Bose,

Thanks for the detail. My initial reaction was to be a little unhappy that a bunch of unelected people who I have never even met can claim to represent my views as a member (actually, that should be 'customer' really, since 'member' implies share ownership if AOPA is a Ltd company). However, if making sure your voice is heard on something you feel deeply about is as easy as volunteering, then I guess it's down to each of us to either get stuck in or "get off the pot" by ceasing to pay subs. Fair enough. I still don't understand this apparent lack of transparency or unwillingness to publish working group ... err, "workings" ... but perhaps that's something else that could be changed from the inside.

Rustle,

You know matey, if you keep this up, your nose is going to stay that colour permanently ... :ooh:

Bose says

AOPA UK's web site says

I'm mixed up.:confused:

There is no secrecy in AOPA working group activities. Everything we do is open to discussion and review.

I think you are confusing the regulator working groups that AOPA members volunteer to sit on. These are are government, regulator etc and there are rules applied to them that we have to agree to. This often means that we are not permitted to disseminate directly the content of the meetings. As with all working groups doing things over a period of time things change, views change etc, and so often it is better to get to the end of the process and 'keep your powder dry' before making announcements of the process.

Generally speaking we try to speak publicly where possible about the goings on but where restricted there is nothing we can do. As a citizen I am sure you could make appropriate requests under the FIA or whatever the Europe equivalent is for the EASA meetings but really at the end of the process it all comes out into the public domain anyway.

So please understand there is no veil of secrecy around any of the AOPA activities.

Mixed Up,

I haven't pulled their accounts for a look yet, but it's perfectly possible for a company to be intentionally non-profit making. As to being "run by its members", well, that's probably true, if a couple of its shareholders also sit in executive positions on its board - although I'd agree the wording might be a little misleading, as it implies some form of group concensus management by its paying subscribers ! Still, I think the way it works has been covered well enough above.

I rather thought AOPA was a limited company, limited by guarantee since it has no shareholders and no shareholding.

I also thought its constituition was determined by its Memorandumn and Articles of Association which determines how directors may be appointed and replaced.

I wonder how many of its members know how this process works?

Why is this relevant?

In order to make a decision whether you are happy with the representation you are receiving you should base your decision on the facts.

If you and other shareholders dont like what your directors are doing and if the company is controlled by its shareholders you can sack the lot of them, if you dont like what your club is doing you can stand for election to the governing committee once a year.

FF is completely correct and is how AOPA operates. That is the reason so much work is done by volunteers.

Anyone is free to volunteer and AOPA welcomes all offers. Through the hard work and efforts of these volunteers GA has benefited significantly for decades.

The accounts of the organisation are freely available to members. Any profit made on merchandising etc is poured straight into the organisation. There are no leaches taking money out of the organisation. What goes in is used to represent you the member. I go through the accounts every year and am satisfied with the transparency and use of the funds that I contribute as a member.

There is nothing cloak and dagger about the organisation

Yet again Fuji, I don't see your point all I see is noise from you AOPA bashing and stirring up.

The board of AOPA is made up off a line of distinguished and experienced aviation experts. If any member feels they are better qualified than the constitution allows for them to stand for election to the board.

I have already explained how the working groups operate.

I am a member, AOPA will continue to receive funding from me as I am satisfied with the operation.

Not a lot more to say really other than to say that at least AOPA is a transparent organisation with named individuals who do not hind behind anonymity. Neither do they engage in questioning the constitution or financing of other 'representative' groups.

Bose

I have no idea why whenever questions are asked about how AOPA operate you resort to these accusations.

I rather thought this was a discussion forum.

Personally, I think there is an interesting discussion to be had about how AOPA operate particularly as they are the lead representative organisation for GA in this country.

I wonder how many people on these forums can explain AOPAs constituition to us?

I wonder how many AOPA members see their accounts each year?

Everything that you need or want to know about the constitution and operation of AOPA is available from AOPA. When I became a member all of that information was supplied to me.

The accounts of the organisation are freely available to any member at any time and for a non member if they choose to apply for them from the relevant authorities.

I see no further benefit in discussion on these forums.

Fuji,

The difference here is that we are NOT shareholders of this limited company, and so we have no powers to sack anyone. We either choose to continue to buy its product or not, and at least it seems that there is the option of volunteering to help to define the "product".

