Right-on Rotorbiggles!
Nice to know that we all share similar experience of flying club politics. Jock's cynical input very apt.
I like to think of them as Assistants to the Flying Instructor, in "Ricky Gervais speak".
(One pedantic point, they're FI(R)'s now not AFI's.) - where we are we still call them AFI's. Point taken, though.Tthe restricted bit is a key issue which unfortunately, in our case, seems to have fallen by the wayside.