Brett
Suggesting we're somehow pushing into a market that doen't want us is a little dumb, considering the governments resultant contract to provide the services, no matter what the funding arrangement. If they didnt want us, they wouldn't have contracted us!
This is why you should be solving it with them. I is partly their responsibility to ensure that an important and necassary charitable organisation is able to continue operating. After all it is their state, their people and their babies.
Your existence is made possible by the government, the charity and your sponsors. That is where it should end.
But I guess now that we’ve proven the need for a dedicated Chidlren's Helicopter… it should be considered a commercial operator's work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You would hope that it will always go to those that are best equipped and best prepared to do the job. You are in a very good position with your machinery, location, amenities and I would guess, crew, but a bit behind the eight ball in the funding department. Get out there, campaign, make stratergies, tell us all when you save a little life, show the Victorian people and the Government the success of your transfers and the importance of your existence. It is the communities responsibility to protect their babies by funding your existence, and it is your responsibility that those funds are utilised in the best possible way to provide the best possible service and response back to the community.
The answer is not to gain extra finance by unfairly competing in a commercial market. You didn't have to buy the machinery, you don't have to pay the staff, you don't have to pay for maintenance. You just have to manage the funds to make sure that this all happens efficiently on behalf of the community. In light of that, if you are campaigning as hard as you can, then you are not campaigning hard enough.
The fact that this arrangement was made right at the very beginning with obvious indications of being underfinanced and in particularly, knowing that a full SPIFR upgrade was part of the terms and conditions, is partly negligent and very poorly constructed.
Were you hoping to enhance sponsorships?
When did you obtain your approval to conduct commercial work? Have you had that since the beginning?
Was it planned in the arrangement to pickup any short falls in the funding by doing commercial work?
Why would you have the need to upgrade an aircraft to SPIFR when you don't have the funding to run it 24/7?
Surely the $1 a year rent or the free fuel isn't what has sent you broke.
There is no reason why the tax paying aviation community should have to accept this poorly constructed arrangement and it is very much up to you, your board and the government to resolve the issue.