FlyingVizsla

 

 

Your figures equate to $150 per hour for 7 hours a day for 7 hours a week at 441 hours in a month not including time out for the 100 hourlies in the month of which there would be four of. I'd buy a fleet tomorrow if i thought those figures were possible!

Sorry Challenger - I think I wasn't clear enough - these were figures for RAAus, not my personal income. The guy who would really be hurting is the CFI who can't train students in the grounded aircraft.

What I was pointing out was, it was probably typical of grounded aircraft - 8 weeks out of action all for a photograph of two placards. RAAus missed out on 16% of our normal fee for registration. Extrapolate that out to a year ... over 3,000+ aircraft ... some that have / will be, grounded for months, or gave up, it all being too hard or expensive to comply, and factory imports that can't be registered, and those that will pass the system on time. I came up with 15% as a guestimate

Sue

(Gosh I wish I made that much out of one plane!!!)

 

 

I fear you are probably correct but I also think there has been a significant loss of revenue form October onwards due the registration fiasco.

 

 

 

Apparently Eugene approved an arrangement whereby full 12 month renewals were given from the day on which the renewal finally occurred...often 6 weeks or so after they were due...so that income from registrations will be down about 10% for the half year.

 

 

 

I gather he did this without Board authority or consideration as to the legality of doing a renewal which is actually a new registration application because the previous registration had lapsed.

 

 

 

Kaz

Our plane was grounded for just over 8 weeks (a 2 day delay on our end getting photos), just over 16% of the year. Given that 2012 aircraft rego amounted to $421,691 this loss of income will tell, particularly as most aircraft registrations fall due at this time of year. We did get a full 12 months from the day of authorisation, but didn't know about it until the letter arrived 5 days later - so 9 weeks of no flying a factory built with a CFI. Some aircraft have not been renewed, so I guess 15% loss of income for the year = $63,000 approx.

I would not be surprised if aircraft registration will have to rise in the next year to offset this loss. Perhaps going up from $130 to $150 for a 2 seater.

Some discount for the loss of use was about the only way to placate the masses though. He should have, at least, allowed the Board to debate the pros & cons before authorising this (if indeed he had not run this past them & legal opinion).

Sue

I am guessing that there are a few out there who have seen what happened to the aircraft side of RAA and are not waiting around for the audit of memberships/pilot certificates. If you don't have to be a member, there's not much incentive now to remain one. When I see the figures for the preceding 6 months I may be able to quantify that assumption.

Sue

Darn.... I might have to join Farcebook. All in a good cause.

Sue

Did anyone get a copy of the financial statement at the meeting? If so, I wouldn't mind having a look & compare with previous.

Thanks

Sue

 

 

This week three mature aviators were sharing a coffee at the back of a maintenance hangar, and between them had in excess of 140 years aviation involvement and ownership interests in seven aircraft. In the last few weeks all three had decided not to renew their RAA membership. All have a joint RAA?/GA interest, but by choice will be active within GA.

 

 

 

Recruitment of members for any organization usually presents its challenges, but failure to take heed of retention of your members can expose of any organizations deficiencies PDQ.

I recall Robbie Costmeyer (CEO for a short time before Steve Tizzard) was trying to address the issue of non-renewals by members and included a questionnaire with the renewal notice. I think he was trying for two things 1.an indication of the reasons for non-renewal, and 2.get a response rather than silence and non payment (saves sending out reminders etc if you know they have quit). I remember it got knocked on the head as we were increasing in membership so the leakage wasn't such an issue.

Sue

Couple of points that I raised -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 monthly finance was tabled. 1.7mil in cash holdings = $9700 in interest.. effectively 1.06% on yearly basis.. Raised the question to Eugene "That's the best the girls told me that we could get", ING would pay over 5% or $87k per year. Eugene admitted 'quietly' that yes it would wipe the loss of $34k in first six months and create a surplus if invested correctly.

 

According to the 2011 Annual Report the money was invested in Fixed Interest $966k and Floating Interest $520k with a combined effective weighted average interest rate of 4.4% for their $1.485 Million. (Note 17). The same information was not disclosed in 2012, however the interest on $1.78Mil was $81,774 (roughly 4.59%), Bank charges were $20,283.

So why are we getting 1%? I can only assume that the Fixed Interest accounts (about $1mil) have interest paid on maturity or 6 monthly and has not been taken into account? Given that the Association doesn't seem to need the money (it is just building year by year), perhaps it is time to consider better investments.

Sue

Thanks Sue...did I do something wrong because with the corrected figures I get 67% rise in employee expenses?

