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2018 Light Aircraft Association AGM award vote

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2018 Light Aircraft Association AGM award vote

Old 21st Oct 2018, 19:23
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Can anyone who was there say how many people attended?

Thanks.
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Old 21st Oct 2018, 19:24
  #402 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by ak7274
Both motions were rejected HM.
Duh! I was just looking at the numbers to try to work out what people thought.
A maximum of 950 votes were cast (82+389+202+277). It’s obvious that 112 people (389-277) thought that the award was justifiably rescinded, but either declined to vote against the restoration of the award or thought it should be reinstated anyway. Up to 120 people (202-82) declined to say whether the original motion was correct or, conversely, thought it was justified but she should have it back anyway. I think.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 00:27
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Today's Times Online.

A woman pilot known as the Bird in a Biplane was brought down to earth with a bump yesterday after losing a battle to retain a trophy she won for an expedition over Africa. Tracey Curtis-Taylor, 56, told The Times that she was resigning from the Light Aircraft Association and would re-register her vintage aircraft overseas in protest.

The row has divided pilots as Ms Curtis-Taylor and her allies accused detractors of being “out-of-date misogynists” while critics denounced her for making false claims about her achievements.The argument began after Ms Curtis-Taylor paid tribute to the celebrated 1920s aviator Mary Heath in 2013 by flying from Cape Town in South Africa to Goodwood in West Sussex in a 1942 Boeing Stearman plane.The next year she was awarded the Light Aircraft Association’s Woodhams Trophy for her achievement. She was then stripped of the prize in 2016 after the expedition’s logistics manager, Sam Rutherford, accused her of claiming that it was a solo voyage when she was frequently accompanied in her two-seater plane by her mechanic, Ewald Gritsch.
She was said to have described her expedition as a “solo flight” at a public event in Herne Bay in Kent and failed to correct similar claims in the media, including a documentary shown on BBC Four. Ms Curtis-Taylor admitted that she had been wrong to describe her trip as a solo expedition but said that it was a one-off mistake and not the basis of the award.
Yesterday she and her allies put forward two motions at the association’s annual general meeting at Sywell Aerodrome in Northamptonshire, either of which would have returned the award to her.One proposed by Stewart Jackson, vice-president of the association, described the 2016 decision as “vindictive [and] irrational” and blamed the board for “errors of judgment”. It added: “Injustice was done. Let’s admit we made a bad mistake that made — and will continue to make us, if we don’t do the right thing — look like an out-of-date club of misogynists.” Voters in the association, which is 95 per cent male and has an average age of 61, were untroubled by the risk to their image. They voted against the motion by 389 to 82, with 87 per cent of votes being cast remotely. A second motion with more moderate wording was also voted down, by 277 to 202.Ms Curtis-Taylor said that she no longer wished to have anything to do with the association and would be registering her vintage Ryan Recruit plane in America. “It’s ignorance. It’s discrimination. This is how women have been closed out of aviation,” she said.“I’ve been a member for 14 years [but]they do not value what I’m doing. I am finished. This was two years of trying to right a wrong but the bigger struggle [to promote women in aviation] goes on.”Mr Rutherford, a former army officer who fell out with Ms Curtis-Taylor during the Africa expedition, said that he had warned her not to accept awards.“I contacted her twice. I said: ‘Keep going with whatever you’re doing but if you’re offered awards, please decline them.’ ” He admitted that he had engaged in an online campaign to encourage people to vote against her. “It’s fairly clear that both sides of the argument have been very active in trying to rally support,” he said.“I’m all for more women coming into aviation — my wife and my daughter fly. They don’t need some sort of false support for that. It reduces the real achievements out there.”

Worth noting the part about " Ms Curtis-Taylor said that she no longer wished to have anything to do with the association and would be registering her vintage Ryan Recruit plane in America."

I hear they have hangarage at Winslow, AZ. I'm sure the owner of the FBO would welcome TCT with open arms.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 00:54
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Ms Curtis-Taylor admitted that she had been wrong
Ms Curtis-Taylor said that she no longer wished to have anything to do with the association
That's two good results right there.

Perhaps now the LAA can get back to what matters.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 00:55
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I wonder if her outrage will force the good lady to register her Stearman alongside her Ryan on the US registry?
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 01:09
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Quite the most remarkable response from Miss Curtis-Taylor on the LAA forum AGM thread: it would again seem to be playing the victim card as everyone else is wrong but her
by Tracey Curtis-Taylor » Sun Oct 21, 2018 11:58 pm

