year, nobody in RAA has had a full set of audited accounts sent to them. They are as a Board wholly accountable for this breach of the Law, our Constitution and the Deed of Agreement with CASA. they will be held accountable by the members on 9th Feb and subsequently, by the ORS, by CASA and could even come to the attention of ASIC. Yet Runciman in his letter to the Editor of SportPilot said words to the effect of that we we're a bit late and we'll try to do better. They don't seem to accept that compliance with the LAW is not optional, it's a lot like landing - it is mandatory.

I think you need a phone number so you can ring the person and quiz them as to what they would do with your vote. There was a list of names and phone numbers posted earlier by Andy@coffs - you could start with that list.

A slight technical correction to the Board quorum issue. The Act requires a Committee (Board) of a minimum of 3 persons. The Constitution requires 7 Board members present for a quorum. RAA Board members McKeown, Birrell, Tatlock, will not resign and have no reason to resign on 9th Feb. Likewise Mike Smith and Cliff McCann have only been there since last September and are not realistically culpable for the current mess. Let's not dredge up this "what happens if they all go" again? It won't happen.

It is a full on General Meeting and every year there will be one. It is locked into the Constitution. with a bit more work, it could become the AGM.

Nobody has proposed kicking 13 Board Members out. There is no motion on notice to do that. Read the Notice of motion For the General Meeting! It gives the floor to the Board to account for their Stewardship of RAA. Then members can question the Board on what they have just told us - having kept us in the dark for at least the last 12 months. Then and only then will the members have the information to move motions to get RAA back onto a proper footing. If the Exec got turfed out that would still leave TEN Board Members to carry on. CASA will shut us down if we keep doing what this board have been doing for the last 12 months. Things must be done better. Some on this Board will tell you they have done no wrong and we should all get over our selves. We must find a Board who sees that things must be done in accordance with the Law, the Deed of Agreement of CASA and the RAA Constitution.

Of course that's a wise strategy Dodo and one we should all follow. The first item on the requisition for a General Meeting was intended to do exactly that - to hear from a Board who have been virtually silent on any meaningful information about anything. I think that if they had come clean instead of instructing the staff to lie to enquirers about the "computer glitch" and then pulling up the drawbridge and going into lockdown, they would have been given a lot of understanding and support. Instead they launched tirades of abuse like Gavin's "detractors" and "misinformation" and "tactics to undermine the Board" and set out to move a motion to stop any action being achieved on 9th February. I felt it was particularly galling to have been one of the 300+ who signed the requisition for a General Meeting and to then read that BS that Middo wrote about how the Board is really looking forward to the meeting "We welcome this opportunity". If it was such a good idea, why didn't the Board call it themselves? They only need 7 Board Members to agree not canvass for 300 ordinary members. And why did they want to defer the meeting until Easter? No doubt in the hope that the "huge backlog" would have been eliminated by then. By the time of the General Meeting in February, it will have been more than 3 months since CASA lost all confidence in the Executive, the CEO and the Technical Manager to get registrations right. This is not CASA's fault. No new Regulations have been introduced. All CASA asked for was compliance. Picky or not they are entitled to get it. If you don't like the rules ask for them to be changed. But until you get those changes, you have to COMPLY! Middo's letter, in my opinion, is a one-sided presentation of the Board's defence of their unconscionable conduct and an abuse of office. This should not surprise us because Middo did the same sort of thing on the Notice of Meeting, pooh-poohing the requisitioning of the Meeting and making out it was a big waste of time as he could answer the questions on the Notice of Meeting. And, can somebody explain to me how a Board Member can seek proxies so they can vote against a censure motion of themselves? How independent will that make the Chair of the Meeting when the Meeting has been called to question their awful performance? So, we've now had two lots of propaganda from the Board with no right of reply available to the 300 members who requisitioned the Meeting. Well done Board Executive. Let's see how you go when we do have the right of reply! Arthur B.

