Thanks for the very full reply - good to finally be getting down to some serious discussion at last!
Press office - well I would agree that he will only be as good as the information he's given, but I hope that doesn't mean that he's going to simply act as a "mouthpiece" for the rest of the team. Heaven-forbid that the management found yet another excuse to avoid actually communicating with anyone! Does this also mean that if/when he is approched with new ideas to help TVOC, the offers won't simply be ignored now? I very much hope so. However, my main worry is that I haven't seen the new "press office" translate into any press coverage anywhere. I hope that whoever the guy is, he understands that a press officer has to be proactive not merely reactive.
Forum - Oh wel 'nuff said. I agree that the forum serves a useful purpose in enabling supporters to talk to each other but in a wider sense, I doubt if it's had any effect on the amount of money going into the programme. In fact I worry slightly that reading endless squabbles over nothing actually deters people from making dontaions!
Progress - I'm not quite so convinced that everything's fine. I think Dr.Pleming has made it very clear that there's a serious shortfall of money still outstanding so unless this money looks like being found (and I assume that it doesn't look like being found?) then I don't see much to be enthusiastic about? Fundamentally, no matter what changes might or might not be made to TVOC, if ther money still isn't there, it's a waste of time.
HLF - Well, as I've said in previous posts, HLF is the only obvious way in which longer-term funding for the aircraft could be secured. As you say, the HLF involvement appears to be "done and dusted" which seems - to put it mildly - completely crazy! Surely, if TVOC are doing anything worthwhile to seriously find funding, then they should be putting a lot of effort into trying to persuade HLF to provide it. I've already explained why, and if they haven't done that, then surely it's time that someone was asking them why not?
Oh well, the saga continues...