Markdun

I agree there is no need for the RAA to have offices in Canberra and it may be more cost effective if the office was at a regional aerodrome with local govt support/subsidy. It might of made sense in the past when the AUF was actively lobbying the fed govt to get flying benefits for members, but it is different now that the RAA has become captured by CASA & is now CASA's toady. Having the office away from CASA may encourage the RAA to be more responsive & transparent to members, and less like an unresponsive & protect itself bureaucracy which are not rare entities here in Canberra. My wife (an economist) has also suggested that we should look very carefully at the funding deed of agreement with CASA. While the RAA may get a $100k, it may well be more costly to members....she calculated the cost to members of taking useless rego number photos and sending them in would easily exceed that amount.. And she was also a board member of a large Australian nfp association (much larger membership, similiar revenues & staff numbers). They also had some 'president' issues, with their president thinking she had the power to make decisions for the org, rather than just a casting vote at board meetings. My wife is gobsmacked at what we pay for staff. They have an 'executive officer' who runs their head office and manages around 15 staff at salary of around $80k. The eo reports to the board. When recruiting, they were told by hr consultants that referring to the eo as the 'chief exec officer' would add more than $50k pa to the salary cost with no change in responsibilities. Their head office is not in canberra.

A treasurer who on what he said at the meeting does not read the legal advice but takes what others say on trust (ie doesnt diligently perform their responsibilities) does not bode well. Happy to be proved wrong. Also happy to hear views of clubs he has been involved in the past, say Temora?? My point is that you should not have to prove compliance, you should just comply or risk being fined. Proving at one point of time is pretty meaningless, as planes are changed & modified from year to year. I agree about older pilots. How about this for another absolutely STUPID rule. If you are over 75yo you need to have a medical....perhaps ok, but guess what, evidently over 75yo are more likely to lie than younger people according to RAA OPS MANUAL. Instead of simply stating they have had the medical, like the under 75s do to say they are fit to drive, the over 75s have to PROVE they have had the medical by supplying a copy. Those untrustworthy older people, you really need to keep a closer eye on them. A 17 yo would never lie about being fit to drive.

Could be that we are now out of the frying pan. Does anyone know the new treasurer's prior experience with other peoples' money??

I left the meeting at lunch pretty confident that it was going nowhere, and pretty depressed about the future of flying; went flying on Sunday (surprised no one called in at Lake George); and have spent today in the ACT Supreme Court on an unrelated matter...so I haven't added my two bobs worth. It seemed to me that people forget that the ONLY power of a GM is to remove a board member. All resolutions/no-confidence votes are only recommendations...the board can ignore them. On SR's legitimacy as president, it seems to me from reading the tea leaves of what was said at the meeting that his position is 'voidable' as opposed to being 'void ab initio' to use admin law terms. In other words while the board's decision to 'reinstate' him may be beyond their power, it stands until a court overturns it. If it was 'void ab initio' he would not be president even if he and the board thinks he is. I think this is correct in law. It was disappointing that the meeting did not resolve this issue by a motion to remove him on the basis that he may be the president. Whether you agree or not, this would have reslolved the issue. But then it may have then gone into issues about the validity of proxies, bias etc. Messy. On the rego issue, and I know a lot of you don't agree with me on this, I am now more convinced than ever that the RAA is going in the wrong direction....it seems to becoming nothing more than a privatised CASA clone. From my quick look at the CASA audits, there appears to be no issues about planes affecting the innocent public or other aviators...more about protecting adults from themselves and compliance with stupid rules, yes, stupid rules. People, including CASA seem to think RAA reg is a certificate of compliance with the CAOs and Tech Manual, & an airworthiness cert. If you want that, then you should stay in GA. We even had the outrageous suggestion at the meeting that people should be inspected and get RAA approval before beginning to build an aircraft 'just like the SAAA'. The intention of the AUF was that we fly low weight aircraft at slow speeds that reduce the risk to third parties, but otherwise the risk and responsibility is on the occupants of the plane. The so called CASA audits, also delve into policy, suggesting for example, that pilots certificates should have an endorsement for spectacles or not. But there is no evidence pilots are not wearing spectacles, nor evidence of crashes because they are not...just another unnecessary rule. I cannot see how supplying photos of your plane's rego markings, or the cockpit warnings, will make the planes safer, or protect people who are not occupants. I cannot see how it prevents non-compliance. Examples of where the stupid rules should be abolished. But my reading of the meeting is that we have had a huge influx of 'GA refugees', who are used to the cotton-wool of over-regulation in GA and who want others to take responsibility (it has RAA reg so it must be compliant and is airworthy; I have an endorsement for 'x' so I must be able to fly that sort of plane etc etc). I accept planes used to instruct and which take children on board should be treated differently. I think that given the direction the RAA is going we are going to see a big increase in aircraft and pilots operating outside the regulatory environment (ie illegally) just like 30 years ago. The RAA may have been tardy in responding to the audits, but not in 'ensuring compliance' but in pushing back to CASA and changing the Op & Tech manuals. We also need to point out that CASA has a conflict of interest in 'auditing' competing bodies such as RAA, and that despite the non-compliance people have not been injured or killed as a result of the non-compliance...a good indicator that they are rubbish rules. Sorry for the rant....a bit depressed about the future. Cheers, Mark