Of course all Board Members volunteer their time and Middo has volunteered more of his than anyone else in RA-Aus. My concern was that he was doing work which others could do but not doing the one thing that, as a member of the Executive we needed him to do. He can help to get us back in the air by doing the manual work himself or he can achieve a hell of a lot more by spending his valuable volunteer time as a manager getting many more people (than just 3) to help with the backlog. The problems with registrations was brought to the attention of Steve Runciman by CASA on 25th Novemebr 2011. If it wasn't broken then, it certainly was when CASA pulled the pin on 6 Nov 2012 after 4 audit failures in a year. We are almost at the 3 months mark since CASA acted and yet still we have a "huge backlog" according to Middo. Surely after one week you should have had a pretty good idea of what's broken and what resources you would need to get it fixed in a reasonable period of time? What has been lacking all along was good management not to get into this situation and then good management to get out of it in a reasonable period of time. And in our Association, that good management must come from the CEO and the Board Executive.

It is good to hear that Middo feels that they are making some progress. However, I'm having a little difficulty in putting together these two quotes from Middo: "This brings us to the present time. We have a huge backlog of registrations . . . " and: "A good week last week and the piles continue to diminish." If 95 registrations in a week is a "good week" then the best we can hope for is for this situation to go on indefinitely as there are about 100 registrations come up for renewal every week at this time of the year and as low as 80 a week in the slower months. Why can't Middo ever just tell us the plain facts? For example: The backlog at the beginning of this week stood at .. xxx ... aircraft. There were 95 registrations approved this week There were .. xxx ... registration renewal applications came in this week The backlog now stands at .. xxx ... Based on this rate of progress, we should have eliminated the backlog by ...../...... /201? Or will the facts only be revealed at the point of a cattle prod on 9th February? Why is it that, according to Middo, there are only three people in Australia who are capable of checking a rego file? And how is the form of this Board in seeking proxies from members for themselves because, let's be fair, all this wasn't their fault it was the faulty of the Boards of yesteryear!!! If that's not stretching credibility beyond breaking point I am no judge of how big a wopper has to be before you can say it is a downright lie. Fair enough though for the new Board Members Jim Tatlock and Mike Smith. But the rest of the Board have been there long enough to be up to their elbows in it. There is a strict prohibition under Privacy law for using members' addresses for personal political advantage. For example, under Privacy law, Board Members are not entitled to send out emails to all the members in their "electorate" to assist them to be re-elected (or to hang on to their Board seat). Election statements in the magazine are OK because it is a fair opportunity for all parties. In my view, the letter Middo has put on the RA-Aus website and probably included with the February edition of the magazine is yet another gross abuse of his position as Board Secretary and about as ethical as the propaganda he tacked on to the Notice of the General Meeting. Both of these things have been done with no right of reply for the 300+ members who democratically requisitioned the General Meeting. It just confirms my understanding that this Board just don't understand the concept of "Good Governance" or even good manners. Arthur B.

Very generous of you John. Unfortunately, the hour was not the reason for the incivility. This Board member is capable of that level of incivility at any hour based on personal experience. One could be forgiven for thinking Gavin is feeling the pressure and lashing out.

