RAAus Constitution Reform Result

[DonRamsay]

Oscar, you are wasting your breath!! Just give him an emoticon.

If only there were such an emoticon . . . . sigh . . .

 

 

[DonRamsay]

This is a forum; what's wrong with someone offering his opinion?That's more interesting than having to read the repetitive "stand for a position then" from people who don't have an original thought in their body.

FT has raised a valid point; the secret policy of not promoting the Association seems to have backfired, and what the, now ex, board members have done is preside over a major drop in income at a time the Association could least afford it - a very telling disclosure.

You see FT, Turbo thinks you are a genius and he'll vote for you . . . just as soon as he joins.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

This is a forum; what's wrong with someone offering his opinion?That's more interesting than having to read the repetitive "stand for a position then" from people who don't have an original thought in their body.

FT has raised a valid point; the secret policy of not promoting the Association seems to have backfired, and what the, now ex, board members have done is preside over a major drop in income at a time the Association could least afford it - a very telling disclosure.

There is a sizeable chunk of money in the budget to market RAAus to Australia in the coming 12 months. Now is the time to do that. How responsible would it have been to take our eye off the ball of getting RAAus out of the deep hole it was in and onto a survivable footing and launch into an expensive marketing promotion campaign? What would the message have been: come and join RAAus, we'll have your aircraft parked in a hangar and off limits before you can say "mismanagement".

RAAus has put the big troubles from the past behind them and is now in a fair position to say "Come and join RAAus - we have safe, accessible, fun and educational flying just for you".

 

A couple of years ago we had demonstrated that we couldn't manage the members and aircraft we had on the books then. How ethical would it have been to lure more people into that quagmire?

 

 

[DWF]

DWF said: ↑

 

 

 

One wonders if you or I put up a Special Resolution (to amend the Constitution say) would it receive similar backing and/or promotion from the Board and/or CEO via special newsletters, meetings, etc.DWF

 

As an ordinary member who, according to Col Jones put up approx 54,000 SRs I can assure all that a Special Resolution passes on its merit and does not need support from any Board Member. Whether 13 or 7 or only 5 Board Members they do not command enough votes to block any decent Special Resolution.Don

Don

 

I agree that you did it the hard way with Special Resolutions. And some were scuttled by a then Board member for, in my view, less than logical reasons, by influencing a significant number of proxy votes.

 

 

 

You seem to have missed the point of my post or are practicing a little obfuscation.

 

It is a fact that the RAAus Board and/or CEO use significant Association time and resource to promote the YES case in at least 3 pages of Sport Pilot and 6 electronic newsletters as well as the 'explanatory notes' that accompanied the draft of the constitution. The President and CEO, by their own admission, toured the country promoting (at least part of the time) the YES case. You also (albeit as a 'private' member) heavily promoted the yes case on this forum.

 

Nowhere have I said or implied that the Board (or a Board member) could or would "block" a SR by 'commanding enough votes" but I think you have experienced this situation.

 

 

 

The point of my post was - would a Special Resolution proposed by a member, not associated with RAAus board or administration, receive similar promotion/publicity opportunities/support?

 

 

 

DWF

 

 

[DWF]

Actually, moving from an Association to a Company Limited by guarantee increased a member's liability from zero the the now guaranteed $1.00.

 

 

 

DWF

 

 

[DonRamsay]

Thank you Turbo.. I am expecting that treatment as I am endeavour to get the truth to surface. You know when one whacks the critters enough they leak truth.

"Bullying" is total BS. For the last couple of months I have been attacked from every angle and accused of trying to entrench my position on the Board (I'll be gone by 30th June) trying to "enwealthen" myself when I have spent more than $1,000 of my own money on RAAus matters, getting to AGMs in 3 states and one territory, etc.

But I don't call questioning what was being presented "bullying" - I call it robust debate. It has been in many cases ill-informed but all that provoked was an attempt to correct the misinformation.