Again, I think its website is a little misleading, but at the end of the day, I joined not because of the IMC, but because I understand that AOPA does good work in other areas.

I don't like monopolies, but if AOPA was the only game in town for the regulators to talk to "GA", it's hardly surprising that they've acquired this quasi-official "voice of GA" status. There is always a danger in these circumstances that organisations in their position actually start to believe that they alone have the authority to speak for whoever they claim to represent, whether the punters want this or not. I'm not saying this is so in the case of AOPA, because I don't know, but this is where campaigns such as your IMC one often bring immense value outside of their stated aim by reminding every one that there are other views which must be considered, and other voices which must be heard.

This, aside from the fact that I agree with its aims completely, is why I wholeheartedly support the IMC campaign.

That's an interesting question, which prompted me to try to find out. According to the AOPA web site:
and
As a member, I feel that any representation is in a patrician style, whereby unelected representatives decide what's best, and only communicate with their membership retrospectively.

I think AOPA's inability to use their website to keep their members abreast of the issues they are tackling, and to post surveys to obtain feedback on the positions they should adopt does them no favours. You've only got to look at the AOPA US website to see how it should be done. An indication that AOPA US understand the most fundamental aspect of all is the following statement that they make here:
I don't suppose it went about achieving that aim by alienating current and possible future members.

FF: Thanks. I am aware of various forms of 'not for profit' organizations, but in this case Bose says it is not owneed by members and AOPA UK's web site says it is.

The posts are coming in faster than I can accommodate them, but I've just noticed that Bose says it is a limited company. This morning I checked and this is not the case. The following organizations are "not trading" and I can find no reference in Companies House to any other legal entities relating to AOPA UK:

AOPA Ltd
AOPA (UK) Ltd
Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association Ltd

I don't suggest there's anything cloak & dagger about this but Bose' comments don't sqare with the other facts and it leaves me mixed up. But this has been nothing but passing curiosity for me, so I'm not going to get into a ding-dong about it. I'm confident AOPA UK is not a corrupt organization.

No I said it is not owned in the way that a club like Leicester is. Before misquoting me read what I wrote. To join Leicester Aero Club, you have to be proposed and seconded and go before the committee. You become jointly liable for the debts of the club to a set limit and if you want to leave the club you must formally resign. The club is run by a council of management that is elected formally every year by a majority vote of the membership.

The way AOPA is constituted you can join and leave at your discretion etc.

The AOPA Company is:

British Light Aviation Centre Limited.
Registered in London No. 874355
Registed Address: 50a Cambridge Street,
London
SW1V 4QQ

Mixed Up

I think you will find AOPA trades as the "British Light Aviation Centre Limited"

The company is limited by guarantee - a very diffeent animal from the vast majority of limited companies which are limited by share capital.

As the company does not have any members the company is controlled by its M and As.

I am sure Bose can tell us how its Board of directors is appointed.

Actually its the British Light Aviation Centre Limited trading as AOPA.

If any AOPA member wishes to discuss further the constitution or any other AOPA question then they are welcome to discuss them on the AOPA forums. Open to all AOPA members.

http://www.joinaopa.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=2

We also have a specific AOPA discussion area on the flyer forums.

None of this discussion around AOPA has anything to do with the IMC rating so I think this subject is now done.

Fuji,

As an ordinary member of AOPA my observation is that you seem to post an awful lot of direct accusations and various insinuating questions about AOPA - and then act surprised when people "discuss" those pretty vigorously. I rather think Bose is being very restrained (!).

You seem full of accusations that AOPA didn't publish stuff and didn't consult its members.

As I understand it, and as Bose has pointed out, none of the deliberations of the Industry Working Groups were open for discussion or consultation. This happens after they publish their results some time this year. AOPA has been working hard to my entire satisfaction as a member on these.

Now, since you have been happy to critique their approach, please tell me what yours would have been, presumably either
A. to refuse to participate in any Working Group (and therefore be shut out of the whole process)
B. to agree to participate but then breach the agreement your participation was conditional on, and disclose/publish/consult on confidential work-in-progress?..and deservedly be thrown off the Working Group

Which one? A or B? Tell us how this would have achieved more? What has been achieved to date I credit to the good intentions of EASA, the CAA and AOPA in working on this.

