Balpa membership and BA
 

From Balpa;
"We no longer just work within a few selected airlines but now work across 26 BALPA recognised companies and also recruit and organise in many others."

So how many of these members are in BA?

My point is that Balpa have recently become noticably vocal about BA issues ( I wonder why that could be :rolleyes:) but what about the rest of us? Who else feels that Balpa's emphasis needs to reflect more of the issues effecting all of us?

Before anyone posts about the stand being taken effects us all etc - I realise that and support Balpa and the BA members. However if they where as vocal about the security issues and ID cards etc.........

If Balpa returns to being the BALinePilotsAssociation it could well see those membership numbers drop.

Tin hat on and diving for cover

5 Greens,

I don't think you need to dive for cover, your points are very valid. Balpa should represent all of its members not just those who work for BA. Recent developments in BALPA are very disturbing and it seems that the union is retreating from the enlightened attituded developed over many years to the darkness of 1970s thinking. This cannot be good for anyone. If BA want their own union then they should start one of their own not hijack and degrade a respected institution that belongs to many others.

Agree, Just had "The Log" through the door, then delivered a Log while reading "The Log".......ALL BA stuff again nothing about LCC'S again, and when these companies are dealt with in "The Log" I noramly find that they are spoken about from someone who is doing it in a token way.

You will know BALPA is serious about LCCs when it does something for its members in Ryanair. As in something other than talk.

If those nasty BA boys lose their current fight, then every pilot in the UK can look forward to a very bleak horizon. The issue at stake is of such fundamental importance, that the US pilots unions are now aligning themselves with BALPA and arranging joint strategies.

For such unprecedented cooperation to occur, all of the protagonists must have decided that the threat to our profession is so severe, that standing together on a global scale is the only way that we can effectively withstand rapacious and opportunistic corporations such as BA, AA and all the others who will doubtlessly take a leaf from their books.

Forty years ago, the seamen of the British merchant marine did not see the threat that outsourcing posed to them and their careers. Now they barely exist, their jobs being done by legions of Phillipinos and Indonesians on chicken feed wages and workhouse terms and conditions.

Today we are on the precipice of such magnitude that the transition from Airline Captain to blue collar machine operative will be swift and sure, unless we face up to the threat RIGHT NOW. The Americans have come to us having realised all too late for some that this is a very real possibility. They have offered their expertise, experience, and resources to fight by our sides.

I acknowledge that the BA Longhaul Pilots Association is often seen as too parochial, but they are dealing with some very weighty issues of fundamental importance to us all. BA has 3000 pilots in BALPA, all paying their 1% of their pots of gold.

BALPA are ensuring that we ALL have a future. Please cut them some slack.:ok:

Too right
 

Mick Stability has the right of it. As one of those Merchant Seamen he refers to, I know we woke up too late to the real threat. Our industry doesn't exist any more. I've worked for foreign companies for the last thirty years with most of my crews barely trained Indonesian/Filipino etc relying upon the training and experience of a few of us 'round-eyes' to keep everyone out of trouble.

The hilarious thing is that we are all about to retire or die and the shipping companies are bemoaning the lack of skilled seafarers like it was nothing to do with them in the first place!

So guys n gals, take a lesson from us and stick together regardless of company or nationality because if you don't they will screw you ALL royally

Oh the irony of it all!

Mr talentless bottom feeder can't pass an interview with anybody prepared to pay for there training so in a pathetic bid to achieve his 'dream' of being a below average stick monkey works for peanuts doing jobs that anyone with an ounce of ability or pride would refuse to contmplate, no doubt paying for there own type ratings and line training and thus creating the new model army of low hours pilots that are the wet dreams of the mol's and ww's of the world.

Suddenly having viewed the rise of the self improved wannabee jet pilot as an irrelavence big bad BA pilots find themselves under attack from not only their CEO but said bottom feeders who will do anything to fly a crappy 757 on a route that is beyond boredom and for buttons. Theese arrogant MF's decide to strike to protect their financial futures and the t&c's that all compete for. How dare they!

So the bottom feeder, concerned that his dec command at OS has been scuppered now complains that the union should he pushing for lower salary levels, reduced recruitment standards and work patterns that are unsustainable and frankly in the long term dangerous. But off course FO gypsy unemployable pilot is the new management gold standard and real union action an unthinkable because their MBA course's have shown them that unions collapse when confronted.

So imagine the managements suprise and the bottom feeders distress when we actually say no. I won't let you give my job away and if you want to work for my company under the tailfin I had to earn the right to drive then I expect you to be up to the standards I have to reach.

Balpa's victory will be a victory for all in the industry except the greedy managers and the untalented worthless wannabees who sowed the seeds of that greed.

We are talking bidline aren't we?