 

Attacking the person rather than their arguments is poor form and impolite but even still, what ever happened to "Sticks and stones . . . ."? What sort of a wussy society are we building when people want to throw themselves off a bridge because somebody "unfriends" them?

 

If you can't stand to have your views questioned, go watch TV because it will just tell you what you want to hear and I guarantee it will never bully you.

 

The most interesting post was Rod and he was answered with """Lies"""". I am stuck here as he would have made his statement on his side of truth so with that in mind all the statements made on this forum regard the constitution would come under lies and need verifying as to who is tell the undistorted truth.

Use of the word "lies" was in my view unfortunate although I can understand how a person could come to that view when somebody writes something that is clearly factually inaccurate and should by rights have known it is factually inaccurate and does not declare personal interests that are promoted by relating statements that are wrong in fact.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but nobody is entitled to their own facts.

 

The word "lies"implies that you have proof positive of the intent in saying something that you know or should know is completely false.

 

Now for the big one I suspect very much that there was a campaign of soliciting a YES vote out of all and sundry, but proving it will be impossible. Gathered by other little snipets outside this forum. No mention of the financial situation, or are they hoping no one will ask?

Once again we are confronted with unsubstantiated "suspicions" that nobody can say are true or false. Suspicions are not even an opinion - they are like superstitions - based on some kind of whispering campaign and incontestable because they have no substance.

 

And what on Earth would be wrong with soliciting a "Yes" vote for something that your study tells you will be good for RAAus? There was a lot of work that went into communicating to the members what the reforms were about and asking for feedback. That is not soliciting, that is consulting. The only thing I heard before the vote was that there was not enough consulting and after the vote was decided "consultation" suddenly becomes "solicitation".

 

And that's the "big one" Keith? Really?

 

Feel free to maintain your suspicions and superstitions but please don't ask anyone to take you seriously.

 

Financials? Have a look at the video of the meeting there was a comprehensive presentation by the CEO on the financials. Bear in mind Keith, that the end of the financial year is 30 June not 30th April. The audited financial results for this financial year will be presented to the members at the AGM in Sep/Oct 2016.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

This is all a little pointless.Essentially, there is no Recreational Aviation Australia, Inc., the million dollar building is now owned by a company, the staff work for a company, the board members are no longer board members - that's all in the past.

For some time your flying future is in the hands of three individuals, and they are totally accountable for what happens next - win or lose.

Turbs,

I don't know if you have FT ghost-writing your posts at the moment but that load was almost up to his standard. I honestly can't recall anything as absurd in a very long time.

 

RAAus Inc. still exists and will do until it seamlessly morphs into RAAus Ltd - both of which are CORPORATIONS just one registered in the ACT and the other registered Nationally.

 

All assets that now belong to a CORPORATION trading a RAAus will in future be owned by a CORPORATION trading as RAAus. In case you were not aware, an Incorporated Association and a Company limited by guarantee are both bodies corporate with the benefit of limited liability.

 

Why is that so hard to understand or remember?

 

What on earth are you implying by saying "the staff work for a company"? Is it that a Company is somehow soul-less but an incorporated association is a soulful? If that's what you were implying try talking to the staff and they will tell you that today they work for the best boss they've ever had and one of them told me that on the weekend and she's worked for 6 CEO's/GMs of RAAus. Whether it says Inc or Ltd everything for them is the same. Same contract, same pay, same great place to work.

 

What were you asserting? That they'd come into work on Monday and say, well, I'm employed by a Company now might as well slack off and not care any more.

 

Then there is the repetition of the utter nonsense about being "in the hands of three individuals" and "For some time". The fact is that the current constitution delegates to THREE people the power to make decisions for the Board between the end of the Board Meeting in October 2015 until the start of the Board Meeting in May 2016. Whereas, within 3 months of the transfer of incorporation, there will be at least 5 and possibly 7 Directors involved in every decision the Board makes and not just 3 as under the current constitution. To say otherwise would demonstrate that you do not understand what is going on.