Lets try a couple of simple calcs. It takes about one hour on average to go through a file with a fine tooth comb. There are about 3,500 aircraft and every single file must be checked and signed off by CASA. We have had this problem of suspended registrations since 6 Nov 2012 - almost 3 months. The first question that comes to my mind is why do we still have a problem after all this time? If the right resources were assembled and applied, surely 3,500 manhours of work could have been done by now. Even though we had no CASA approved person available to pass regos for weeks, we could have had files being corrected while waiting for him to turn up. Since then we've had one fellow who is retired and comes to work when the spirit moves him, say 3 or 4 days a week, if we are lucky. At his age and stage, he's not into 12 hour days and who could blame him for that? We have an excellent resource in Dean Tompkins (an L4) putting in way above and beyond the call of duty. Without Dean we would be nowhere and have no prospects of getting out of this mess. What was needed on Nov 7, the day after CASA suspended registrations by RA-Aus, was for the Exec to come clean and tell the members "we have a problem". But, somebody instead thought it could be fixed in a week and ordered the staff to tell anyone who enquired that the delay on their rego was "a computer glitch". Lying to the members is badge of "honour" somebody in very high RA-Aus office must wear or have pinned on them. Seems it couldn't have been our illustrious former CEO because Runciman thanked him with high praise for his "tremendous effort, loyalty and devotion to duty displayed during his time in office." Could it have been Runciman, Middleton or Reid? I can't imagine it was Eugene as he flies a bit "hands off" as Treasurer and has not often been seen off the Apple Isle in recent months. I guess we might never know as I doubt any of them have the guts to come clean and apologise to the members for that one. From Nov 7, the day after CASA pulled the pin, the Board Exec needed to be measuring the size of the problem - they should have come to an answer like 3,500 manhours. So, let's keep the calcs coming. One experienced person who knows the Tech Manual backwards, can do at best about 40 effective manhours per 5 day week (50 hours at work less breaks and interruptions). New registrations, transfers and renewals come in at 15 to 20 per working day. With one good person on the job, you will go backwards very quickly. Say 40 files cleared in a week and up to 100 per week requiring attention. If you had 5 good people hard at it and well supported, you might get to 200 aircraft per week and in about 17 working weeks, you would have cleared every aircraft in RA-Aus's books. 17 weeks is of course a bit over 4 months. Would it be reasonable for this crap to drag on for 17 weeks? Not in my book! With the right management effort this issue could have been sorted by last Christmas. It would have been expensive but, believe me, stringing it out for many, many months is going to cost the members of RA-Aus a hell of a lot more. But wait, there's only one CASA approved person available to sign off. Is that OK? Can anything be done about that? Could we show CASA after the first 500 were done that we are on top of the issue and allow say 5 of the best RA-Aus people to sign off the regos? The Board haven't told anyone but I hear that they are attempting to supplement Norm Probert's efforts with RA-Aus people. I'm not suggesting that any of this is easy but I am saying a much bigger management effort was required and simply not done and it seems is still not being done. Rolling your sleeves up and getting stuck in may be admirable but it does not solve the problem in a reasonable time frame. The hard work that needed to be done involved applying management skills not processing aircraft files. And the whole time the members have had to live in a partial information vacuum surviving on titbits posted on the RA-Aus website. Nothing meaningful of course, just platitudes like "we're winning the battle". Alf.

The quorum for a General Meeting is 7 ordinary members.

Ian, I have overstepped the mark - my apology for that. Let me assure you, I had no intention to offend. It is without question your prerogative. Alf

bluespot (perhaps bs for short?) I don't understand how the factual situation described above could be compared to a bunch of superstitious, medieval, parochial characters intent on a bit of human pyromania. The people advocating change seem to me to have good reason to not want more of the same from the same people who have held the reins, in some cases, for more than 20 years. The old boys club on the Board may have done great things in the past but surely they have demonstrated in the last 12 months that they are just not capable of running a business the size of RA-Aus anywhere other than into the ground? biggles, if you're sick of all this imagine how sick of it the people are who've been trying for the last couple of years to get some professionalism into the way RA-Aus is run. There is no joy in this for anyone but if left to their own devices, all our aircraft could become hangar ornaments or almost worse still, CASA could get sick of being ignored 4 times a year and pull the pin and we'll all be catapulted into the wonderful environment known as GA (god awful?) . I agree it would be nice if this discussion didn't have to happen on RecFlying and RecFlying could get back to being the happy place it was 2 or 3 years back. Booting RA-Aus governance issues to an RA-Aus website and RecFlying going back to being the social, operational and technical place it was would be good for RecFlying. Alf

Interestingly, in his bid for election in 2011 Gavin Thobaven wrote in his election manifesto published in SportPilot: "I believe my experience in dealing with legal procedure and interpreting legislation would be of some benefit to the membership." Well, you need to know what State or Territory the Association is incorporated in, and what legislation applies and then you need to actually read the Act and the Regulations before you can interpret it. "I am well aware of the obligations for people sitting on Boards of Management." No doubt the ACT's Office of Regulatory Services will consider this statement when Thobaven pleads ignorance of his responsibilities under the Act and the Constitution - both of which he is a party to breaching. No leniency available to a learned Board Member like you Mr Thobaven! In the rest of his statement, there is a lot about Gavin and what a great bloke he is but almost nothing about what he would do if elected. Oddly enough, there was no statement along the lines that "While I am on the Board you must appreciate that I will be a volunteer and not accountable for anything as anything that goes wrong will be somebody else's fault." And Thobaven beat Ed Smith by 1 vote. I think Gavin might regret that narrowest of wins before the ORS is done with him. Alf

