RAAus Board Election 2019

[turboplanner]

 

 

 

A board of a company is not a or a board or management but a board or policy,  direction and oversight. 

 

RAAus management need a very good dose of oversight and governance from the board.  

 

 The quotation mark protocol was unfortunate but

 

 “is not a board of management but a board of policy” is a key piece of information that all 10,000 members should understand. And that’s where Kirk is the vital injection needed. There are still far too many people thinking Company Directors are still required to work for members like Committee Members, or the previous ego-titled “board members”.

 

This is a good sign that someone actually knows what the job entails.

 

I wouldn’t try the membership lapse stunt; it will only detract from the much more impressive grasp of the job that needs to be done.

 

 

[kasper]

I’m not going to let it lapse .... it’s just that the lack of actual documents around the processes for the election mean that really silly basic things like this exist and can trip up the returning officer .... if we had one that is but without rules we don’t. 

 

Do do not get me wrong.  I’m am not along to be put on the board to be difficult or be obstructionist- I want to go on the board to make it work better on core board processes and to bring a view of policy to the board that seems different to that operating since transition to company form.  

 

 

[Tango-Papa-November]

In the past I have found it frustrating that I had no idea of how our elected representatives were performing, and if it was worth re-electing them.  The election statements, naturally, would say "Hey, I'm a great guy" but are they really worth my vote?  Fortunately RAAus paid for independent consultants to do a review of the Board performance (Sept 2018) and published this.

 

From the 24 page report (plus attachments)

 

As noted at the outset of this report, an overriding theme of the board evaluation was that the board is currently factionalised.  Other themes relevant to board dynamics included that:

 

• the level of contribution to the board’s work is not equally spread with some directors seemingly having no real engagement in the board’s work other than being physically present at board meetings

 

• some directors are not asking questions in a constructive way, and

 

• it is queried whether all directors are acting in the best interests of RAAus (Page 16)

 

 .. struggle to engage several members as they do not respond to emails, return phone calls and so forth. Alan Middleton often criticises the engagement of board members but fails to return calls and takes an aggressive tone in email (on one occasion I called him 4 times in relation to some out of session matters with no reply). Rod Birrell and Eugene Reid are similar.

 

Alan is not up for re-election but appears to be diametrically opposed to the Board.  With only 7 on the Board RAAus cannot afford to have 3 who are not fully contributing.

 

Kirk Sutton has been a "thorn in the side" querying the finer points of the Constitution at RAAus meetings and on this forum.  You can see his previous by searching here.  My feeling is that he will engage with the Board, not just ignore or have a hissy fit and take his bat & ball away.  He has his own thread, where you can ask questions of him.

 

I have sent an invitation to Alex and Tapan to join this forum and contribute their thoughts.

 

I am not endorsing any candidate.  Please VOTE!

 

Thank you Sue for the invitation. Just going through some insightful discussion on the thread. Will post some thoughts soon.

 

 

[Tango-Papa-November]

All,

 

Having gone through some of the discussion on this thread, I wish to make some early comments regarding my nomination. I have been in the IT industry for over 21 years and also been on the executive committees of other professional membership based organisation. Past 10-12 years of my career has been in management position where I have been responsible to drive business transformation projects - mainly focusing on improving efficiencies by making use of digital technology. In my opinion, RAAus is also in need of some modernisation. Using technology would help the board to reach out to maximum number of members and hear their voices and concerns. There is also a need to provide digital library of courses to all members. Further to this, use of technology will also help in providing transparency to the governance process.

 

I hope everyone has had an opportunity to go through my election statement and I am therefore keeping this post brief. My understanding is that voting percentage is really low for RAAus and I would urge everyone to cast your votes. Your vote will make a difference.

 

@kasper appreciate and support your views around policies and framework.

 

Happy flying.

 

Tapan

 

 

[Kenlsa]

I've been a member since the AUF days and I think that we have always chosen CFI's as it was the easy thing to do coz they know flying right?

 

But as we are no longer "clubby" with now 10k members, not just 50 of our mates, I really feel that the board has had enough CFIs for now and we need to look at business, corporate and large community organisation type of candidates. It seems that i have seen some of these faces 20 years ago. Am I wrong?

 

No way am i going to keep rehashing the same people with limited corporate knowledge any more. We have outgrown the "mates club" .

 

It was this type of thinking that got us into trouble a few years ago if you remember.

 

Further, I have taken the time to talk to some of the board and staff a few times over the last 3 years at meetings, flyins and workshops and been impressed with the direction we are heading, and none of the were of the old guard.

 

Ken

 

 

[turboplanner]

I've been a member since the AUF days and I think that we have always chosen CFI's as it was the easy thing to do coz they know flying right?