 

There will be a call for nominations in the July edition of SportPilot. There will be candidates declared in the August edition and and voting will close in time for the newly elected Directors to take up their seats as per the new Constitution at the AGM in Sep/Oct 2015.

 

Why not try sticking to matters that you have done your usual meticulous research on instead of embarrassing yourself as you have with this post?

 

 

[DonRamsay]

How will staff remuneration be affected? Not for profit organisation to a company. Will there be pay roll tax?KP.

Keith, you've put those as questions rather than a statement so I'll respond that way rather than how my evil twin would like to.

RAAus and RAAus are both NFP - no change.

 

Staff contracts with RAAus are novated to RAAus - no change

 

Payroll tax - no change.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

. . . If I have been reading the posts correctly, the special resolution was not approved by the Board, but was the idea of two or three individuals (happy to be corrected on that)

Happy to correct you on that. No Special Resolution can be put to the members by the Board - surely you know that and are just playing with words? In the unlikely case that you did not know, all motions for a Special Resolution, like any motion for any resolution put to the Members in General Meeting must have a proposer and a seconder and that is exactly what happened in this case.

The reform project was originally sanctioned by a unanimous Board Resolution as far back as February 2012 and that included a vote from Rod Birrell. It was unanimously voted on again in adopting the RAAus Strategic Plan. Many drafts of the proposed Constitution were presented to the Board and amended on the basis of feedback from individual Board Members. I was not a party to the original drafting but did contribute several pages of questions and suggestions for change - all of which were dealt with to my total satisfaction. That opportunity was available to all Board Members. Three that I know of made no such attempt to make changes yet voted against the reforms when put to the members. Of those three Board Members who voted against the reform, one never uttered a single word to fellow Board Members but quietly raised 80 odd proxies to vote against the reforms. Another left any comment on the reforms until it was too late to make changes without having to defer the meetings at very considerable expense. The third didn't join the Boar until after the 3 weeks notice period had commenced.

 

It never occurred to me to ask for a Board vote on the subject as I did not know that any Board Member was opposed to the reform. If we had taken a vote, Rod for instance, would have been obliged to maintain Board solidarity and not campaign against the reforms.

 

Now you'll have to wait and see, and there's nothing sinister in that; there is a timetable for all of that to be established.

Typical unfounded smear - not worth commenting on.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

well the number of no votes - while a far away lower number than the yes vote - in raw numbers is a very large number for member votes - do not forget HOW much money, time and advertising was put into the Yes vote campaign by the RAAus ... the total number of votes was really large for an organisation like RAAus.

Show me the money! Point to one single dollar that was spent by RAAus on obtaining an in-favour vote.

We've been over this so many times and it always comes back to:

 

• if the Board did not explain the proposed reform or give members the opportunity to provide suggested changes, it would have failed to communicate or consult.
  And,
   
   
  
• if our President took many days off from his paid work with zero compensation and travelled the length and breadth of Australia to provide face to face forums for member, you say he was spending members funds to obtain a yes vote.
   
   
  

 

 

What annoys me intensely, is that we have a person of the calibre of Mick Monck who is prepared to make such sacrifices of time and money for no advantage to himself and is rewarded with mud-slinging.

 

You blokes need to take a hard look in the mirror.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

As for whether RAA is or should be promoting itself, ask yourself why you joined RAA. in my case the honest answer is that once I had decided to learn to fly my school of choice because of RAA rules said I had to join to continue learning. If I wanted to keep flying I had to join. It took no promotion on the part of RAA, it is written in the rules.

Geoff,

Firstly, There is a lot more to Marketing than just promotion. Our CEO has an MBA with Marketing as his major.

 

Secondly, Many current RAAus members, me included, did not know there is such a thing as recreational aviation. Sure, once your in, if you want to keep flying and enjoying the benefits of low regulation, economical flying, then you need to remain a member.

 

 

[DonRamsay]

. . . I agree that you did it the hard way with Special Resolutions. And some were scuttled by a then Board member for, in my view, less than logical reasons, by influencing a significant number of proxy votes.

