Special Resolution 4 - Cancellation of Postal Voting

[rhysmcc]

I am assured that the CRC MkII is beavering away and will have some sort of report for the Natfly General Meeting.We now have the best Board we've had in years and I have confidence in them. There is General agreement on the Board that the numbers need to come down from 13 to 7 or 5. Trouble is everyone thinks somebody else should give up their seat.

 

With a Board of, say, 7 we should be able to get away from a post code as the pre-qualification to run for the Board. It has not been a sound basis in the past for getting quality on to the Board. We should also get away from the idea that the Exec can act with the power of the Board between face-to-face Board meetings. By all means have a President(Chair), a Treasurer (finance director) and a Secretary and even a Vice President (Vice-Chair) but no small group making decisions for the full 7 member Board.

 

I agree the CRC as currently set up is unlikely to come up with much of value but the Board has some good ideas now about where it wants RAA to go. At the same time it is facing massive demands from CASA which are keeping their minds clicking over.

 

The Board has more of the old guard standing down this year with two vacancies in NSW/ACT. As long as we don't get more old guard coming on to the Board unopposed we will have an even better aboard from September 2014.

It's an interesting dilemma, going from 13 to 7 (or 5), i guess the only fair way would be to expel all members and put up all positions for re-election.

 

What do you think about only having 4-6 "directors" and the 5th or 7th spot being the president elected by the members rather then the board?

 

 

[frank marriott]

I will be surprised if halving the board is easily achieved. Reading here you could get the opinion that this has been decided already.

 

I have read the reasons put forth on this forum but like many things discussed here from time to time, reaching agreement between a few outspoken people here is a far way short of majority (or 75%) of 10000 members.

 

Like in the case of the EGM, a lot of 'silent' members were moved to send proxies, and not all in support.

 

I would think that the idea of reducing representation and the likelihood of NSW & VIC deciding who runs the organisation is a big hurdle.

 

Certainly to be successful I would think a major "selling of the idea" would be necessary - More then just discussing the matter here with the main proponents (or some) not currently members.

 

I may be reading the feeling wrong so time will tell.

 

 

[Keith Page]

"I would think that the idea of reducing representation and the likelihood of NSW & VIC deciding who runs the organisation is a big hurdle":- Quote from Frank.....

 

"selling of the idea" : this should be members only..... dial a mob is excluded.

 

This is my great concern too, however getting around it is the million dollar question ooorrrr well answer.

 

It is demonstrated on these forums from time to time how all the RAAus sanctioned functions are way down south either southern NSW or Vic... Long fly for the FNQ people.

 

Regards

 

Keith Page.

 

 

[kgwilson]

Reducing the size of the board has to be a priority and all existing board members if they support this should also support a resolution for everyone to stand down whether their term is up or not and fresh elections be held. The whole geographic thing is always going to be contentious as Australia is such an effing huge place & those in FNQ or NW of WA or wherever may feel a bit under represented. This state or locality based representation idea is so last century (or the one before it) it is ridiculous and just a mindset that some can't seem to let go of.

 

In reality what has where you live got to do with the management of the organisation? You don't see nation wide companies specifying where their board members should live. The rules have to be for all as we can't have anything different for far flung members. Our communications systems have overcome the tyranny of distance. It is easy to organise video conferencing of meetings & even GMs. Webinars have been around for years as has telephone conferencing.

 

It is likely that most of the board members will come from the areas of greatest population density which is almost identical with the map of membership published in Sportpilot. If people from far away feel the need then they should do what any one needs to do to get in the public eye. Come up with ideas, strategies, lobby members, write letters, do whatever to get noticed (crashing & illegal flying stuff excepted) and elicit support. If the homework has been done, the numbers stack up & all the other boxes are ticked there is no reason why events in far flung regions would not be supported by the board..

 

 

[Keith Page]

Dear kgwilson

 

I do see you reside at Corindi Beach which is sort of midlle of NSW in real terms not that hard to get to something in NSW or put in bush terms not that many stubbies apart.

 

I will put the representation situation to you in QLD terms three quarters of the states political seats are in the southeast corner. The southeast corner consists of a radius from Brisbane arced around to nearly Warwick, yes that is where the population is and most of the pollies and most of the population with most of the states revenue being produced outside the the southeast corner. Where is the fairness?

 

Now you try and get some things done outside the southeast, guess what there is a monstrous fight "just to be heard".

 

Reason I am jumping up and down this is through first hand experience, and still happening today.

 

Nation wide companies are a different beast. Different structure and different disipline.