Perhaps the "HH" is a BA pilot in which case he is a "tosser", the vast majority are not in my experience, but more likely an "agent provocateur" from so called "management". Fair enough having a go at management but all pilots "have earned their wings" and often paid dearly for them, deserve a good living and the support of BALPA if they are members and pay their dues. It is time for all pilots to stick together for their mutual benefit , "Together you will win, divided you will certainly fail"

To succinctly answer 5greenlights, the answer is that less than 50% of BALPA members are BA pilots. Perhaps the reason BA have a higher profile is that they have the most vocal and active company council of any airline in the UK.

claudillo

no OS will not be flown under bidline rules. 3 back to back east coasts a month 2 man!

spunky monkey

my first job had HUD not FMC and flew supersonic at low level. I worked pretty had to get on the ladder as well. My last 3 years where spent helping others achieve the 'dream' that is being combat ready on a fighter sqn. never been called an arrogant clown before but have quite a few guys buy me pints down route in thanks for helping them out in hard times. I also have to buy quite a few myself. i understand perfectly that as a group we are stonger and better and can achieve more when we work together.

working hard to get on the ladder is not the same as spending daddys money to buy a frozen atpl and then pay for a type rating and work for free. I have plenty of respect for the efforts that peope go to to become pilots. undercutting and working for free only earns my contempt.

erosion of t&c's didn't happen on my watch and i'm doing everything i can to stop it now.

bill of the hamptons

tosser, many thanks. I am a real living and breathing nigel.

its pilots who bought there wings and are willing to work for free that are one of the root causes of the problem here. they are every bit as guilty as the management. i'm afraid it takes a bit more than passing an irt in a light twin for me to give my respect and support to those pilots who undermine the entire funded ab-initio idea with their willingness to pay or their own training. merit and talent used to be the path to wings (still is for the few), now its the ability to raise the cash to pay for the training.

whats the pass rate at oxford? whats the pass rate at cranwell/valley? of course talent and abilty got nothing to do with it when you have cash and a poor standard to attain in the first place. but thats off message anyway. our strike is about the future for all pilots. if you are too stupid to see it then thats your problem. no doubt it's the reason your bleating about BA pilots taking action and using their union rather than fighting whatever issues you have.

Hand Solo

spot on

HH is definitely not an ex RN pilot. He can't spell "their" properly. A small point perhaps, but an important one I feel.

There, there, there. Back to the team-building exercises HH.

Hands, your possibly correct regarding the vocal council. However I think it has more to do with the recent change in chairman. Balpa has in recent years been viewed as a professional organisation rather than just a union and I fear this is rapidly going to change.

I would like to reiterate, I fully support BA's fight and agree it is vital not to let BA managment have their way. But Balpa needs to realise the rest of the members have just as pressing concerns, some that effect everyone of us.

If they put as much publicity and effort into getting aircrew recognised as part of the security solution rather than as potential terrorists we would all benefit.:ugh:

dan d'air,

not ex RN but they have my total respect.

victim of a comphrehensive education i'm afraid, spelling/typing never been my forte!

HH, Good Man!!

Always fun to have a dig at the light blue, ex or not. Friday afternoon boredom downroute so... blue touchpaper, tin hat retire!

Cheers, DD. :O:O:}:}:E:E

The most bizzare thing is that, by fighting the totally incompetent management of BA (as proven over the T5 cost cutting debacle) and preventing them from destroying a national carriers terms and conditions BALPA IS protecting the jobs of the LCC's and every other pilot wishing to earn a crust in the UK industry!

If the T's & C's of a national carrier get cut to the bone and all of the other management muppets see there is no reason for the overpaid stick monkies to climb the greasy pole as there are no better T's & C's out there how long will the overall decline take?????

Progress to higher wages and better conditions props up the conditions down stream as well! So quit whining!

(Also had to work bl**dy hard to get where I am today, including the low level stuff :} and am not about to let some Irish git pi$$ it away whilst pocketing his, not inconsiderable, payoff)

Issues at my airline?
BALPA negotiators too busy on previous occasion to make it (as I understand), cc left with not very much active support?

wobble2plank,

well said.

it's been said before but would people rush to be treated by the cheapest doctors trained at the worst universities at hospitals that had no interest other than profit?

would you trust your life to a doctor who had learned the 'hard way' and was working long hours for little or no pay because it was his dream rather than because he was good at it and it meant his manager would get a bigger bonus if he kept staff costs down!

again i'm taking this off thread, bad habit i know.

BA plane, BA pilot = more well paid jobs for EVERYBODY

heavy heavy

your arrogance astounds me in your assumption that pilots in LCCs are automatically sub standard compared to pilots who were lucky enough to be funded for their training.

Just a couple of examples to hole your throry below the waterline - what of pilots who come to flying a little later in life, pass the relevant selection tests at an airline that sponsores and hires direct entries, and are then told 'sorry old chap, we don't take anyone onto xtype who is over 30' so we don't have a slot for you... this one happened to me.

Or, maybe there were no funded cadetships going due to the lack of recruitment when I was trying to get in to flight training. Again this happened to me and once the airlines started recruiting again I was age barred.

So what choice - give up and just worship sky gods such as yourself from afar, wistfully flying a desk for the rest of my miserable existance, or work my b@@@@@@s off to save up the money to buy training and 8 years later get a job with a LCC having gone through exactly the same training course that a BA pilot goes through.