True

 

 

 

You seem to have missed the point of my post or are practicing a little obfuscation.

Missed point? Possibly, it is a little after my usual bedtime. Obfuscation - none intended (consciously).

 

 

 

 

It is a fact that the RAAus Board and/or CEO use significant Association time and resource to promote the YES case in at least 3 pages of Sport Pilot and 6 electronic newsletters as well as the 'explanatory notes' that accompanied the draft of the constitution. The President and CEO, by their own admission, toured the country promoting (at least part of the time) the YES case.

David, this is like two sides of the same coin. What I see as consultation and providing face to face opportunities for members to give their views others see as "promotion of the yes vote". As said elsewhere this is a no win argument. When people say we should have promoted the No case, frankly, we explored the no case and showed that it was a lesser proposition than the yes case.

 

 

 

 

You also (albeit as a 'private' member) heavily promoted the yes case on this forum.

90% of what I did on here was to counter false premises and misinformation.

 

 

 

The calls for delay until it was "perfect" I found difficult to agree with because I've been at this thing sine 2010 and I just was not prepared to accept that something this good had to wait for something perfect . . . . one day down the track . . . maybe. Any refinements from here are not going to change the fundamental quantum leaps forward of smaller, better controlled Board and National voting.

 

 

 

There is an opportunity now to work with or against the Board to do the fine tuning you require to be satisfied. I don't accept that a worthwhile SR will not get the acceptance of the wise, quiet majority. Good luck with some on here who vote against on suspicion or the truly banal "if it ain't broke . . . . "

 

Nowhere have I said or implied that the Board (or a Board member) could or would "block" a SR by 'commanding enough votes" but I think you have experienced this situation.

True and true. But, the Board Members who blocked some of my SRs were Board Members who would have seen themselves adversely affected e.g. long serving Board members who did not want their 25+ year reign to come to an end - ever. The new Board will be . . . new and their terms limited.

 

 

 

 

The point of my post was - would a Special Resolution proposed by a member, not associated with RAAus board or administration, receive similar promotion/publicity opportunities/support?

Good question. Firstly, I think you'd have to agree that such a major proposed change required the level of exposure it was given. Any future changes are extremely unlikely to be of that level of complexity or impact.

None of my SRs ever got any more publicity than what appeared on the Notice for the Meeting and believe me, I was considered a renegade by the majority of the Board led by Runciman, et al. Even then they did not campaign against my SRs in SportPilot or on here.

 

So, no, a simple SR with modest impact would not warrant nor get the level of exposure given to a once in a lifetime change we've just gone through.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Turbs,I don't know if you have FT ghost-writing your posts at the moment but that load was almost up to his standard. I honestly can't recall anything as absurd in a very long time.

 

RAAus Inc. still exists and will do until it seamlessly morphs into RAAus Ltd - both of which are CORPORATIONS just one registered in the ACT and the other registered Nationally.

 

All assets that now belong to a CORPORATION trading a RAAus will in future be owned by a CORPORATION trading as RAAus. In case you were not aware, an Incorporated Association and a Company limited by guarantee are both bodies corporate with the benefit of limited liability.

 

Why is that so hard to understand or remember?

 

What on earth are you implying by saying "the staff work for a company"? Is it that a Company is somehow soul-less but an incorporated association is a soulful? If that's what you were implying try talking to the staff and they will tell you that today they work for the best boss they've ever had and one of them told me that on the weekend and she's worked for 6 CEO's/GMs of RAAus. Whether it says Inc or Ltd everything for them is the same. Same contract, same pay, same great place to work.

 

What were you asserting? That they'd come into work on Monday and say, well, I'm employed by a Company now might as well slack off and not care any more.

 

Then there is the repetition of the utter nonsense about being "in the hands of three individuals" and "For some time". The fact is that the current constitution delegates to THREE people the power to make decisions for the Board between the end of the Board Meeting in October 2015 until the start of the Board Meeting in May 2016. Whereas, within 3 months of the transfer of incorporation, there will be at least 5 and possibly 7 Directors involved in every decision the Board makes and not just 3 as under the current constitution. To say otherwise would demonstrate that you do not understand what is going on.

