DWF

Could the aircraft's registration have anything to do with it? 7700

It was probably VH-RLP a 1963 Cessna 210-5. In the pic on TV it had 6 cylinder engine, struts, retractable U/C.

Has anyone tried to invoke Rule 36 of our Association? "36. Inspection of books. The records, books and other documents of the Association shall be open to inspection at a place in the ACT, free of charge, by a Member of the Association on request at any reasonable hour." It seems to me that this entitles any member to arrange to visit the RAAus office and have a look at the documents from CASA relating to the audit (or any other document). It may be worth a try. Stone walling or rejection of the request would be another indication of the position of the Board. In fact it probably is not even a Board decision to provide access - it is in the constitution and so the staff member who has custody of (a copy of) the document is required to make it "open to inspection at a place in the ACT, free of charge, by a Member of the Association on request at any reasonable hour." DWF

David I, for one, have not seen the questions you put to the Board at the AGM or the answers you received from the Board/Executive. Would you be willing to share them with me/us? David

..... About 5 hours of other vital discussion about the performance of the Board, the wishes of the Membership and the need for communication between our Board and the membership (as well as the "unthinking, unenlightened and uninformed minority with personal issues to pursue") as Board Member Apps described us all. Yiikes! A 5+ hour General Meeting By the end of that you will have a hunkered down Board with all the barricades up; tired, frustrated members whose humor is somewhat tested and who are likely to undertake an ill advised (in the cold light of day) action. I suspect if the meeting unfolds like that it will end in tears.

Do we have any replacement monkeys?

I think a series of questions should be compiled and sent to every Board member requesting a response by (say) Friday 1st Feb. The questions should avoid personal references and emotive language. This will: 1. Give the Board the opportunity to research and respond fully to the questions. 2. Not give the Board the "can't remember" or "Take it on notice" excuse. 3. If the Board responds appropriately - gives the members a chance to carefully consider the responses before the meeting and to accept them or ask for clarification. 4. If the Board responds appropriately - it should save a lot of time at the GM as many of the questions should have already been answered. 5. If the Board does NOT respond appropriately it indicates an unwillingness or inability to deal with the problems and so gives members the grounds to take further action at the GM. 6. Provide an opportunity for members to prepare motions to be put to the meeting which can be notified to members who cannot attend the meeting who can then vote by proxy knowing what they are voting on. On reflection, I think that calling the General Meeting was necessary as it acted as a "Heads Up" for members and the Board that some members at least think there are problems within the Association and would like some answers (and something done about the 'problems'). If sensible questions are put to the Board and an appropriate response is received the GM could be a non-event. [i am not confident that this will happen.] I hope it does not degenerate into a name-calling match! What would you like the outcome of the GM to be? David

This is the second half of my letter to the WA Board member: Comments on the RA-Aus Board and proposed General Meeting The stated purpose of the General Meeting called for 9 Feb 2013 is to have: 1. An account of their stewardship of the Association be given to members by the Board Executive and the Board Members. 2. The Board to inform members a. How the current state of affairs was arrived at; b. How it plans to ensure RA-Aus is never again so challenged. 3. Questions from the floor put to the Board Executive and the Board Members. 4. Motions from the floor to be considered, debated and voted on. I voted for the amendments to the Constitution which facilitated the calling of the General Meeting in February; however I am very disappointed with the stated purposes of the meeting. Most of the members of the Association will be unable to attend the meeting due primarily to the tyranny of distance and cost. Stated purpose 4 is "to consider, debate and vote on motions from the floor". Those not at the meeting are denied the opportunity to do this as there are currently not motions proposed and so we cannot vote on it/them even by proxy (unless you are prepared to give carte blanche to someone in the hope that they will vote in the way you would wish). It appears to me that the main purpose of the meeting is to provide an opportunity for those with an axe to grind to harangue the current Board. This has already been done to a large extent at the AGM and through letters in the Sport Pilot magazine, etc. I think that the General Meeting as currently proposed is unnecessary and will not achieve anything positive. It will be counterproductive by distracting Board members from the pressing tasks of sorting out the current problems, possibly prompting more Board resignations ("I don't need this aggravation.") and discouraging other suitable candidates from aspiring to Board membership. The Board needs to · Take decisive action now to sort out the problems of the Association; · Appoint a new CEO asap - the prime consideration should be to get a manager who can get things done; · Explain to members as fully as possible what problems and issues are currently besetting the Association (without compromising RAAus business); · Detail how it plans to resolve these problems and issues; (These two items are the same as purpose 1 and 2 of the General Meeting but they need to go to all members, not just those who can attend the meeting. The Board can provide a better response to these items by doing so in writing. The President's response in his letter in the last Sport Pilot was inadequate.) · Prepare a Strategic Plan for the Association covering the next 5-10 years; · Review the Constitution including member consultation; · Publish the draft Ops Manual for member comment then finalise and issue asap; · Review and update the Technical Manual. (This is obviously not an exhaustive list but includes the items that are most pressing.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first two stated reasons for calling the meeting are very open ended and probably deserve the response they got from the President. What would have helped the debate considerably (and maybe it is not too late to do so now) is to ask for written answers to specific (written) questions about matters concerning members. I have not yet seen on this forum any questions that forum participants propose to put to the Board. Perhaps we should start a new thread "Questions to be put to the RAA Board at 9th Feb General Meeting." I'll start off with a couple: During the routine audit conducted in mmm yyyy CASA identified a number of deficiencies in aircraft registration records. 1. What were these deficiencies? 2. When did the Board first become aware of these deficiencies? 3. Was RAAus given a time by which these deficiencies must be rectified? If so, when was that time? 4. What action did the board take to ensure the deficiencies were rectified? 5. This action did not rectify the deficiencies in time. Why? etc, etc, etc I am sure that you must have a lot more questions on this and other issues. It would be much better to have answers to them before the GM to save a lot of time at the meeting and so we, the members unable to attend the meeting, would be much better informed on the issues, have a better idea of the motions likely to be put at the meeting and be more comfortable that our proxy would vote according to our wishes. Regards David