Alfa, if the Secretary doesn't inform all board members of a board meeting under Rule 18(iv), then the meeting is NOT a board meeting under the Constitution ....it is just a meeting of blokes, perhaps caucusing before the GM. You cant stop that. But they cant make any 'board' decisions at such a meeting. L/D much of what you say is true (although the RAA can impose fines and sanctions on members, but I wouldn't want that promoted.....see provision B6 of the Constitution). However I disagree with you that one should have to 'prove' compliance at initial rego or when a plane is sold. I dont have to do it for the rego markings for my yacht, nor for my motorcar. 68volksy is correct that it is a rule in the ops manual, but in my view this is exactly the sort of rule that should be deleted, because as you say it doesnt stop non-compliance. Again in my view, and I would concede that this might not be agreed to, the RAA should be able and willing to 'register' an aircraft that on the specs provided by the owner falls outside 95.55, but with the proviso that the owner is informed the aircraft cannot be flown until it complies. We need to get away (far away) from the idea that RAA rego implies the aircraft is compliant or airworthy as it fosters the view that it the RAA's fault when a plane is found non-compliant, or not airworthy. I think the condition report reqt is also counterproductive for the same reason. I also agree there needs to be a lot of praise for hardwork at the RAA office. But i think there is an alot of work that could be ditched. Weather permitting, I'm Kitfoxing tomorrow....slowere than the Cygnet, but that means more air time. Cheers, Mark

Hi. I've been sailing in qld after launching the 11m catamaran I built in Jan 2012. I think I have the mud wasps under control...only problem has been the insect eating antichinus that have decided to build nests on my engine and in my wings, and the feral pigs that dont like nice smooth grassy airstrips.

Yep, I am going, and so are all the guys I fly with here in Canberra. I did stand for the board. And I am happy to accept proxies. I have been thinking of possible resolutions for the meeting and I am keen to get feedback. What are other people thinking?. Uppermost in my mind would be resolutions something like this (a) a censure of the practice of refusing to give any member a document in accordance with the constitution (if it is true that members have been refused); (b) a requirement that the ceo must give any document to a board member within two working days of the request from the board member; © requiring the board to publish on the website the following documents within 7 days of the general meeting 'the deed with CASA, all coorespondence from and to CASA in relation to aircraft registration, including the CASA audits (redacted to avoid identifying individual members unless they can publish them on a members only site like the HGFA has), all delegations the board has made to the ceo/management of the association's powers (including contracting, but excludings powers given to specified officers under the op and tech manuals), (d) something about having a plan of action on avoiding this fiasco again and publishing this to members within 4 weeks. I can think of more (such as controling the blow-out in employee expenses over the last few years). I think just asking questions is not enough. What do we want our association to do? Mark

I am by no means suggesting the RAA management and executive are not at fault in failing to satisfy the CASA audit findings, but I am now beginning to worry that we could end up with an outcome that requires more onerous obligations on flying members, for example in having to prove or document everything to the RAA to have an aircraft registered or a pilot's certificate renewed. If this is what CASA wants we should push back. Having to provide pictures of aircraft registration to 'prove' you have the proper markings is a good case in point. It adds nothing to safety, and little if any to compliance as such markings can fall-off or change in subsequent years, or be changed deliberately if someone really wants to. In my view it should be sufficient to have the rule on markings and leave it to members to comply or risk a fine. Similarly the Operations Manual says a valid pilot certificate requires a BFR and for that to be noted in your log book. But the RAA now expects you to 'prove' that by sending them documentation. Unnecessary in my view. On the aircraft markings -- if that is the issue with CASA audits (and I think there must be more than that though) -- then in my view that is a good example where the rules in the Operating Manual should be changed to not require it. I am yet to see a HGFA aircraft with such large rego markings. And Winsor68, I was the sort of public servant who blew the whistle on property developers being given land at millions of dollars discount contrary to law, and who cut off funding to some groups for not spending public money properly, who called in the AFP on people (local government QANGOS) seeking to get a Dept to release funds to them by telling porkies), and having an auditor struck-off for failing to identify that a $900,000 payment for a $1.4m project funded by you, me and the rest of Australia, was not paid. I am cynical, but sometimes auditors get it wrong, but more importantly they rarely look into the policy or the wisdom of the rule or process -- they just answer the question -- do the practices comply with the rule? Can anyone tell me whether anyone has tried to see the audits, and/or the Deed of Agreement with CASA under Rule 36 of the RAA Constitution? I can't understand how the Exec can prevent any Member, let alone a Board member from seeing any document that is in the possession of the RAA under this rule. Or is it just ignored?

Sorry about that..hit the wrong button. It is s.13 of the federal ADJR Act. Cheers, Mark

I had a great fly this morning....first in my Cygnet for 9 months. Only problem was that I had to grade the strip due to feral pig damage! I'm still struggling with understanding the CASA audits. From my 30 years experience in the public service the usual response to audits is either (a) ignore it as no one cares; (b) change the rules so your existing processes would become compliant; © attack the audit as raising only insig or minor issues; (d) only as a last resort change your processes to be compliant. We dont know what they tried to do, if anything. It is worth noting that the exemtion for our aircraft requires them to meet the specified criteria (eg max gross weight) AND be registered with RAa. Having RAA registration does not make an aircraft compliant. And I cant find any law that forbids the RAA from registering a non-compliant aircraft . The regs under which CASA authorizes the RAA only require that the RAA be 'suitable to ensure that the administration of operations, airworthiness assessments and procedures can be properly carried out' and have practices etc to ensure operations and airtwortiness are carried out safely, and has a CEO who has the authority and responsibilty to ensure things are done with reasonable care and diligence (see Civil Aviation Reg 262AN People should be aware that if they are personally affected by the rego fiasco they are entitled to demand a statement of reasons from CASA under s.13 of the

Can you post them so we can all see them? Mark