andrewmcharlton

Thanks for the link Smiler.

It seems on first reading that there isn't anything truly horrific in there but other will doubtless interrogate them to granular level.

The obvious issues to me seem to be:

1. The surplus of cash carried forwards in two succesive years. How does this tie in with their plees and lack of funds?

2. The trading subsidiary trading at a loss with support costs of £100k plus including depreciation of some £60k. What the heck do they have that is depreciating at a faster rate than they actually get cash in?

3. Dr P paid almost £130,000 in fees and expenses. £91,760 in expenses????

4. Spending £300k on marketing and fundraising and bringing in less money than when they only spent £111k

5. Effectively mortaging surpluses (potentially forever) until they repay debts.

jindabyne

No crticism implied, but how is the salary total of £735012 for the 23 employees in 2007 arrived at ?

BEagle

.....................

jindabyne

Beags - I read that also, and it pans out at an average of around £32K per employee; but it doesn't answer my query.

Delta15

12th December 2008, 16:57 #1920 (permalink) Tim McLelland



As I said previously, I'd love to highlight some of the things I know about but I can't,


But surly you can give us figures without fingering the people who told you?



in fairness to the people who told me. But it is true that that expenses are handled very badly and it's clear (when you see how some of the money is actually being spent) that some people are taking ridiculous amounts of money out of the project,

Again give us figures?

considering that it is supposed to be a charity. There are other factors too - the hangar fees are another matter which, when explained fully, shows that an awful lot of money could have been saved in that respect,

How could this be altered surely Mr Walton deserves a fair return on his Hangar... last I heard was it was £15,000 per month and having once worked for his company I know he could have commanded 3-4 times that amount for storage alone..



had the people running the project not been so unprofessional. Doubtless it will all come out in the proverbial wash one day but I've certainly been appaled by the way that things have been handled. But one has to work on the basis that they did at least get the aircraft into the air despite everything. The frustrating aspect is that you can't help thinking that other people might have been able to do it rather sooner and more cheaply,

Who for instance?


Finally Tim can you tell me which books you have written as I would be interested in seeing if I have any of them in my libraray?.

Tim McLelland

It's all way too complicated to explain at length even if I had the will to do so, but as I've said, in fairness to the people concerned, I'm not going to do that. But just to highlight one of the points you raised, the hangar business was a prime example. The Waltons would have allowed the aircraft to be hangared for free even though they could make a huge sum of money using the whole hangar for storage. It was the dear Felicity (who thankfully has now gone) that effectively p*ssed-off the Waltons because of things she said and did, until they (understandably) decided to charge for the Vulcan's hangar space. This was just one of the sagas which could have been handled professionally, and would have saved a fortune.

I had to laugh reading the accounts:-

No employee earned over £60,000 during the year.

Phew, that's alright then!

It would be funny if it wasn't so disgraceful. So much for being devoted to the aim of getting the Vulcan back into the air. Looking at those figures it looks more like one big gravy train...

I had to laugh at comments made by some people on a thread on another site, saying that it was obviously worth Pleming getting paid 60k. Have you ever heard such rubbish? Sorry, but that kind of figure doesn't indicate someone who has the Vulcan's interests at heart. Nobody has enough ability and talent to warrant that kind of money, especially when it's supposed to be a "give every penny" drive to get the aircraft flying. Besides, what precisely, are his talents that are so valuable? Not communicating with people? talking a load of claptrap when he's on TV?

Come on, this is just ridiculous.

BEagle

Fair enough, Tim.

By the way, I find the comment on w w w. thunder - and - lightnings .co .uk / vulcan / references . html* about your Vulcan book rather terse and unpleasant. Bloody rude, in fact:



And if the Vulcan-to-the-sky organisation wants an ex-Vulcan pilot who will fly for 0.01p per hour, they need only call me!

Nonetheless, I'm still contributing to the call for funding.

*the stupid PPRuNe nanny didn't like the real URL, so delete the gaps to access the site.

andrewmcharlton

Having a difference of opinion is one thing but some of this stuff is getting very personal and bang out of order. Whatever people's views are there is no need to slag each other off at such length in a personal tone.

Trying to discredit Tim's book or anyone else's efforts is poor craik. I don't agree with paying the various individuals the sums they get just as I didn't cry at the back of the "bond girl" from the project but I don't think they are crooked, dishonest or manifestly uncommitted.

I hope that those "getting stuck in" don't represent the "insider" or tainted views.........

SpringHeeledJack

And that is how I would have expected every ex-Vulcan pilot/crew to have reacted to get the seldom chance to fly the tin triangle again. Appropriate expenses covered so as not to be out of pocket and that's that! I wonder how much the crew did get ? It's not that I would begrudge wages to any full-time crew, but as this is an endeavour supported by donations it seems only logical that 'in-kind' help would be gladly given in general.

That people were getting pretty decent wages (but not more than £60,000!) is hard to stomach when funding is so tight does sound a bit like a gravy train to quote a previous poster.


regards


SHJ

andrewmcharlton

Not to mention the aforesaid gravy train ran at a surplus for two years !

Tim McLelland

Actually, the silly comments about my book/s on the T&L site are nothing to do with the Vulcan saga - it's just that the guy who runs that website is a bit wierd. Unfortunately, publishers and authors have to deal with that kind of stuff all time time these days, now that any random plane spotter can set himself up on the internet as an "authority". As a rule we don't step-in unless any comments are made which are defamatory or grossly inaccurate, chiefly because it's not worth the effort.

As for TVOC, I don't doubt for a minute that there are some very dedicated individuals in the team who have done an awful lot of hard work and they deserve our admiration and respect for a job well done - even if the outcome has been frustrating. But my view (which I've held for a long time) is that there are other people in the team that are there either to boost their ego, or to make a few bob, whilst doing nothing that other people couldn't do much less expensively. I've seen absolutely nothing over the past couple of years to convince me otherwise.