This is the first half of a letter I sent to the WA board member (before I started reading this forum). My views remain largely unchanged. Comments on the RA-Aus Board and proposed General Meeting It has become apparent that the operations of RA-Aus have been dysfunctional for some time with the resignation of two Technical Managers, an Ops Manager (some little time ago) and now the CEO plus the aircraft registration debacle, insurance issues, legal challenges, and delays in updating the constitution, Ops Manual and Technical Manual. No doubt there are other issues of which I, and many other members, am not aware. The Board has been elected by the members (shareholders) to:* formulate policy; * set the budget and strategic direction of the Association; * provide instructions and direction to staff to implement these policies and strategies; * ensure that these policies and instructions are implemented appropriately; * exercise good governance to ensure that: §the objectives of the Association are attained; §the obligations of the Associations are met; and §the Association complies with all applicable rules.(This is probably not a complete list of the duties of the Board but gives an indication of the types of things with which the Board should be dealing. The Board should NOT have to deal with the day to day management and operation of Association business.) Board members are volunteers who give freely of their time and expertise to guide the operations of our Association. Many of the current Board members have only recently been elected and so have inherited most of the problems currently besetting the organisation. There seems to be little point in trying to apportion blame for the problems RAAus is facing as many of those involved are no longer on the Board or staff. What the current Board needs to do is:1 Keep members better informed, 2 Acknowledge the problems currently besetting the Association, 3 Take decisive action to put things back on track; and4 Develop and implement a Strategic Plan to give the Association a future direction (and communicate this to all stakeholders). The CEO and other staff are employed by the Association, through the Board, to implement Board policy and directives and conduct the day to day business of the Association. This is an area that appears to have received insufficient Board attention/supervision in the past.

Actually, in WA at least, it is a right to copy and take away the names and addresses - so that concerned members can contact other members to share their concerns. It is supposed to work for ALL members no matter what their concer is.

I believe that there are some misconceptions out there regarding access to the Association's membership list. [i take no sides here but merely point out that the ability of a member to access the membership list and use it to contact members is REQUIRED under the Acts.] The ACT [clause 67] and WA [clause 27] Association Incorporation Acts (and probably those of other states) state that the Association must maintain an up to date register of the name and address of each member and that each member must have access to inspect and copy them. A good explanation of the reason for this is at: http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/associationsguide/Content/05_Records/5.2_Members_access_to_the_rec.htm The ACT Act is at http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/1991-46/current/pdf/1991-46.pdf The WA Act is at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2012Q00007

Greetings Fellow Aviators I have been flying for quite a while now. Formerly ATC and GA instructor. Now CFI of Espeance Aero Academy. We are a bit off the beaten track down here and have joined the forum to try to get a handle on what is happening at RAAus. Safe an Happy flying.