RAAus AGM This Saturday at YLED Lethbridge Victoria

[Oscar]

Andy - best news for some time!. absolutely - get the specification right before committing to ANY development!.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

I've had a read and it doesn't include the details, it has summary of information and total figures but I can't seem to find where for example it says $X was made from magazine advertising, $Y was spent on printing, $W on delivery, $Z on editor/staff payments. The same can for most of RAA operations, ie $A is spent administrating pilot renewals, $B is spent on aircraft registration etc etc.Now it may be argued members don't need to know all the little details, the summary is fine. But my question is, does ANYONE know these details? If we are serious about cutting expenditure we need to know what activities is the money being spent on and is it been spent well.

 

I'm happy to have Maj the benefit of knowing if we need the "legal fund" or not, as he would be more privy to knowing what wrong doing or negligence has been made that we will have to pay for in the future. I just hope these issues have been addressed so no future incidents can make the same claim.

I can assure you the CEO is very familiar with all the financial figures relating to the magazine at the present, as it is one of his major projects right now.... Additionally it was a big topic of conversation at the recent board meeting, and directions were giver to him by the board in that respect.....You may make contact with him if you like for the actual figures, as a member.

There has been no 'wrong doing ' or 'negligence' that I am aware of ...just lots of pilots doing the wrong thing and crashing !....so we as an organization have to pick up the pieces and wear the consequences of that..

 

 

[winsor68]

Col, the 'slush' fund as you call is there to ensure our organization survives into the future. Any responsible organization would be expected to exercise fiscal responsibility on behalf of its membership and establish the long term security of having some money in the bank. Currently it is only about half of what really should be there. We have several Coroners reports to look foward to in the near future due to the high fatal accident rates in past years. Any judgement against the RAAus could very quickly lead to a civil law suit against us which has the potential to instantly deplete and 'slush' fund we may have. I can hear the roars of dissatisfaction now from the membership if that occurred and we could not fund our liabilities. Our insurance in this case is limite and only covers so much. The board would like to see the fund increase for additional security into the future which is why we are looking closely at areas including the magazine where we are loosing money. I too like a quiet place with my magazine and coffee and I will fight against the day when we don't have the magazine to do that with. Additionally we are doing work for the regulator (CASA) and not receiving fair compensation for our efforts,this is another area that needs to be rectified quickly.

Lapsed member here...

One point...and I have made it before...but I always enjoyed reading the magazine. I have not found the magazine for ale in any newsagent since my membership lapsed. Not a single one...and believe me I look every time I go into a newsagent. I have mentioned this before...it seems a shame as there are regularly other customers looking through the selection of aviation magazines so potential converts missing out on reading about Ra-Aus.

 

 

[Chird65]

... - including the fact that it cannot be accomplished by piecemeal system development but MUST be done according to an overarching IT development strategy so that all 'modules' integrate seamlessly, utilising one master data field definition structure - not something that is cobbled together post-hoc from individual modules gathered from disparate sources a la Peoplesoft.

I would actually say the opposite is true for our organisation. There is no one application with modules that would "perfectly" suit our model. The Overarching Business Strategy is important, not the IT Strategy; the waterfall method where we think we have all requirements, then we design then build, works well where you can wait a long time and the team never changes. I would think that an Agile / Scrum method where the team is small and the deliverables come in cycles would better suit our outcomes.

 

Given the short tenure of board, management and staff and changing environment we find ourselves in, it would be more cost affective to deliver incremental improvements rather than wait for a big bang. I agree with needing an "integrated business process management system based on a whole-of-enterprise, web-enabled relational database structure", it is just the idea that we know or can determine all requirements never happens. It is the changes to scope that costs a project in time and money. To this problem small steps with defined outcomes works more efficiently.

 

Chris

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Chris

 

My views were:

 

1) can't be Big Bang at the end

 

2) incremental milestone based contract, where each milestone, as much as possible provides useful functionality at that point in time.

 

3) we are buying a solution not T&M consulting.

 

4) because of 3) we can't start until the definition of a solution is fully done otherwise CCP's will kill us from a cost perspective.