Deja Vu all over again

The model for communication both to and from the Board that appeals to me is in two parts. Firstly, for those comfortable with electronic media, a Members Only Forum. This could be very useful for Q&A sessions and feedback to the Board. The second string to the bow would be a multitude of regional committees that feed into State committees who then feed to and from the Board. Where a forum is fine for discussions the Committees could actually undertake the work of RA-Aus as Board or Management sub-committees. But the overriding element for the success of RA-Aus into the future is a competent, forward looking General Manager. If we get the right person in that role, the Board Member's work would be to attend FOUR Board Meetings per year with some preparation before and tidy up after. If we have a high powered GM, we need a high powered Board that the GM genuinely respects. The Board needs to be able to make sound judgements on the performance of the GM and act on that judgement.

John, We all realise that you are one of the very few who are active in trying to get this Board to respect the members by telling them what is going on and seeking for the Executive to do their jobs. However, there are some aspects of your perceptions about the job of a Board Member I'd like to make a contribution towards. As an ordinary member, I personally don't need representation at the Board level. What is it that I might need a Board Member to do for me? If I had a particular dispute with the Administration/Ops/Tech, I would raise the issue through the management hierarchy until I got satisfaction or referred my issue to the Board as a whole for them to determine. That would be a proper procedure. Haranguing one Board Member to sort out the staff for me is not a good management process. What I do want is to be able to renew my membership and aircraft registration easily, quickly and inexpensively. I want the Association to operate within the law and the Constitution. I want costs managed DOWN through smarter online systems and the close attention of management. I want CASA off our backs and comfortable that recreational aviation is being self-administered well. For those things we need intelligent, experienced members running our Association from the top down. For example, I want a Treasurer who really understands financial management, cost control and reporting. I want a Treasurer who can challenge the financial and accounting systems in the business that is RA-Aus not somebody who has to take the Accounts Clerks word for it. I want a Treasurer who can stand toe-to-toe with the external auditors on matters of Generally Accepted Accounting and Auditing Principles. I want a Treasurer who understands the law of contracts and can assess the prudence of the procurement processes used by the management. I want a Treasurer who can test the financial analysis reported by management to the Board and can advise the Board in layman's terms of the salient points. This is not a job for your average member. If that sounds a bit elitist - too bad - that is what we need but do not have. We have close to the opposite of that. I want a Secretary who has heard of and can read and understand the Associations Incorporation Act and ensure compliance. I want a Secretary who knows the difference between 13,000 and 9,000 members. I want a Secretary who has read and understands every word in the Constitution and has sufficient respect for it to ensure all Board Members and Management personnel comply with the letter and spirit of it. I want a President who has the ability to get the best out of the Board that has been elected. Somebody who understands more than command and control and can work in a collegiate fashion to draw ideas from his/her fellow Board Members. I want a President who keeps a continuous flow of information to the members on current important issues. Not one who likes to everything as "Board-in-Confidence". One who utilises 21st Century technology not just technology that's been around since the printing press was invented in the 15th Century. And I don't give a flying phark what their postcode is as long as they are Australian residents. We have National Aviation Laws - why on earth does it matter which state you reside in? A pilot certificate is exactly the same in Tasmania as it is in the NT. And what makes anyone think that less than "one vote one value" can be called democratic? If somebody in Australia didn't tell you where they lived could anyone guess from the way they look, dress, speak or walk? All of the assets of RA-Aus are based where the head (and only) office is. The head office should be located in the centre of Australia based on population densities. It should be cheap to get to and RA-Aus friendly. Canberra is none of those things. So, Members Representative or Management and Governance Committee member? When was the last time a Members Representative acted like a Management and Governance Committee member and insisted on compliance with CASA Safety Directives, the Act and the Constitution and took positive and firm action against Members Representatives that don't? I know which will serve my interests and the interests of all RA-Aus Members best - an experienced senior manager not just a popular flyer in these critical roles.