SFCC

I agree entirely with Tim's second paragraph.
I donated some cash to the project and was glad when it flew, but it will never happen again.
Too many freeloaders lining their pockets.

I'd be amazed if it flew again

andrewmcharlton

I see that tvoc's web site has the usual pass the hat messages including this little nugget I am sure others spotted:

They say recognising your problem is the first step on the road to recovery, not sure about that. They also mention a well known model maker deal but then don't mention them. I'd be peeved if it was my model company and don't even get name dropping.

Anyway, to all those who worked there getting her airborne in 08 thank you. Not optomistic about 09 unless we see "regime change".

Happy New Year.

Tim McLelland

It's absolute rubbish isn't it? You can't expect to be paid huge amounts of money (and let's be straight about this, Pleming's income has been huge by any standards) and then whine about being a "small team" who are unable to be as open as some people would like. What a joke - "focus on doing the job" - my God, he must be incredibly busy. I wonder precisely what he does all day to justify that amount of money?

Sorry, but I've lost all support for TVOC. Yes, they got the aircraft back into the air but frankly I get the distinct impression that their "smoke and mirrors" approach simply disguises the fact that other people could have achieved the task more rapidly and much less expensively. I don't accept that Pleming has done anything to justify the astonishing amount of money he's milked out of well-meaning donors and the very fact that he's patently unwilling to explain his position simply serves to justify my disillusionment with the whole saga. I'm just sorry that XH558 is the ultimate victim of the saga.

However, as I've said before, I can't help feeling similarly disgusted that the aviation press has sat-back and done nothing. What a bunch of toothless wimps. They've spewed-out the TVOC press releases and churned-out the endless photographs but has anybody stopped to ask TVOC some serious questions about the way they've handled the project? Nope, not a word. So much for journalism...

bubblesuk

The one thing that bugs me about this thread is the amount of posters who claim to know things regarding this that and the next thing yet wont actually reveal what they know, now im well aware of keeping confidences etc but surely if your not gonna tell then dont tell us youknow stuff. It makes you look a pillock and smacks of self serving ego massage.

Oh and Tim, let it go i have no idea why you have such an issue with the project but keep going and your going to give yourself an ulcer. These constant allegations without eveidence are doing your credability no good at all.

Smiler558

The last engineering update of the year is now in boys and girls

Template Sample # 1

BEagle

Time for you to piss or get off the pot, Tim. You keep banging on about Dr Rob's income, as well as money taken from the project by others, but haven't offered a shred of evidence to substantiate your allegations.

Please do so or forever hold thy peace.....

andrewmcharlton

I don't want to get embroiled in suggesting what people have / have not taken but the recently published accounts show a very sizeable chunk of money being paid to Dr Pleming and his company in fees, salaries and expenses (£130,000 of which £91,760 in expenses, must be a lot of receipts).

They operated at a cash surplus for two years whilst writing off a vast sum against expenses / depreciation on the trading subsidiary which isn't explained so can't say whether its fair or reasonable or not.

There are clearly lots of things that are well within what you'd expect in any company which is absolutely fine, however, a few stand out as needing an explanation.

bubblesuk

Just out of interest Tim but is any of the money yours? You are very vocal on where the money has been spent, im assuming then that you have contributed a fair bit then. At the end of the day the money has come from public donations and it isnt anyones right to dictate how people spend thier money is it, if people aint happy then they wont donate!

Is it any wonder there is'nt any representaion from V.T.T.S. on here? Spent an hour or so reading back over this thread and some of the utter garbage on here is beyond belief! And how some of the so called experts make a living from aviation is beyond me, i sincerely hope somebody could explain to me how they do it!

Tim McLelland

As Andrew says there's nothing to reveal, the figures are available for everybody to see. We've had this conversation already. My point is that - based on their published figures - Pleming (and possibly others) have been paid a huge amount of cash, and yet they seem incapable (or unwilling) to offer even a vague explanation as to why they should be entitled to anything like that amount. I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that being paid such a huge sum of money is absolutely disgraceful, given the fact that so much money has come from individuals who wanted to help get the Vulcan back into the air.

Had the prospective donors been told that so much of it was going to go into Pleming's pocket, I suspect their donations might have been considerably smaller. People gave money (often money that they could ill afford) to this project on the assumption that the money was going to be spent on the actual cost of getting the aircraft restored into a flyable cndition and then sustaining it as a viable airworthy aircraft. I'm pretty sure that nobody gave money to the project with the expectation that such a huge chunk of it was merely going to go into people's pockets. The engineers who did the hard work of getting the aircraft flyable were certainly entitled to be paid for their efforts but as for the rest? Come on, get real, I don't think I'm the only person to think that it's completely and utterly disgusting.

As I've also said before, if Pleming thinks any of this disgust is unfair then he could settle the matter simply, by explaining what he has been paid and for doing precisely what. It wouldn't exhaust him to offer some sort of explanation as to where all the money goes but yet it never happens...

Anyway, that's my view. If you disagree bubbles that's fine, but I could do without your sarcasm thanks if it was directed at me. The purpose of a forum is to express views, not to simply have a go at people you don't happen to agree with! I'm taking a wild guess here, but I have a feeling that I'm not the only person who has this view and frankly it's not my responsibility to offer long and tedious explorations of every specific matter which I've been told about, even if I was irresponsible enough to identify the people who tell me (which I'm not). Clearly, as the leader of this project, Pleming has a (very well paid) duty to explain where all the money goes and why. He chooses not to, therefore we're all entitled to draw our own conclusions.