 

Quote:- kgwilson.." If the homework has been done, the numbers stack up & all the other boxes are ticked there is no reason why events in far flung regions would not be supported by the board.." Unquote:- kgwilson.-------- Are you sure of that quote regarding help??? I beg to differ... I have proof of the opposite.

 

Regarding the above quote, I am involved in another organisation we have been ticking boxes, writing letters, going to see the local member and articles in the paper guess what nothing has happened, all this is over a very very long time. What is working this time around ------- Get off ones but, knock on different minister's doors with " Hey I am here what are we going to do?" That is the only thing which works. Yes ---- it is a trip to Brisbane for me, however it is working.

 

Phone calls:- are just lip service with " That is a good idea I will get onto that" end of the deal.

 

Letters:- Bin.

 

Regards

 

Keith Page.

 

 

[kgwilson]

Keith,

 

You are doing what I iterated in the sentence before the one you quoted (come up with ideas, strategies, lobby members, do whatever to get noticed & elicit support ). It is tough but as you say it is working.

 

The first RA-Aus fly in at Monto was well represented by some of us Mexicans. I am not sure about the WA events & other than Natfly those are the only Ra-Aus events I know of. When we run fly-ins or events at our local club the geographic spread of visitors is fairly small even when the event is advertised nationally.

 

As for Board Reps being geographically selected I don't see any benefit to the operation of the business at all. I do think that members elected to the board should be well qualified and capable of carrying out their duties in an honest, professional, unbiased and timely manner no matter where they happen to reside.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Let me see if I've got this right:

 

A Board of Management was elected to manage the affairs of the Association.

 

This group didn't want to fix the few problems with the Constitution which were raised around 2010, and should have been fixed by the elected officials in about three meetings

 

Instead a Constitutional Review Committee was formed which in typical Australian fashion gained a life of its own, the current activities of which are secret from the general membership.

 

Another person who is/was/may be part of another secret group has put forward a proposed resolution which he/she/they are allowed to do for open comment NTTIAWTT.

 

Quite an interesting debate took place, and in my opinion the resolution was found to be necessary and warrants a positive vote.

 

By tradition the thread then moved on to the normal wheel reinvention phase, which takes everyone's eye off the ball, and began reconstruction of the Association/Board of Management/Geography of Australia without knowing whether this was under serious discussion.

 

The North Queensland brigade presented a spirited argument loosely based on "if the number of board members is going to be reduced, one of them has to be from here"

 

One of them is from there now, and as we know the minute he got elected he signed a secrecy agreement, and these days could be coach of the Dallas Cowboys Cheer Leaders for all I know, so they have a current example of what might happen.

 

Then one of the FNQ, blatantly using a non members web site for members business took a shot at non members

 

And then another FNQ used the Queensland political system to give an example of how they are not heard in south east Queensland, although with a silent representative in FNQ it's hard to see the difference.

 

Area you all saying you want to forget about the Constitutional Amendment, and set up RAA Mark 6 instead?

 

 

[DonRamsay]

It's an interesting dilemma, going from 13 to 7 (or 5), i guess the only fair way would be to expel all members and put up all positions for re-election.What do you think about only having 4-6 "directors" and the 5th or 7th spot being the president elected by the members rather then the board?

The transition from a proven unworkable 13 member Board to a compact group of 7 has to be part of the re-write of the Constitution that enables the reduction. It has to be an acceptable proposition not just to the current 13 Board Members but also to 75% of members who vote on the amendment.

I agree with the notion that the entire Board would stand down immediately prior to the new Board taking their place. The election preceding that AGM would be for all 7 positions.

 

I'm not in favour of a popularly elected Board Chairperson (previously President). The Board must have confidence in their Chairperson and must agree among themselves as to which of their number that is to be. With an odd number of Board Members (7) there is no need for the Chairperson to have a casting vote.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

I will be surprised if halving the board is easily achieved. Reading here you could get the opinion that this has been decided already.I have read the reasons put forth on this forum but like many things discussed here from time to time, reaching agreement between a few outspoken people here is a far way short of majority (or 75%) of 10000 members.

Like in the case of the EGM, a lot of 'silent' members were moved to send proxies, and not all in support.

 

I would think that the idea of reducing representation and the likelihood of NSW & VIC deciding who runs the organisation is a big hurdle.

 

Certainly to be successful I would think a major "selling of the idea" would be necessary - More then just discussing the matter here with the main proponents (or some) not currently members.

 

I may be reading the feeling wrong so time will tell.

Frank, to my mind if the idea is a good one, it should get the support needed to get it across the line. We have all seen that a 13 member board has been a quagmire. They take forever to decide anything, it costs $20,000 to get them together for a face-to-face meeting and being elected by post code has resulted in some low skill, low capability people taking up space at the Board table.

