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shags_j

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Posts posted by shags_j

    Life Insurance exclusions

    in AUS/NZ General Discussion

    Posted

    Look for group life insurance that may be in your superfund. Group life will come with little or no exclusions. For personalised insurance you can either expect exclusions for flying or paying a lot in premiums.

     

    EDIT: There are downsides to group life as well (ie. may have limited benefits etc). Check the PDS for more information.

     

     

    Presidents Report from this months Sports Pilot

    in Governing Bodies

    Posted

    Yes I believe it matters. We as a group should reasonably expect economies of scale..as our member base grows the efforts of providing that one additional member the services he needs should incrementally decrease. Equally the reverse applies as members drop off the costs for the remaining members increase as they are recovered from a smaller number. Currently costs >> Revenue so we don't want Revenue to decrease, rather ideally we want it to grow. Its a reasonable point that we are a NFP org and you are right there are no paid up shareholders who expect their pound of flesh, however the members are in effect shareholders and if we can do more for less then as a member shareholder that has got to be a good thing isn't it? Cost is of itself a restrictor, and if you are looking for the least restrictive way then that would, to me, equate among others to the least costly way....

    Andy

    But we made a profit in the past didn't we with less members at lower membership fees? Have our costs increased proportionally greater than our membership base profit? If so why? Are the increased costs necessary? Maybe and hopefully all questions that the board are addressing. I deleted the accounting side of my brain when I switched careers 3 years ago and really don't want to activate it again but surely we don't need to continually increase membership to reduce member fees (i do understand economies of scale, I have a degree in accounting and coy law).

     

    All food for thought. I went to an AGM not so long ago (the one at YJCW) and wasn't impressed with the accounts supplied there. The notes (which weren't presented at the meeting and the treasurer gave a strange expression when they were requested by a member) seem to be just the stock standard printout from sol 6 (or myob ae, handiledger, whichever software they use). Also are they audited by one of the big 4 or appropriately big firm? Due to a long association with audited accounts (I was head of SMSF in a mid tier firm) I don't hold much stock in "independently" audited account.

     

    Something that is not addressed in the accounts each year is a treasurers report explaining things in detail. Not just a "look we have more revenue than last year... Yay!" kind of thing but more detail in discrepancies. I want to see more explanation on things like salary increases. There was one year there where salaries almost doubled. This needs to be explained ie. Salaries hadn't been indexed and were reviewed as being low or we were severely understaffed and needed to employ additional people. We don't need to know X got paid extra but need a quick explanation why things may look a bit "funky". This is mostly due to the fact the notes are just the aforementioned printouts from software x and not individually written.

     

    One note about the above is that I haven't even bothered to look at the last 3 years accounts because I just gave up. Maybe if we can access recent ones I might take more of an interest but realistically I don't think members should have to go to this effort.

     

    Wow that was a rant longer than I expected...

     

     

    • Like 3

    Presidents Report from this months Sports Pilot

    in Governing Bodies

    Posted

    My question is this. Does it matter if we lose members? Does it matter if we don't gain members?

     

    We are not in this (we = RAAUS) to make a profit surely. We are in this to make sure the members can continue to do what they love in the least restrictive way possible.

     

    I am happy that there may be increased MTOW and CTA access cause it benefits me but i think the reasoning as to why the president is pushing for this is wrong, and quite frankly concerning.

     

     

    • Agree 2

    Presidents Report from this months Sports Pilot

    in Governing Bodies

    Posted

    Wow this thread went AWOL quick. Looks like another why should we/shouldn't we increase MTOW for RAAUS.

     

    I find it interesting in that:

     

    1. The presidents position is clear. We are 'competing' with CASA now (re RPL) so lets go for the higher MTOW, CTA access etc.

     

    2. A lot of people on here are saying that we don't want the higher MTOW

     

    3. A lot of people on here are saying that we want the higher MTOW

     

    4. Noone seems concerned that the president is treating this like a business that is in competition.

     

    Do we really need to compete with RPL? Higher MTOW etc. would be great for me but not in competition with CASA but in conjunction with them. The RPL obviously is geared towards different people with different expectations (CTA, higher MTOW primarily)

     

    Surely for aviators, having more option in our licensing allows us greater freedom to choose what is best for us.

     

     

    Presidents Report from this months Sports Pilot

    in Governing Bodies

    Posted

    So did anyone read the whole presidents report from the magazine (February 2015).

     

    The rant against CASA "competing" with us goes for a page and a half (nearly). Now I read the first half and was ready to give up, I didn't agree with the premise of the article. But if you push through to the end the outcome is what some of us want.

     

    Outcome is they will push for higher weight limit and access to CTA. Two things that many of us have been pushing for for a while.

     

    If only he had of started with that premise, he might not have lost a lot of readers in the process ;)

     

     

    • Agree 2
    • Informative 2

    Recommendation of Aircraft

    in AUS/NZ General Discussion

    Posted

    Hi All,

     

    I'm starting to look for my first aircraft to buy at the end of this year. I wanted to keep it cheap; say sub $50k.

     

    Does anyone have any recommendations?

     

    My only requirements are 3 axis, not a jab, and at least 80kts cruise. New or second hand.

     

    At the moment I am just having a look, not ready to buy till end of year.

     

    Cheers,

     

    Shags

     

     

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