508211, 508729, 707943, 868396, 840690, 1075708

More on the Annual Reports:

I have found a mistake on my spreadsheet under "Plain English Version" - the employee expenses for 2009, 2010, 2011 & 2012 are wrong - the figures on the "Summary" page are correct, being a direct copy of the Annual Reports. Shift the figures over one & put in the correct 2009 & 2012. With the correct figures in you will see employee expenses have risen 106% since 2007, Key Personnel (whoever they are ....) have risen by 121%

I got on to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and retrieved the Table "6345.0 Wage Price Index, Australia" which is a summary of hourly rates for all States and industries, public and private for the financial years 2002 - 2012. I chose all wages in the ACT. There wasn't a "not-for-profit", and "Admin" was very similar. Wage increases per year are:-

Overall a rise of less than 20% since 2007 Vs RAA's 121%. Before we jump to too many conclusions - there is no indication of the number of persons employed by RAA - they may have created some positions which would account for the increase. However John Mc indicated that large pay rises were approved.

The disclosure of remuneration for "Key Personnel" also does not indicate how many fall into that category. Nor does it indicate the nature of the "Post Employment Benefit" be it accrued leave, or termination benefit under the contract. This kind of benefit is used in contracts to retain staff - eg a cash bonus for each year of service. The Post benefit was $98,202 at 2012. So either the CEO never took leave or there was a termination benefit.

The cost to each member for employee expenses (including provisions for leave & Key personnel + benefits and Board costs) was approx $189.74 per annum.

Note that the Treasurer for each year was the INCOMING Treasurer eg Don Ramsay was elected Treasurer at the AGM FOLLOWING the year being reported on. I have had reports that SR was a capable Treasurer and may have been responsible for the further dissection of expenditure which has been so useful to us.

I was hoping to get our old magazines out to list who was Treasurer and their tenure. But I don't think I will get that done until after the Meeting.

All the best for Sat 9th Feb 2013.

Sue

I think my table building skills just left me - preview looks terrible.

I received the accurate counts of membership numbers from the Admin leader at RAAus today and will provide it below for you to consider:-Membership Counts

 

[TABLE][TR][TH] [/TH][TH]2008[/TH][TH]2009[/TH][TH]2010[/TH][TH]2011[/TH][TH]2012[/TH][TH]2Jan13[/TH][TR][TD]Flying[/TD][TD2]4635[/TD2][TD2]5416[/TD2][TD2]6344[/TD2][TD2]7368[/TD2][TD2]8995[/TD2][TD2]9703[/TD2][/TR][TR][TD]Non Flying[/TD][TD2]122[/TD2][TD2]139[/TD2][TD2]152[/TD2][TD2]163[/TD2][TD2]194[/TD2][TD2]203[/TD2][/TR][TR][TD]Other[/TD][TD2]131[/TD2][TD2]154[/TD2][TD2]191[/TD2][TD2]221[/TD2][TD2]222[/TD2][TD2]271[/TD2][/TR][TR1][TD]Percentage increase[/TD][TD2]undef[/TD2][TD2]16.9%[/TD2][TD2]17.1%[/TD2][TD2]16.1%[/TD2][TD2]22.1%[/TD2][TD2]7.9%(part yr)[/TD2][/TR1][/TABLE](Note the last % is a partial year and if we gross it up to a full year its about 16%....which tells us that year on year we have a business growing by 16% on average.......there are many others that could only dream of such growth!!)

I am not sure what they were counting for members on the Annual Reports - perhaps counting non-financial members or all members of affiliated Clubs? Those people who received my spreadsheet will need to update the membership numbers to those above (supplied to Andy) to get the sheet to recalculate the cost per member and value per member.

Sue

(hope my table making skills are as good as Andy's)

Hope not, but the paperwork will be done. Couple of local 30-ish well known identities. Surprised ATSB get into it when a couple of 'top" aerobatic acccidents don't get looked at. Is RAAus under the microscope? Nev

Sue

from one flying dog to another! Have some friends with Savannahs and they wouldn't have anything else. Great roomy, versatile plane. Where do you fly?

I can't get to Canberra either, so our votes had to go to proxies we trusted. There are lists of people going who can take a proxy for you - unfortunately they are spotted all over the place (threads). Try "9 Days to Go" on the Governing Bodies forum. I think there were some there, read some of their posts to get an idea of what they stand for and go for it. You can give your proxy holder some guidance so they can vote according to your wishes.

Did you build your Sav?

Sue

Some of the quotes used in the media came from the QPS facebook page. The quoted "spluttering, low flying" report was of a blue plane at Woodford. Others noted low flying planes of varying colours at Dalby, Warana, Neurum & Woodford airstrip; although someone who seemed to know, said she was tracking North-East from Wamuran to Beerburrum. People were getting helicopters mixed up with fixed wing aircraft. Sad that people don't know their geography, colours or basic aircraft types, and end up in the media worrying the public, family & friends. It is too easy for people to text before thinking.

My sympathies to family & friends. I really hope we can find out what happened.

Sue

This (why the search aircraft is going in circles up high) was discussed at length on the thread "Aircraft Missing from Monto" regarding a very similar search by the Dornier not far from this site. From memory someone with good knowledge explained the whole procedure.