I'd love somebody to tell me just what it is that Queenslanders are so afraid of regarding the "southerners". The demographics of our membership, where they are concentrated is pretty clear. The great bulk are concentrated in SE Qld, Coastal NSW and Victoria. Qld with the support of NT, WA and SA could rule RA-Aus. Do they? No! I can't recall a single vote of the board that has been driven by State/Region interests. There is no NSW/Vic mafia. What decisions could a Board make that would dis-favour Qld?

 

State Governments spend money on marginal seats. Not on safe seats and not on safe opposition seats. There is no parallel herewith RA-Aus that spends its money on staff in essentially one location, insurance and the magazine. Natfly makes a profit and regional fly-ins are meant to be break-even. How can there ever be a benefit to one state over another?

 

Natfly at Temora is about as central to the membership as you can get. Narromine favours Qld but dis-favours Victoria and SA and Tas.

 

Surely we would be better with, among others, a lawyer and an accountant on the Board than just a stack of CFIs.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Turbo, thanks for the cryptic analysis. It is remotely possible a few of us understood what you wrote.

 

Must admit that despite having started this thread and then led it astray I had forgotten what it was about in the first place - removing a Rule that is not supported by the Act.

 

Still, the discussion has been stimulating and of some purpose and the original topic has probably run its course.

 

Don

 

 

[coljones]

The Board must have confidence in their Chairperson and must agree among themselves as to which of their number that is to be. With an odd number of Board Members (7) there is no need for the Chairperson to have a casting vote.

but if someone on the board fails to vote you may end up with an equality of votes - should the motion fail, should someone have a casting vote or should they draw straws? There should always be a tiebreaker policy. Joske might be an authority to help the meeting but you are far better off having standing orders in place.

The seven member board I was on had monthly phone meetings lasting about 2 hours at a time to suit all (inc WA). The meetings went quickly, stuff not up to scratch got tossed to a the next meeting, with more work or onto an adhoc meeting if urgency could be shown. Everyone (almost) read the notes and consulted by phone or email before the meeting. I wouldn't say it was perfect, but it did work.

 

Consensus and compromise is an ethos that works well. It even helped us with presidents who were demigods, touchy feellies, bullies and one who used it to scam an Australian honour (all directly elected presidents).

 

 

[DonRamsay]

The RAA Constitution allows for no tied vote on the Board. A motion has to have majority support or it fails. If the vote is tied for any reason whether absence, abstention or whatever it fails.

 

 

[coljones]

The RAA Constitution allows for no tied vote on the Board. A motion has to have majority support or it fails. If the vote is tied for any reason whether absence, abstention or whatever it fails.

I can live with that. In the rewrite, will it stay that way?

 

 

[kgwilson]

The RAA Constitution allows for no tied vote on the Board. A motion has to have majority support or it fails. If the vote is tied for any reason whether absence, abstention or whatever it fails.

Very sensible. This is much preferred over the old standard system where the Chair gets a casting vote. If it is tied it is tied so it must fail. One individual should never be allowed another vote just to get a result.

 

 

[turboplanner]

On the other hand there may be a critical vote (and these are usually the emotional ones) on something important which has to be done now.

 

Where you don't have a casting vote, and you are deadlocked you are in deep trouble.

 

Usually there has to be a repeat of the process and another meeting organised at a later date.

 

There will be times when a decision must be made, and where it catches you out in in decisions which seem innocuous because there has never been a previous deadlock, and everyone forgets about it.

 

The crunch! and everyone is looking at each other with red faces.

 

Often with a critical decisions someone gives in just to get the job done, and often that is your better and fairer member, so you get a bad decision.

 

So this is worth a little more than superficial thought.

 

 

[coljones]

On the other hand there may be a critical vote (and these are usually the emotional ones) on something important which has to be done now.Where you don't have a casting vote, and you are deadlocked you are in deep trouble.

Usually there has to be a repeat of the process and another meeting organised at a later date.

 

There will be times when a decision must be made, and where it catches you out in in decisions which seem innocuous because there has never been a previous deadlock, and everyone forgets about it.

 

The crunch! and everyone is looking at each other with red faces.

 

Often with a critical decisions someone gives in just to get the job done, and often that is your better and fairer member, so you get a bad decision.

 

So this is worth a little more than superficial thought.

If everyone agrees what the rules are then the tie breaker is easy to honour. If you need majority decision when you have a dead heat then you don't have a majority decision - simple. In the case of rules changes there is a requirement to achieve a 75% majority ie 25% more than a dead heat.