A year's worth of giving grief to CASA so that RA-Aus loses the right to register aircraft does warrant some shaking up. So does not providing the members at the AGM their legal right to have a gander at the Financials. So does not providing the minutes of the AGM on time. So does the Board circumventing the Constitution and appointing an ordinary member to the Board without an election process . . . . I could go on. If we got the slightest indication that the Board Exec in particular appreciated the error of their ways or the amount of damage that they have done to RA-Aus's reputation, or they actually apologised to the members for their unbelievably disastrous performance, then the shaking could indeed be very gentle. But, this mob simply do not get it! Having dropped RA-Aus into the deepest hole in in its history, their response is to put up the barricades and tell the members as little as possible, vilifiy anyone who asks questions with the ironic insult of "uninformed", delay facing the members as long as they dare and just tough it out. How do they approach solving the crisis of aircraft grounded because of their ineptness? They have one part time person authorising registrations at a rate that is slower than registration renewals come due. Send the staff on holidays over Christmas/New Year and don't put out a call to every L2, L3 and L4 in RA-Aus to see if they can come to Canberra and assist with the fix. One Board Member rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck in to the paperwork when what we needed him to do was to manage the fix. How do you change the attitudes of people who have been Board Members or employed at RA-Aus for over 10 years? People like David Caban, Paul Middleton, Myles Breitkreutz, Paul Middleton or Eugene Reid? Perhaps they have done enough and it's time for them to find something else to do? When has the Board Exec really given us the facts on the situation with groundings? They give us platitudes like "We are winning the battle" when what we want is the facts so we can judge how it is going. They could have told us something along the lines of . . . at the Beginning of December, we had 425 aircraft (not real number - how would we know what that was?) with registrations past due date and that during the month of December, a further 400 aircraft registrations became due and in December, 175 registrations were approved. That would mean there were 650 aircraft grounded at the end of December, an increase in of 225. While these numbers are made up for the example they could be close to the facts. While January should show an improvement, I seriously doubt that they have made a significant impact on the number of aircraft on the ground. Catching up is not enough. What they need to be is ahead of the game. The files of all aircraft due for registration in February should have been checked off and any deficiencies reported to the owners before the renewal becomes due. But, do you think this Board Exec understands that? Or is doing anything about it, like committing the level of resources needed? Yes, they are volunteers but that does not put them beyond criticism when they are not doing the job required and the under-performance goes on over 12 months with no end in sight.

In my view, there seem to be two broad reasons for the current members on the Board to be there. They have a genuine interest in using their experience and expertise in governance and management to the benefit of all members of RA-Aus. And, there are some who get a real kick out of the status they feel being a "Board Member" brings to their life. In a happy circumstance, some Board Members combine both these reasons for being on the Board. In the most unhappy examples it is just the power and the glory. There is one more that perhaps should be added to the list and that is the owner/operators of recreational aviation businesses who value the intelligence (information) that being a Board Member gives them and the ability to influence matters that can affect them. While they should respect the conflict of interest and stand aside in such circumstances examples of when this has happened are so rare that you would be going to find even 5 examples in the last 10 years. At the moment the only basic qualifications you need to be a Board Member are two numbers - a membership number and a Post Code. Those qualifications do nothing to guarantee the level of management and governance capability needed by a business the size of RA-Aus. Personally, I'm not in favour of remunerating Board Members for two reasons. Firstly, I don't want to see a fourth reason to get on the Board to be that it is a "nice little earner" and secondly, if you are remunerated as a Board Member your financial liability for even simple mistakes can become very onerous. There is not enough money available for Board Members to compensate for that level of personal risk. Board Members can be and are remunerated for all reasonable out-of-pocket expenses. How we might compensate a Board Member for lost income or, e.g., annual leave foregone, is a very difficult issue.

True but it seems to have been easy enough for the Middo/Runciman combination. Not sure which one is Batman and which one boy wonder. Aggression and secrecy are potent weapons.