 

But as we are no longer "clubby" with now 10k members, not just 50 of our mates, I really feel that the board has had enough CFIs for now and we need to look at business, corporate and large community organisation type of candidates. It seems that i have seen some of these faces 20 years ago. Am I wrong?

 

No way am i going to keep rehashing the same people with limited corporate knowledge any more. We have outgrown the "mates club" .

 

It was this type of thinking that got us into trouble a few years ago if you remember.

 

Further, I have taken the time to talk to some of the board and staff a few times over the last 3 years at meetings, flyins and workshops and been impressed with the direction we are heading, and none of the were of the old guard.

 

Ken

 

What's this business you are talking about that would be outside the remit of an experienced CFI?

 

 

[Kenlsa]

Turbo,

 

the CFIs that i have dealt with and spoken to are either the owner of a small flight training school with only themselves as the sole employee or have a couple of part timers on contract.

 

Other CFIs are the top instructor and volunteer at a club and have limited input into the business side as they are busy training. With 10k members and 10 (?) paid staff i would like to see degrees in management, corporate governance, economics, etc running the show. One CFI is plently to advise on that part of RAAus (students and training)

 

 

[turboplanner]

Turbo,

 

the CFIs that i have dealt with and spoken to are either the owner of a small flight training school with only themselves as the sole employee or have a couple of part timers on contract.

 

Other CFIs are the top instructor and volunteer at a club and have limited input into the business side as they are busy training. With 10k members and 10 (?) paid staff i would like to see degrees in management, corporate governance, economics, etc running the show. One CFI is plently to advise on that part of RAAus (students and training)

 

Some of these CFIs are so good at management, governance, economics and running an AVIATION business that they already exactly meet your criteria.

 

They are succeeding in one of the toughest business environments in Australia where sometimes their place of business is ripped out from underneath them by a Council, they have no guarantee of continuity; several students can start learning to fly and just as the CFI employs an additional Instructor they run out of money and take off.  

 

That's the reason I asked you to specify which business needs these people you're talking about with no aviation experience.

 

Sometimes people don't stop to look.

 

 

[facthunter]

 One CFI enough? Perhaps ONE business expert might be enough too and ONE lawyer and ONE accountant.. but top business and experienced Law trained people get very high salaries. You can actually HIRE such advice when needed and it will be more "expert" than anyone we can attract to work for US full time. may be able to provide

 

  We could  hope to have a well managed "something or other" but where is the source of the REAL flying POLICIES coming from?  The basic purpose of an organisation like ours is to assist aspiring pilots  in our traditional  area of operations to have the best possible flying experience at the safest and cheapest way possible and make sure the relationship with the regulator and other aviation bodies is efficient, predictable, understood and done openly without fear or favour in our name.. After all there is a MONOPOLY here. There was meant to be a dual pathway and WE are NOT JUST customers to take or leave what is presented to us.. Nev

 

 

[turboplanner]

 One CFI enough? Perhaps ONE business expert might be enough too and ONE lawyer and ONE accountant.. but top business and experienced Law trained people get very high salaries. You can actually HIRE such advice when needed and it will be more "expert" than anyone we can attract to work for US full time. may be able to provide

 

  We could  hope to have a well managed "something or other" but where is the source of the REAL flying POLICIES coming from?  The basic purpose of an organisation like ours is to assist aspiring pilots  in our traditional  area of operations to have the best possible flying experience at the safest and cheapest way possible and make sure the relationship with the regulator and other aviation bodies is efficient, predictable, understood and done openly without fear or favour in our name.. After all there is a MONOPOLY here. There was meant to be a dual pathway and WE are NOT JUST customers to take or leave what is presented to us.. Nev

 

All good points FH, but the problem is the discussion is drifting into a dreamland where everyone is being asked what they would like to see.

 

The down to earth problem is that the candidates are already there to be voted on, and apart from some quiet canning, the 10,000 string army is not marching towards the ballot box.

 

The job at hand is to go OUT and get paid up members to vote, to avoind yet another tiny return.

 

 

[Yenn]

Most of the people who post on this forum seem to be actively interested in the running of RAAus. They are going to vote and make an informed decision I hope. The people who don't vote are more than likely to not even be aware of this forum. If we consider we know what is best voting wise, why would we be worried about voter numbers. All those who don't vote, don't get counted which means those few who do have a greater say in the management. Isn't that what you want.