Might is right, of course. Morally and logically the majority of LAA members were just as wrong as they were in 2016.
1. The AGM should not have been used in 2016 as a vehicle for the venting of a private grievance. Members failed to take the opportunity to put that right in 2018.
2. The Chairman should not have condoned the 2016 motion; it usurped the functions of the Awards Committee. If the membership wanted the Committee to review and/or change its 2014 Woodhams Award that is what the motion should have said.
3. In any event, the Chairman should not have rewritten the motion just because its authors couldn’t manage to come up with one that was not libellous.
4. And indeed what he came up with should not have been gone before the AGM, not only because of (2) above, but also because the proposition that the Woodhams Award to me had brought the LAA ‘into disrepute’ was nonsense; it was based on neither reasoning nor evidence.
5. The more perceptive Board members realised before the 2016 AGM that what was proposed was morally and legally unsound. Their advice and objections were rejected by the Chairman and they either walked away or changed their tune.
6. The 2018 motion that the 2016 proceedings were unjust and unjustified was irrefutably correct. It was not about whether members liked or trusted me; it meant what the words said. Its rejection simply demonstrates that the majority either did not understand procedural form or chose not to.
7. The Boys’ Club should feel collectively ashamed of its behaviour. I have no doubt that a few members at least, including some who voted against the 2018 motions, will realise that they have not done well.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 03:17
  #407 (permalink)  
 
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Well done the LAA, it has surely been a hard time for you all, but truth has prevailed.

Since TC-T is writing a book, might a suggestion that Sam and Jay might collaborate on a book, titled say "Bird in a Biplane - The Real Story". Certainly make good reading, even without the lady's spin, and the publicity has already been done.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 08:02
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I hope the LAA responds to TCT's latest attacks in the papers this morning. Not only is calling the Association an old men's club and its members misogynists defamatory, but also has the potential to put women off from joining. Given that TCT's stated aims include promoting aviation to women, she really has made a meal of this, to put it midly.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 08:06
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Originally Posted by jez d
I hope the LAA responds to TCT's latest attacks in the papers this morning. Not only is calling the Association an old men's club and its members misogynists defamatory, but also has the potential to put women off from joining. Given that TCT's stated aims include promoting aviation to women, she really has made a meal of this, to put it midly.
Exactly this...
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 08:23
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Maybe a few of the ladies on PPRuNe who have been active in this thread could pen a letter to the newspapers in question giving their own side of the LAA experience?
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 09:21
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T C-T could have been a force for good within UK GA. She is forceful and presents well, and has the ability to rouse the media and garner publicity. Forget the feminist issue, thousands of women fly every day, either for pleasure or work. But to have had her involved in the LAA Young Eagles programme, or any of the schemes from HCAP and I doubt there'd be a school child in Britain who wouldn't have been exposed to general aviation and all it's possibilities. (and I imply absolutely no criticism of the LAA team who already work bloody hard on and donate so much to the Young Eagles scheme)

Instead she chose to follow a long out of date agenda, attacked the very organisation that does so much for GA and led a lot of people right up the garden path, and has brought the LAA into disrepute in doing so. I owe a huge debt to PFA/LAA members who helped me into the career I have enjoyed so much, people who gave me their time, advice, flying hours and the occasional arm around the shoulder. I certainly wouldn't have made it without all of them.

Reading her statement on the LAA website I believe this is a long way from over. Rumour has it she had a barrister with her yesterday, I fully expect her to heed the advice of her "friends" and go legal, and the LAA will have lost the talent she could have brought to it if she had really thought things through in the first place, a stack of money to lawyers, and had it's reputation trashed in the press, because tomorrow's chip wrappings do stick in the minds of people.

T C-T, you have been monumentally daft. If you had used your talents and energies for the good of young people and GA you would have had plenty of highly deserved, respected awards and the immense satisfaction of a job very well done. Instead this squalid fight will go on, with everybody losing. And that really saddens me.

SND
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 09:22
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Originally Posted by Katamarino
Maybe a few of the ladies on PPRuNe who have been active in this thread could pen a letter to the newspapers in question giving their own side of the LAA experience?
......especially in view of the photograph on the front page of today's Times online, and the associated article.

Jack
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 09:28
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I would love to read the Times article but it's stuck behind a pay-wall and they want credit card info for the one-month "free" trial! Very dubious...

I just realised it's a few posts above mine, whoops.

Last edited by Katamarino; 22nd Oct 2018 at 13:05.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 09:39
  #414 (permalink)  
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Available on a post on the LAA Forum at the moment.

Last edited by hobbit1983; 22nd Oct 2018 at 10:00.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 10:06
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Here's the post from the LAA forum, thanks to L21-B

"A woman pilot known as the Bird in a Biplane was brought down to earth with a bump yesterday after losing a battle to retain a trophy she won for an expedition over Africa. Tracey Curtis-Taylor, 56, told The Times that she was resigning from the Light Aircraft Association and would re-register her vintage aircraft overseas in protest.