AOPA was doing good work when I learned to fly as a teenager 25years ago. In those last 25 years, 90% of UK PPLs have never bothered to join. AOPA has done good work that helped all of them. If more people had joined and fewer had the "I don't like X about it" (where X is any one of a myriad of personal bees-in-bonnet about AOPA) perhaps GA would be in a stronger position than it is now. I think AOPA will be around in 25 years time, but the next couple of years are critical to the EASA process. It needs the most support it can get. It will never be everyone's perfect representative - that would take as many organisations as there are members. It will never have the resources to satisfy the internet era's appetite for communication. But neither do I see any other EASA accredited "industry representative" for mainstream private GA working for us (as opposed to EAS work for Sport/Recreational GA).

I'd prefer to see campaigns working in parallel and wish them all well. I thought your petition couldn't do any harm and perhaps help raise awareness. It could potentially do a lot of good by the very fact that it is "outside the system" and therefore is free to do stuff which would compromise the credibility and good relations of someone like AOPA who depend on mutual respect with the regulators. However, your input into saving the IMC-R seems recently to consist of posting a lot, bickering about other representative organisations and trumpeting your own. Since you are not shy about giving feedback to representative organisations, I am sure you will appreciate this feedback.

Fuji,

You're getting distracted again from your good work, with this AOPA bashing! You were doing so well in avoiding it!

Bose has set out AOPA's position fairly clearly. They are campaigning for a retension of the IMCr in the UK only. (I was sure I read elsewhere, perhaps Flyer, that they were campaigning for it's expension across the EU, but Bose has set us straight on that.)

Now a member of AOPA can sit happily and pay their subs if that's what they support, or they can make their views known to AOPA if they don't agree with that aim. They can even get involved directly and try to change it from within if they wish. That is their choice. Those of us who aren't AOPA members have no right to tell a private members organisation what their aims should be.

Let's leave them alone and not do any more AOPA bashing, and concentrate on our own aims ;)

I understand that AOPA offered to meet to try to work together, but your aims and theirs weren't compatable. So be it.....lets get on with building the IMCr campaign, and leave AOPA to theirs. You have done amazing work todate, with some spectacular results.....let's not get distracted now ;)

dp

FCL001 are committee proceedings of EASA. A number of people have asked what stance AOPA took at these meetings, including such respected commentators as Irv Lee (see the thread on AOPA's own web site). Disclosing the minutes of a meeting is quite different from reporting to your members the essence of what took place and where you stood. If I had been involved and EASA had forbidden me from doing this much then I would have called foul. Of course that is not EASAs position.

Actually I hate disseminating AOPA's involvement in this matter but I do think it is important that we all understand where they stand because otherwise we may think they are supporting our position when they are not - is that so unreasonable?

Dublinpilot

Very sound comment. I agree and I have tried to stick to that line but see above.

Personally I also object to some of the information handed down that paints a biased picture.

Actually we offered to work with AOPA. There was no attempt on their part to see how we might work together. The fact that our ultimate aims might be different I don’t think is relevant to the wisdom in co-operating.

Bose has been good enough respond to our request we co-operate and he has my respect for doing so. However, so far as I am aware Bose is not on the executive committee. It would be inappropriate to work with Bose unless AOPA’s executive committee gave their blessing.

Anyway, I agree back to the task in hand. The discussion has however been useful because thanks to Bose we all have a better understanding of exactly where AOPA sit on this issue.

The executive committee may not be prepared to deal with you directly, however I am and will take whatever needs to be fed into them for decision. Unless of course you ego does not allow you to interact with a mere underling?

However as we do not understand your ultimate aims you are probably right cooperation may not work but the offer has been made.

You have not answered 421C's question, you have just side stepped the question. He explained clearly the process and asked you what you would have done. My reading of your answer is that you would have taken option B.

The reason that AOPA as an organisation have the trust of these people is that AOPA are prepared to play by the rules.

Come on Bose, you cant have it both ways, on the one hand you praise AOPA for playing by the rules (and rightly so) and on the other want you and I to play by different rules. I dont do that.

You know I havent. The question is hypothetical as I havent seen the agreement AOPA signed. Therefore I dont know their terms of reference.

Do you?

If the agreement says AOPA is prevented from summarising the issues discussed and the stance that AOPA took, then I would have refused to sign the agreement on the basis that it was unreasonable. If on the other hand the agreement said AOPA was not entitled to publish the minutes of the meeting (but inter alia could summarise the issues discussed etc) then I would have signed the agreement and played by the rules.