I've worked in a similar environment, and right now I run an autonomous organisation rather bigger than LAA HQ in Turweston. I also fly. I also have studied quite a lot of management topics.
If you look at the truly successful organisations, very rarely are they successfully run by:
(1) People who work stupidly long hours.
(2) People who don't maintain a good understanding of what their organisation is really about - the classic parachuted in CEOs (such as CAA's !) in other words.
So, we've got a chap here who is running a recreational aviation organisation, and is getting out of the office to go and engage with recreational aviation. Okay, a slightly different sort of flying, but that would worry me much less than to hear that he was a golf obsessive.
If he's doing this on work time rather than leave, then as an LAA member I do feel that's inappropriate. If he's spending every other day out there networking with other European GA organisations however, then I'd not be so worried. Ultimately however, if the LAA is running well, and does appear to be, then that is what really matters, not anybody else's idea of how he should spend his time whilst he's in charge.
Plus it keeps him out of the hair of the man who really runs the LAA, and has done for a couple of decades.
G