 

There will be a call for nominations in the July edition of SportPilot. There will be candidates declared in the August edition and and voting will close in time for the newly elected Directors to take up their seats as per the new Constitution at the AGM in Sep/Oct 2015.

 

Why not try sticking to matters that you have done your usual meticulous research on instead of embarrassing yourself as you have with this post?

The reason I made my over-simplified post was that some people were not clear that a major change had occurred; it was a simple method of making it clear that there's no point in flogging a dead horse.

 

On a forum you can always rely on someone festering with semantics, and while I'm not doubting you are factually correct, that wasn't the point; the point is that from the time of that vote, the existing era became the past era.

 

You say it is utter nonsense about being in the hands of three individuals for some time, then confirm it.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Happy to correct you on that. No Special Resolution can be put to the members by the Board - surely you know that and are just playing with words? In the unlikely case that you did not know, all motions for a Special Resolution, like any motion for any resolution put to the Members in General Meeting must have a proposer and a seconder and that is exactly what happened in this case.

OK, I was not specific enough; was the decision to change from an Incorporated Association to a Company structure approved at a Board Meeting.

 

It never occurred to me to ask for a Board vote on the subject as I did not know that any Board Member was opposed to the reform. If we had taken a vote, Rod for instance, would have been obliged to maintain Board solidarity and not campaign against the reforms.

Correct, and perhaps the above question will clear up whether the change to a Company structure was approved by the board of management.

 

Typical unfounded smear - not worth commenting on.

Let's not make things up; there was no smear here, just advising a person there was no point in getting upset, he would just have to wait and see what unfolded.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Show me the money! Point to one single dollar that was spent by RAAus on obtaining an in-favour vote.if our President took many days off from his paid work with zero compensation and travelled the length and breadth of Australia to provide face to face forums for member, you say he was spending members funds to obtain a yes vote.

 

What annoys me intensely, is that we have a person of the calibre of Mick Monck who is prepared to make such sacrifices of time and money for no advantage to himself and is rewarded with mud-slinging.

 

You blokes need to take a hard look in the mirror.

If Mick Monck claimed no expenses for the length and breadth of Australia visits, then indeed you have a point.

 

If the Board, at a meeting, by majority approved the payment of expenses for the President to conduct length and breadth visits of Australia, then you also have a point.

 

On the other hand, unless there was a specific Board approval to use Members funds to pay for those trips, then there is a problem. I've always been aware that the handling of public money carries penalties WAY beyond what the average person understands, and recently in Victoria a club or association member was fined by the State government around $44,000.00 for an absolutely minimum shortfall of a couple of hundred dollars.

 

The huge benefit of Incorporated Associations is that they draw VOLUNTEERS and that costs NOTHING and you are not expected to get any advantage for yourself. In my case as President of two Associations at the same time I effectively donated the cost of two race cars. Yes, it's painful when people question what you have done, but it goes with the territory.

 

The participation of a paid employee, the CEO, in those trips, if he was involved in Board activities and campaigning, is of serious concern and warrants some action from the members in my opinion. Even if he totally covered his own expenses, where was the separation you endlessly extolled.

 

So I think Kasper's concern is significant.

 

 

[turboplanner]

(I'll be gone by 30th June)

I'm intrigued that after relentlessly campaigning for the current change, you would walk away from it.

 

 

[turboplanner]

There is a sizeable chunk of money in the budget to market RAAus to Australia in the coming 12 months. Now is the time to do that. How responsible would it have been to take our eye off the ball of getting RAAus out of the deep hole it was in and onto a survivable footing and launch into an expensive marketing promotion campaign? What would the message have been: come and join RAAus, we'll have your aircraft parked in a hangar and off limits before you can say "mismanagement".RAAus has put the big troubles from the past behind them and is now in a fair position to say "Come and join RAAus - we have safe, accessible, fun and educational flying just for you".