 

Andy

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Lapsed member here...One point...and I have made it before...but I always enjoyed reading the magazine. I have not found the magazine for ale in any newsagent since my membership lapsed. Not a single one...and believe me I look every time I go into a newsagent. I have mentioned this before...it seems a shame as there are regularly other customers looking through the selection of aviation magazines so potential converts missing out on reading about Ra-Aus.

We never controlled which newsagents stocked our magazine, they do that themselves, we have stopped providing as a possible stocked item because it was costing us twice what it earned, it may have been that even so those few sold were turned into new members but we don't know that for sure.....in fact why don't I ask now, did our magazine have anything to do with any of you who read this becoming a member? I know it didn't me, I was into RC and went looking for airborne magazine (modellers mag) at guess www.airborne.com.au which turned out to be the trike manufacturer....and from there I was hooked....

 

Andy

 

 

[Blueadventures]

Lapsed member here...One point...and I have made it before...but I always enjoyed reading the magazine. I have not found the magazine for ale in any newsagent since my membership lapsed. Not a single one...and believe me I look every time I go into a newsagent. I have mentioned this before...it seems a shame as there are regularly other customers looking through the selection of aviation magazines so potential converts missing out on reading about Ra-Aus.

Hi Don

You are welcome to read mine anytime. I keep them so if you want borrow mine for say a week each time. Let me know your thoughts.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

 

[rankamateur]

I pass mine on to my brother-in-law, if we all passed our magazines on to one other person instead of hoarding them to never be opened again, we would acheive more than hoping for one random newsagent purchase leading to a new member! All it would take is to have a reliable archive on the member portal so we can dig out an article of interest at a later date if needed, then we could all pass our magazine on without loss of any future access.

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

Magazines - my husband and I get one each. We read and keep one, the other I take to the Tourist Info Centre (I am President) where we have a free book & magazine exchange for locals and travellers. Two volunteers (old pilots) read them before putting them out to go round Australia.

 

 

 

I had looked at the magazine archive on the RAAus members only portal, and thought that was a job I could do (scanning our old magazines) with the addition of an index. I lack the equipment (A3 scanner & appropriate software), but I do have the magazines, as my husband has been a member since the 1980's and never throws anything out. When I get things sorted out I'll volunteer to do the job. It will add to our history and also to our body of knowledge. The way it is presented on the Members Portal will get a bit tiresome as more years are done - they are presented as a menu item for each year, potentially filling the page.

 

 

 

I would be happy with a digital magazine, but my husband still wants paper.

 

 

 

Sue

 

 

[facthunter]

I was in model building in 1953 and got my first engine A Frog 150, then (by selling newspapers). I bought the related( model) magazines then There were no other options. I have never been out of aviation (fully) since. Did the magazine get me into the RAAus scene? I did fly a thruster at Mangalore about 1985? but the reading through older magazines got me enough background info eventually to have a fair idea of what the movement was about (The AUF then),, and get fully involved. The magazines were lying around a flying school that I would drop in on now and then.. Just having them lying around is good. I mentioned getting them into schools, in an earlier post. I wonder if that is a possibility? I realise the other IT option is there too, but picking a magazine up in a waiting room is special. Sometimes I will speak to a perfect stranger after seeing them read a particular magazine. Nev

 

 

[rankamateur]

Nev, Some GA schools would use them for toilet paper when they got caught short! Important that we never move away from the glossy paper.

 

 

[facthunter]

What's wrong with gum leaves? Does everyone live in the city. The magazine paper we use is like a sheet of glossy plastic. Have you heard of John Wayne toilet paper?

 

 

[Oscar]

I would actually say the opposite is true for our organisation. There is no one application with modules that would "perfectly" suit our model. The Overarching Business Strategy is important, not the IT Strategy; the waterfall method where we think we have all requirements, then we design then build, works well where you can wait a long time and the team never changes. I would think that an Agile / Scrum method where the team is small and the deliverables come in cycles would better suit our outcomes.Given the short tenure of board, management and staff and changing environment we find ourselves in, it would be more cost affective to deliver incremental improvements rather than wait for a big bang. I agree with needing an "integrated business process management system based on a whole-of-enterprise, web-enabled relational database structure", it is just the idea that we know or can determine all requirements never happens. It is the changes to scope that costs a project in time and money. To this problem small steps with defined outcomes works more efficiently.