 

 

[turboplanner]

We are talking about board meetings rather than general meetings, so this only relates to board member voting.

 

With a 7 or odd number member board the President's vote is a casting vote every time the other six split 50/50, so there's no great voodoo about this.

 

However, business cannot grind to a dead halt as you mention above, perhaps with months of delay, or a lot of cost bringing everyone together; that could be very costly to members.

 

So, to cater for the case where one person may be absent, or the board numbers even, you need a simple paragraph saying something like "The President shall have the casting vote"

 

There shouldn't be any concern about this since it is giving him exactly the same power as he has when all 7 members are present.

 

Simple.

 

 

[coljones]

are you suggesting that if the resolution is lost 4 to 3 that the organisation is dead in the water. If an organisation agrees that a tied vote is lost is it any more dead in the water than if it was lost 4 to 3 or 6 to 1 or even 7 to 0. Some boards I have been on adopted the protocol that a casting vote should always be voted to preserve the status quo. In some cases the Chair does not have a deliberative vote but may exercise a casting vote & if the chair doesn't cast a casting vote then the motion is lost and the status quo is maintained.

 

 

[Keith Page]

Please correct me if I am incorrect as I have been told a lot of fibs over the time. The president can vote as a board member hence he has voted..

 

Why all the noise with the Chairperson having the casting vote? (bit ordinary having two votes).

 

This situation is only regarding RAAus..

 

Regards

 

Keith Page

 

 

[DonRamsay]

There is no need for a casting vote because if a Board Member or Members want to get a Board Resolution passed they must achieve a majority. That is democracy. If all they can get is even stevens then the motion is not carried. It is just as lost if the vote were 12 to 1 against. There is no problem here to solve.

 

You also need to understand that the Board has a virtual, continuous Board Meeting via their Board Forum. On any day they can have a virtual meeting and vote on that forum. They can have two votes in the one day on the same subject if they want to. Nothing is being held up for months until the next meeting. Under our Constitution Board Resolutions passed in these meetings are just as valid as one passed in a face-to-face meeting.

 

If you want to get elected to the Board you have to get 50% of valid votes cast plus one vote as a minimum. We actually allow a draw from the hat in the situation where two candidates finish up with exactly 50% each (after preference distributions). Re-running the election would be too costly in terms of time delay and money.

 

Col, this is a system that works and not one I would change in any re-write.

 

Don

 

 

[coljones]

I was going to suggest that with casting (tie-breaker) votes we were about to head into the realm of castrating mosquitoes.

 

Don, you have been on the board, even on executive, and you would have much knowledge of voting splits on the RAA Board. I would hope that, under the careful patronage of a worthy chair, issues of tied votes would not arise (often) but that the chair and members of the board had sufficient depth and intelligence to realise that ties are a waste of time and show that someone hasn't done their work to get consensus or a majority about every proposal. (you did mention that we have an intelligent board)

 

In any situation (look at politicians) where every decision is done on the numbers there is a toxic environment - not a state we would like RAA to be in.

 

Quality board members led by a super capable chair who is willing to listen is essential. Achieving consensus is much more profitable than any rule on resolving deadlocks.

 

WRT postal voting (or even proxies) we also need a mechanism that allows discussion of the proposals before the ballot. Oz referendums make provision for yes and no cases to go to the electorate at the same time as the proposal is announced. Under our current rules, it would appear that the only person who can get a statement out in the magazine is to proponent and maybe the board - the rest of the world is struck mute.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Col,

 

As you will recall, there was a time when the Board was deeply divided between let me call them the autocrats and democrats. Most of the former have moved on and been replaced by people who want to respect the Constitution. There is now a balance in favour of progressive reform. Unfortunately, like all Boards before them the challenge of doing the job and brining the membership with them has proved elusive. In previous times there was more than a suspicion that the secrecy was by intent. Now it seems to be the by-product of being up to your ass in alligators (CASA) and forgetting to tell the members how the swamp draining is going.

 

The difficulty I've experienced with being able to have the discussion on a proposed change before it is finalised and put to a vote revolves around enormously lengthy timelines imposed on us by SportPilot being printed and mailed. By the time you work out what you tank needs to be done, write the motion for the Special Resolution, get it through Board and CRC consultation and publish it to the membership 3 or 4 months have gone by. In this day and age, that is just pathetic and much less than OK.

 

At least a few of us can kick the ideas around on here before it goes to the vote. A bit difficult even then to accommodate suggestions for variations. Thank goodness I usually get them word perfect first time .