 

A couple of years ago we had demonstrated that we couldn't manage the members and aircraft we had on the books then. How ethical would it have been to lure more people into that quagmire?

It might have been VERY responsible; in marketing doing noting never results in equilibrium, and the reduction member numbers from 10,000 to 8,500 which appears to have come as a surprise to some members is a stark reminder of that.

 

For stability, when unavoidable costs increase you need to get more income, not less.

 

Who said you need to "launch into an expensive marketing promotion campaign?

 

You can do this inexpensively with a marketing policy or marketing strategy, but you can't just sit there and watch the income sliding away

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I would like to record my thanks to Don for his patient and sincere efforts to inform all here throughout the process. I hope he will consider standing for the board again.

 

 

[Camel]

Great work Don, great to have passionate people on the board like you who believe in what their doing ! I always get dissappointed by "YES" people who do not know what their doing and nor do they care they just want to be important !

 

It's nice to be important but it is important to be nice !

 

Great achievements considering a some time ago I had no faith in the CEO or the board and thought we were sunk, now all I want a clear resolution to Casa insistent stupidity in interfering with RAA.

 

 

[tillmanr]

Another large thank you to Don for his work on the board as well as the significant input into this thread. I hope you intend to just take a breather then return to contribute widely Don.

 

 

[kasper]

Not intentionally I'm sure but completely wrong. I lost count of how many times I pointed out that both Inc and Ltd are corporations.The move to Ltd and Federal registration was to ensure the Board could never again operate in contempt of the Constitution as happened in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Try doing that when operating under the ASIC and see what sort of ton of hot bricks gets dropped on a Director..

You misunderstand my comment - I know that both Inc and Ltd are limited liability - that is exactly what I said in the first part of the post - its a different limited liability but both are limited.

And as you point out the reason for moving to Ltd was not to gain the limited liability but to move from ACT regulation to Cwth Regulation under ASIC.

 

And nothing I said about being able to make the changes under the Inc form was factually incorrect.

 

The changes to 'modernise' and 'align' the organisations control and regulation of members and operations with what was/will be required for part 149 had nothing to do with the move from Inc to Ltd - they were separate issues and could just as easily be done in the older Inc form.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

I'm intrigued that after relentlessly campaigning for the current change, you would walk away from it.

Because that's the sort of guy Don is.

 

Am I the only that thinks the RAA restructure won't make a real difference? Apparently, under the old rules, the rules which restricted change and the board's ability to function, they were able to make the huge change of the RAA restructure. Surely this massive achievement disproves the theory that old structure was limiting any change. Just maybe, the board has fixed a problem that doesn't exist...

 

The RAA continuing to decline is much bigger problem for the RAA. The numbers reflect a drop in aviation activity, a drop in confidence in the aviation industry.

 

I thought it was incredibly optimistic that Jim and Don as board members, think the board can just grow the RAA by advertising. Secret plan.

 

 

[storchy neil]

Board could never again operate in contempt of the Constitution as happened in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. don with me personally it started in 2009 and continued

 

so I personally thank you and others that no one else will have to go through what I personally have endured over the last 6 years

 

some have run off at the mouth with no proof or facts to back them up why have I not been hauled off to court for what I have written about certain things ? neil

 

 

[Admin]

If you remember Neil I was the one that brought it to everyones attention through this site when I got on the board and saw what was going on. It then exploded from there as members became aware. The Raaus board didnt like that resulting in me being refused membership for bringing the RAAus into disrepute. It then skyrocketed even more after that. I have had over 12 years of being attacked in every way by the board including back and forth legal action. 12 years of hell from the board.

 

I think...I think...that maybe trust as highlighted by the President can come back with small steps but only time will tell...it's up to them now

 

 

[storchy neil]

yes ian I totally agree I remember that it aint easy to forget the shit crap and corruption that you and your family went through but you stuck with with what you believed in

 

thank you for not shuting down this site as I know for a fact nearly did happened

 

yes ian small positive steps towards gaining trust neil