 

Chris

Chris: I agree, the deliverables can be staged - but the data definition needs to be established as the second activity (the first being a statement of the activity processing flow). If you have ambiguous data definitions across modules it is IMPOSSIBLE to link modules an an auditable way, and if that cannot be done, then you have to rely on human audit for every transaction to be 100% sure that the transaction processing rules are observed.

 

It's easy to build a transaction processing function using an established database / adding new fields to an existing database - but if you have to go back and manually re-assign partial data from an inadequately-defined data structure to new fields it's a vast pain. Not only do you have to do the data refining, but all existing modules have to be at the least checked / amended.

 

It's the old 'do it once and do it RIGHT' syndrome. For that, you must define the organisation's transaction processing requirements, and then work back to field definition and data capture. Once you have that, additional modules can be developed by a having a transaction processing requirement statement and working from that to develop the rules for transaction processing - but if the data is not adequately defined, all hell breaks loose.

 

And yes - there will be no 'exact fit' for an OTS system for RAA. Having been involved in the USyd implementation of Peoplesoft ( $40m plus to tailor a $5m or so purchased-cost system, with the NSW Auditor-General scathing!) and also having developed a bespoke BPM system for a major Engineering Consultancy company (now part of Worley Parsons, who are serious world players in this market), I can say that a good development team can deliver a bespoke system more effectively than trying to fit an OTS BPM system such as Peoplesoft or Siebel.)

 

 

[rhysmcc]

sounds like a few people here know what they are talking about, might be a good idea to ask for expressions of interest for a steering committee to advise the ceo and board?

 

 

[Keith Page]

I have been a member since the late 90's.

 

If my memory serves me correctly, the membership fees were broken down.

 

i.e.. So much for insurance, so much for the mag, so much for the admin. of the organisation.

 

It was broken down for me -- as to where the funds were distributed.

 

So when was the mag. taken out of the equation?

 

I thought all that fund changing stuff happened on the big hill at Canberra.

 

Regards,

 

KP.

 

 

[rhysmcc]

I have been a member since the late 90's.If my memory serves me correctly, the membership fees were broken down.

i.e.. So much for insurance, so much for the mag, so much for the admin. of the organisation.

 

It was broken down for me -- as to where the funds were distributed.

 

So when was the mag. taken out of the equation?

 

I thought all that fund changing stuff happened on the big hill at Canberra.

 

Regards,

 

KP.

Valid points Keith, the way I see it is the admin of the organisation has gone up thus that portion of the fee has increased. Getting rid of the mag means that portion goes down (from the membership fee), the net gain for membership fee can afford to stay at the current rate rather then go up inline with the increase in admin costs.

 

 

[winsor68]

We never controlled which newsagents stocked our magazine, they do that themselves, we have stopped providing as a possible stocked item because it was costing us twice what it earned, it may have been that even so those few sold were turned into new members but we don't know that for sure.....in fact why don't I ask now, did our magazine have anything to do with any of you who read this becoming a member? I know it didn't me, I was into RC and went looking for airborne magazine (modellers mag) at guess www.airborne.com.au which turned out to be the trike manufacturer....and from there I was hooked....Andy

I discovered the AUF through the magazine...

 

 

[Powerin]

I discovered the AUF through the magazine...

We never controlled which newsagents stocked our magazine, they do that themselves, we have stopped providing as a possible stocked item because it was costing us twice what it earned, it may have been that even so those few sold were turned into new members but we don't know that for sure.....in fact why don't I ask now, did our magazine have anything to do with any of you who read this becoming a member? I know it didn't me, I was into RC and went looking for airborne magazine (modellers mag) at guess www.airborne.com.au which turned out to be the trike manufacturer....and from there I was hooked....Andy

I was certainly a semi-regular reader of the mag long before I started flying. At the time I probably didn't realise it was the official mag of the RAA, nor did I actually know what the RAA was. But it certainly helped to sow the seeds about a new (to me) class of aviation. What actually tipped the balance for me was coming across a CFI with a Tecnam stand at an Agricultural Field Days. While I was drooling over the plane on the stand this guy quietly said to me - "I can teach you to fly that plane for under $5000". The rest is history.