Sue

The full names and addresses of Board Members are in the Annual Reports lodged with the ACT Office of Regulatory Services, which are public documents. The reason I did not put the documents on the forum was because of this information. I did offer them to anyone who requested them privately. You would have to ask a Board member if they agreed to having their home address disclosed. Personally I would have had them as Care of RAAus. A copy of a proxy has to go to the office anyway.

Sue

I have summarised the financials into a spreadsheet and attempted some analysis. Any one who wants it PM me - it is in Excel 2010, but I can provide it in other formats. People who had requested the pdfs of the Annual Reports have received this spreadsheet.

Interesting things - the membership numbers were overstated from 2011 (11,079) when the number was less than 10,000. The cost of "Key Personnel" more than doubled in 4 years, but overall employee expenses went up only by 67%. Board expenses are approx $6,500 per board member. The value of RAA (per member) has risen from $162 in 2007 to $336. RAA has made a "profit" every year. The CASA grant has increased by only 16%, the membership has increased by 20%, the bank balance has nearly trebbled in 5 years. There were large expenditure on computers, equipment, furniture about the time the Brisbane office (which no longer exists?) was established. In 2008 2 year memberships (with $20 discount) were offered. The Treasurer didn't treat this money in advance and overstated the income for that year, so it appeared a very good year, the next year (without the pre-payments) looked woeful with only $64k surplus - thus the call for a fee increase. The Memberships in Advance was corrected in the next year - but did we need an increase?

Far more detail has been provided when Don Ramsay became Treasurer, and this gives far more to work with.

Without knowing what is in each category, and some things are not dissected, it is not possible to confidently analyse the performance of key elements eg cost of the magazine. There are some issues people have raised with me - 9th Feb is an opportunity to ask the Board for their explanations.

Sue

 

 

 

Thanks to you and your era for all the hard work you put in. It's not forgotten. Indeed we really need an official

 

 

 

history of the organisation so that it remains acknowledged and documented for future generations.

 

 

 

 

 

There's an official history on the old RAAus site - http://flysafe.raa.asn.au/regulations/benchmarks.html

Pity it hasn't made it to the new, official RAA site, and there is no link to it.

Sue

I'll put $1000 on it that it is a Cessna 182RG

Rego details http://casa-query.funnelback.com/search/search.cgi?collection=casa_aircraft_register&query=owz&session=2125227788

First registered in Aust Oct 2011. VH-OWZ was on a C185 before that.

You can also follow the historical flights on flight tracking sites eg Flightaware

Sue

 

 

 

... "grave digging" ... picking an old thread, > say 3 months old

 

Gosh! Here I was thinking you had found something in the Financials!

I think people find this forum after searching for something - a problem, engine / plane type, accident etc. Then post something trivial so they can find it again. The other time I have seen it is to reinvigorate a Classified that is still for sale but has slipped off the radar. Occasionally the Flying Guernsey Cow has trouble with directional control and Bumps into things. :bye:But we love him.

Sue

My husband had something similar - on the run up test it ran rough, but not missing, on one ignition. Fixed it by using switch grease on all the connectors between the modules & coils etc.

Sue

OK Folks,

I have received copies of the RAAus Annual Reports which includes the Audit Report from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 & 2012 (including Notes). If any RAA members would like a copy PM me and I can send them. I have them in pdf, about 4.8MB all up.

Analysis to follow.

Sue

verily thy name is Shirley (phew) Powerin

Got our new card in the mail. Our rego (training aircraft) expired 15th Nov - renewed 10th Jan. 56 days lost, plus the time in the mail etc We were caught up in this from the start; when we got the "computer glitch" excuse. We have two more due in the coming months.

RAA will be down about 15% on revenue for each plane grounded, not to mention those who are grounded for a lot longer.

Sue

What do you mean by this line of your post Sue? This is getting hard to follow.

Friend has his aircraft for sale - rego not renewed, having difficulty, therefore can't demonstrate and buyer can't fly away, or transfer, or be assured that it won't become an expensive ground anchor.

Others we know who have not heard, did not get a renewal, told what to do but having difficulty understanding or complying etc. We don't get out much and don't know many other owners, but we now know more grounded than flying.

Sue

Still Grounded

Never "Too Old" mate.

For the General Manager, aviation experience isn't the top priority. After all, he has CASA auditing the tech side of things, and assistance (or whatever) from the CASA Sport Aviation officer (advertised late last year), Lee Ungerman et al. What is really lacking is Governance - compliance with the ACT Incorporated Associations ACT & Regs - both with the Board and General Manager. I suspect the previous CEO who had Not-for-Profit experience, but little aviation background, used the excuse that he lacked this to depart with honour once he saw the state of affairs - or was pushed - I don't know. Board members with experience in both fields have resigned over Governance issues - so this is our most pressing issue for our long term survival. IMO.

Sue

Still Grounded