The row has divided pilots as Ms Curtis-Taylor and her allies accused detractors of being “out-of-date misogynists” while critics denounced her for making false claims about her achievements.The argument began after Ms Curtis-Taylor paid tribute to the celebrated 1920s aviator Mary Heath in 2013 by flying from Cape Town in South Africa to Goodwood in West Sussex in a 1942 Boeing Stearman plane.The next year she was awarded the Light Aircraft Association’s Woodhams Trophy for her achievement. She was then stripped of the prize in 2016 after the expedition’s logistics manager, Sam Rutherford, accused her of claiming that it was a solo voyage when she was frequently accompanied in her two-seater plane by her mechanic, Ewald Gritsch.
She was said to have described her expedition as a “solo flight” at a public event in Herne Bay in Kent and failed to correct similar claims in the media, including a documentary shown on BBC Four. Ms Curtis-Taylor admitted that she had been wrong to describe her trip as a solo expedition but said that it was a one-off mistake and not the basis of the award.
Yesterday she and her allies put forward two motions at the association’s annual general meeting at Sywell Aerodrome in Northamptonshire, either of which would have returned the award to her.One proposed by Stewart Jackson, vice-president of the association, described the 2016 decision as “vindictive [and] irrational” and blamed the board for “errors of judgment”. It added: “Injustice was done. Let’s admit we made a bad mistake that made — and will continue to make us, if we don’t do the right thing — look like an out-of-date club of misogynists.” Voters in the association, which is 95 per cent male and has an average age of 61, were untroubled by the risk to their image. They voted against the motion by 389 to 82, with 87 per cent of votes being cast remotely. A second motion with more moderate wording was also voted down, by 277 to 202.Ms Curtis-Taylor said that she no longer wished to have anything to do with the association and would be registering her vintage Ryan Recruit plane in America. “It’s ignorance. It’s discrimination. This is how women have been closed out of aviation,” she said.“I’ve been a member for 14 years [but]they do not value what I’m doing. I am finished. This was two years of trying to right a wrong but the bigger struggle [to promote women in aviation] goes on.”Mr Rutherford, a former army officer who fell out with Ms Curtis-Taylor during the Africa expedition, said that he had warned her not to accept awards.“I contacted her twice. I said: ‘Keep going with whatever you’re doing but if you’re offered awards, please decline them.’ ” He admitted that he had engaged in an online campaign to encourage people to vote against her. “It’s fairly clear that both sides of the argument have been very active in trying to rally support,” he said.“I’m all for more women coming into aviation — my wife and my daughter fly. They don’t need some sort of false support for that. It reduces the real achievements out there.”

Talk about a thwarted sense of entitlement, not an ambassador for all that is good in GA!
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 11:05
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It would be interesting for a journalist to compare and contrast this with the achievements of Shaesta Waiz.
Rather than spending money on lawyers perhaps TCT could show her support for inspiring women in aviation by making a donation to Dreams Soar?
Dreams Soar | Global solo flight for STEM
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 12:08
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The LAA forum thread regarding the AGM is now locked and members have been asked to move on, which I personally agree with. Here is the closing statement from Steve Slater.

Hi all,

You'll see below the official LAA statement regarding the votes at the 2018 AGM. While there have been some well expressed opinions on both sides of this argument, I think its time we now moved on. I've therefore asked that our moderator closes this thread.

Thanks for all your contributions - and for contributing to an orderly and respectful AGM.

Steve Slater.


STATEMENT REGARDING THE LAA AGM. 21st OCTOBER 2018.

At the 2018 AGM, two motions were voted on by members regarding the award of the Bill Woodhams Trophy in 2014 to Tracey Curtis-Taylor. This was subsequently rescinded following a member’s motion in 2016.

The Light Aircraft Association makes a number of such awards each year, recognising flying activities, services to fellow members and the quality of their work on either home-built aircraft or vintage types restored to flight by its 7,500-plus members. The recipients are selected by a small committee of unpaid volunteers. The Bill Woodhams Trophy for navigation is just one of this wide range of awards.
The two motions placed at the 2018 AGM sought to debate the rescinding of the award, and the matter was discussed at the AGM with both written and verbal submissions from both sides, including from Tracey Curtis-Taylor in person.

The first Motion, seeking acknowledgement that the rescinding of the award was inappropriate, was defeated by 389 member votes to 82.

The second Motion, seeking the reinstatement of the award, was defeated by 277 member votes to 202.

The removal of the award therefore stands and the matter is now considered closed. The LAA has no further comment to make on the award or its recipient.

ENDS
Maybe its now time to close this thread and consign it to the history books.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 12:17
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Originally Posted by Above The Clouds
The LAA forum thread regarding the AGM is now locked and members have been asked to move on, which I personally agree with. Here is the closing statement from Steve Slater.
Maybe its now time to close this thread and consign it to the history books.
Would not be happy if that were to happen. Free open debate should be allowed.
Not happy about the LAAs decision to close their thread.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 12:28
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What a great inspiration there Clare. That is what it should all be about. Maybe TCT could donate the profits of her book and films to a good cause. That would go a very long way towards her restoring some credibility.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 12:40
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Maybe its now time to close this thread and consign it to the history books
Another option may be to allow the thread to quietly retire itself to history, when there is no more value added discussion on the topic. I'm okay to leave it open for a bit, as long as the discussion stays on track, and is respectful. Hopefully, people will express their viewpoint, and move on when they're ready. I'm happier to not have to close a thread, it's okay to just let it go quiet too!
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