Raa Board Meeting- Feb 2012

[Guest JabJockey]

can't see where the 'volunteer' status comes from JJ...sure not paid as such, a couple of paid trips to Canberra throughout the year, paid accomodation, paid meals....probably subsidised phone plans...and they spent money getting elected.personally I have not been asked to sanction the use of RAA funds to reward the volunteers....

That's an interesting point, thankyou for raising it. A lot of organisations with volunteers "reward" their volunteers by helping them with expenses such as travel, telephone, meals. When I was in Apex we were "rewarded" by being re-imbursed out of pocket expenses, and sometimes, for example, on a club working bee the club would purchase soft drinks etc for us to consume during whatever task we were doing, and then the club might put on a BBQ for us and the people we were helping.

 

I would in no way expect our Board Members to cover the cost of attending meetings in Canberra - airfares, accommodation, meals etc should, imho, be covered by RA-Aus. It's important to make volunteering not be a negative impact of said volunteers financial state - otherwise we dont have volunteers at all. It's also equally important to ensure that people don't volunteer in order to gain such benefits. Based on evidence to the contrary, I myself cant see any misuse of RA-Aus funds in regards to paying for Board Members expenses, others may disagree and of course, that is their right.

 

In fact, the issue of Volunteers and the monies they may receive has been recognised by Volunteering Australia;

 

http://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/files/G0V4LO2CTG/Costs%20of%20Volunteering%20Report%20-%20final.pdf

 

The other thing we dont neccessarily "see" is the behind the scenes work our Board Members do - like answering phone calls, emails, talking to members at their local airfields. For example, as far as I am aware, and please correct me if i'm wrong, the Board Members have to use their own personal computers and Internet access in order to check and respond to their RA-Aus communications, yet i've seen other organisations supply Laptops and Internet to their volunteers. This is just one example. Consider local Councils with Councillors that might receive a small amount of money to help them (eg our local councillors get about $500 per month). This is a very small reward for the amount of time they spend serving our community, and I cant see anyone thinking that $500 a month could be the sole reason to seek such a position

 

Where does one draw the line? That's hard, and something I cant answer. Perhaps the best answer would be to compare what a volunteer gets "paid" for their role that, in another organisation, might be a paid position. A good article here, on the issues facing both paid and non paid Board Members http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/boards/boards_article.jsp?articleId=1309

 

Well done to all of our Board Members who are working hard to further our organisation.

 

 

[Guest JabJockey]

 

 

I think you are way of the mark here, CFI. Those are expenses, not pay. If you think spending a a few nights a year in the Best Western while spending all day in a devoid-of-daylight board room is a "reward" because you happen to get your meal paid for in a nice restaurant, you should probably try it some time!

 

Such is the reality of any business travel; it seems glamorous only to those who don't get to do it. Those that do, know better.

 

 

Bas, you covered what I said, and you did it in a few lines! :D

 

 

[metalman]

Thanks for all you are doing Bas...I still think there are some questions regarding the previous false start in updating the website... as Bas says "when confronted with someone who clearly knows what they are talking about, understands the needs and explains well how to meet them" it is easy to go for it...

My question (and this is more for the returned board members rather than the newly elected)... when confronted with someone who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about, doesn't understand the needs and doesn't explain well how to meet them why were they so keen to go for it... despite the fact that Bas and other members had offered to provide just what is now being provided and obviously do know what they are talking about... Who made that decision and why? How much did it cost the organization and what are the chances of recuperating it?

 

Does Ra-Aus know how these mistakes were made, understand what led to it etc etc because if it doesn't it will not have a hope in hell of avoiding the same scenario in future...

I won't comment on the money side of this ,but, I went through four different website "expert" before I got my site up and running, not sure if it's common for that industry but I found a lot of the people I dealt with were "highly talented " but low on real world business skills,,had them asking for money on unfinished work (I had paid a big deposit with one guy) ,had one present a draft of a home page, I wanted a couple of minor changes, never heard from them again. The thing that struck me was I never asked for a firm price, I had an idea what it should cost but wasn't concerned with the money as much as the result, if one of my customers came to me with that attitude he'd get a rip snorter of a job .

I have empathy for the RAA on the website woes, like I wrote I won't comment on the money stuff , but I can fully understand having trouble getting something going on line, don't know you Bas but I've seen the draft and it looks nice,

 

cheers Mat

 

http://widebaymotorbodies.com.au/, here's a link to my website (not for advertising I don't need any more work) just to show the end result which I must say has worked extremely well

 

 

[Guest DWB]

Yep that's a good site Mat. Says all you need to. Now, wonder what radical thing I can come up with for my Cross 8 Crewman........?

 

 

[Guest Michael Coates]

A little birdie has just told me that the RAA website and most importantly the database will now be in very capable hands. Congratulations Bas !

 

 

[bas]

This goes for Bas too - working hard to help RA-Aus "behind the scenes"

Just so there is no confusion: yes, I have been volunteering on NATFLY and also finishing off the main site (some work by sub contractors paid for) and while there will always be a degree of that (i.e.: there will be no 6-minute lawyer style billing for my advice and help), from now on there will be a commercial agreement between RA-Aus and my company. This is the result of a competitive quote process; the competition was presenting in Canberra on Saturday too.

There is both too much work for anyone to do this voluntarily and RA-Aus also wants to make sure a company is supporting them, which I think you will all agree. Imagine the chaos if systems failed and there was nobody there to make them work again because the volunteer lost interest?

 

And of course, as a passionate member, I will also have more than just a commercial interest in this project. The best way to have a successful product is to make something you want for yourself. And while it is rare for a consultancy to get that opportunity (you just make what the client wants you to make) it is also the case here; I *want* it to be easier for me to deal with RA-Aus online and make the organisation more efficient!

 

 

[Guest Michael Coates]

Hello Bas, I hear what you are saying and agree 200 percent.

 

We (RAA) are in a real win - win situation because not only do you have the necessary skills to do... I use the word 'engineering' but you also have an intimate knowledge of the subject and this is something that a general computer programmer would not have in their skill set. By this I mean when you are setting up the database you will know the format of the information because you have been exposed to what is required to many years.

 

An example would be that another company with no aviation experience would set up the database and would not know that aircraft had different serial numbers for the different parts like the airframe, the engine, the propeller, the ballistic parachute etc etc with your already thorough understanding of aviation we are off to a massive head start !

 

I know first hand limitations with the current system, when Rotax recently had a couple of airworthiness notices we did everything we could to find out if any of our customers were affected. We went through all of our records ourselves, we checked with Bert flood imports to see if any of our customers had registered their engines and they were part of the affected batch and then we went to the RAA to triple check everything we were doing and ask them to search on engine serial numbers for our customers. A simple query to the database but surprisingly the system they have does not allow this ! because they are limited to searching on only a couple of fields like aircraft owner and registration number.

 

I hope you can start with a clean slate and get the aircraft database up and running, to me, I see this more important than the website because it is a serious safety concern. It would be great to be able to do things online. An example would be interactive registration forms for aircraft, renewals etc. With one of the existing forms out there you have to fill in the owner's name in three separate places on the same form ?? that does not really make sense.

 

It is great you are going to be looking after this for us and I hope you charge a fair price for a fair job which I am sure you will. Like others, if there is anything we can volunteer to assist you with please let us know !