 

 

[facthunter]

 We've always had the apathy problem. "I JUST want to fly".  IF you have that view , fine just live with it and take what comes, The old set up had some problems but at least it was US, Pilots making them.  We could sit in a room and KNOW that others there  had a similar conceptual knowledge about the basics of training standards, safety,  costs  aircraft design characteristics and similar. Pilots  do understand pilots in a way non pilots never will . Perhaps we deserved to Lose the AUF and the OLD RAAus.. Perhaps this formula will work in some way but I believe the more "Plane" knowledge you eliminate the less related will be the actions of our organisation to  basic pilot issues and needs. We don't have to re-invent the wheel. The USA is there to be scrutinised and be part of the possible way to go in some ways. The pity of it all is that about 11 years ago or so I thought we were leading the world, in our field of operations. Nev

 

 

[Litespeed]

From experience people with degrees in business management, corporate governance, MBA's and such would be next to useless.

 

Nothing they would have learnt at uni or the workplace that tends to require these qualifications would have any relevance to us. You end up with people who are taught to build empires or strip them apart for short term profit. They also come from a business culture that teaches ruthless capitalism and secrecy.

 

These are attributes we must avoid at all costs.

 

 

[Downunder]

When, not that long ago, the RAA went from paper and folders (as in manila folders) to computerised, all sorts of efficiencies were spruked. 

 

Cost savings as one. 

 

However, costs have continued to rise well above inflation. As in multiple times inflation. 

 

It seems to me the cost of efficiency is more than the actual purported savings so what is the point? 

 

Management want bells and whistles. 

 

Members want cheap flying.... 

 

Running an organisation with only 10 000 members is far different than running one with 100 000 members. 

 

 

[jetjr]

A large number of aircraft had to stop flying under the old system and records were badly kept.

 

CASA wasnt ever going to let that continue.

 

 

[Downunder]

A large number of aircraft had to stop flying under the old system and records were badly kept.

 

CASA wasnt ever going to let that continue.

 

No doubt improvements and changes were needed and are needed. I'm not against that.

 

But the context of a small organisation and membership base needs to reflect those changes.

 

My guess is the staff savings from manual recording have been outweighed by computer programming and maintenance costs?

 

Proffesionals getting on the board and in management like to talk about organisations they have been a part of and think the larger the organisation they have been a part of, the more credibility they have.

 

However, bad and expensive decisions can be hidden/written off against a large membership base without much notice.

 

 

[Alex van der End]

In the past I have found it frustrating that I had no idea of how our elected representatives were performing, and if it was worth re-electing them.  The election statements, naturally, would say "Hey, I'm a great guy" but are they really worth my vote?  Fortunately RAAus paid for independent consultants to do a review of the Board performance (Sept 2018) and published this.

 

From the 24 page report (plus attachments)

 

As noted at the outset of this report, an overriding theme of the board evaluation was that the board is currently factionalised.  Other themes relevant to board dynamics included that:

 

• the level of contribution to the board’s work is not equally spread with some directors seemingly having no real engagement in the board’s work other than being physically present at board meetings

 

• some directors are not asking questions in a constructive way, and

 

• it is queried whether all directors are acting in the best interests of RAAus (Page 16)

 

 .. struggle to engage several members as they do not respond to emails, return phone calls and so forth. Alan Middleton often criticises the engagement of board members but fails to return calls and takes an aggressive tone in email (on one occasion I called him 4 times in relation to some out of session matters with no reply). Rod Birrell and Eugene Reid are similar.

 

Alan is not up for re-election but appears to be diametrically opposed to the Board.  With only 7 on the Board RAAus cannot afford to have 3 who are not fully contributing.

 

Kirk Sutton has been a "thorn in the side" querying the finer points of the Constitution at RAAus meetings and on this forum.  You can see his previous by searching here.  My feeling is that he will engage with the Board, not just ignore or have a hissy fit and take his bat & ball away.  He has his own thread, where you can ask questions of him.

 

I have sent an invitation to Alex and Tapan to join this forum and contribute their thoughts.

 

I am not endorsing any candidate.  Please VOTE!

 

Wow, that is an interesting way of putting things.  To be clear, I am running because I believe I have skills that can benefit all members.  I have no agenda expect to further the goals and objectives of the organisation for the benefit of all members.

 

 

[Alex van der End]

Please feel free to ask me any specific questions you may have in regards to the election and what you expect from RAAus.

 

 

[Alex van der End]

Professionals getting on the board and in management like to talk about organisations they have been a part of and think the larger the organisation they have been a part of, the more credibility they have.

 

However, bad and expensive decisions can be hidden/written off against a large membership base without much notice.

 

FYI, all previous boards I have been on have been small and service membership of between a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand members.  None of the positions I have served on have been in any paid role and my service on these boards have been to further to objectives of the organisations.