Why don't you get off your high horse and realize that the biggest threat to pilot T&C is an Irish fella who is expert at recruiting pilots from all over to fly his fleet at salary levels that are not great, because they are desperate for a job. Many don't stay long, and many came from some of your beloved high fare high wage cadet sponsoring airlines after they went bust. However, because BALPA is far too BA centric, there is frightening inertia in getting in a union to address the situation, and meanwhile his management tactics are being exported wholesale. Where do think the inspiration for OS came from in the first place....

Rather then denigrating LCC pilots, why don't you try embracing them with a little support, by pushing BALPA to commit to what will be an industry defining scrap with the Irish fella.....

It's a sad state when we start bitching at each other whilst our erstwhile management are sniggering into their briefcases!

I, personally, have absolutely nothing against anyone who has put their money on the line and had the balls to quit everything and fund themselves. Good on you for having the courage of your own convictions to do so. :ok:

I do have a problem with the blank faced, pencil pushing accountants who shove cost savings based on what they can bleed out of those who are desperate for a job up the fat cat management ar$e! They will run everything on the bottom line. Experience counts for nothing and the cheaper the better. The main thing that stems the flow is the cost of re-training those to take the place of the ones who have seen the scam for what it is and take their hard earned experience elsewhere for better returns. Imagine this scenario if that option to move up the ladder is removed! 'Tis not a pretty sight! To exploit the workers, who have to feed families, for a quick profit should have died out with the mills!

Stop the degradation now and take a stand. If it won't come from those joining and paying for basic training requirements (and lets face it, they are the ones who can least afford to rock the boat!) then it must come from those that can afford it and attempt to preserve our professions status.

Have fun

W2P
:ok:

ssschmokin1,

firstly, anybody who passed a selction process to have their flying training paid for by either the RAF/RN/Army was NOT lucky. i've got painful news for you my friend that by the time a military pilot earns the right to stand in the bar wearing his wings and shooting the breeze he has earned that right by skill and talen,m period. you might want to believe that he is not any better than you but the stats and my experience would seem to suggest otherwise. if it wasn't about talent the RAF would just take the first 100 applications and train them to fly helicopters in afghanistan, fast jets in iraq and drop food and paras out the back of hercs after flying on nvgs at low level. they don't and we will never know if you could becaue you either failed the interview or didn't go because you don't believe in having a military. either way given how 'badly' you wanted to fly you didn't want to take the hardest way to a set of wings.

secondly, flying with BA cadets for the last 8 years only reinforces that whatever else is wrong with BA they know how to recruit the right people to train and put in a 757 cockpit with 200hrs exp. again given the numbers that apply and the numbers that got trained the numbers suggest that theese individuals also are not LUCKY just talented. maybee you need to believe that its luck that delivered the silver spoons but having worked for the prestwick grads who are now 744 skippers i can assure they got where they are by talent.

thirdly, i have many friends who came up the hard way. i respect them without reservation and enjoy flying with them immensly. there is a big diff from starting at your local glider club, instructing, and then moving on to the lcc, charters and scheduled airlines than just pitching up at ryan air or wherever and paying for your training and working for peanuts.

finally, i have no doubt you and I would have no problem operating together and having a beer down route having enjoyed a trouble free, crm positive experience. our abilty to judge each others ability secured over a 12 hour flight. our backgrounds a source of interest and a chance to exchange experiences. i have no hang ups with anybody because of who they work for. I assume the best until shown otherwise. where we differ is i refuse to accept that those pilots who have bought there postions can blame everybody else for state of the industry and the nose-dive to poor t&c's. I joined the RAF without having a clue what the pay was. anybody who adopts the same attitude towards a career in civil aviation and then works at a rate that undermines all our conditions has nothing but my contempt.

we CANNOT get enough pilots of sufficient standard at interview at BA, we are looking at starting up the cadet courses again as a result. the available pool of young/late start pilots is not up to scratch. this is a fact! you may celebrate the fact that people want to bankrupt themselves to fly but i think it's the fuel in the fire that drives MOL and WW's dream of low cost, MINIMUM standard pilots working harder than is safe to maximise profits. i on the other hand want to see more cadets getting trained, the military expanding and giving the 'lucky' few the most amazing oppurtunity. most of all i want to see everybody who has the hands and brains to do the job well get a chance rather than just those that can pay. i would have not have been able to become a pilot if i'd had to self fund.

off course not everyone who pays for there own course or starts late is not up to scratch. the cityflyer integration at BA is the perfect example. the influx of theese guys to the 744 brought a crop of excellent talented young guys, many average easy going opertators and those that would never have passed an interview anywhere else! again no doubt you will call this arrogance, i believe that the re-training stats would back me up.

i congratulate your achievment, if you worked for free or paid for your type rating then we will have to differ on what we feel the impact of that action has had on the ambitions of airline ceos.

Absolutely, old boy, never doubted it.

But without, how much, say £500,000 of taxpayers' funds he/she would still be flipping burgers. So credit where credit's due, please; the money is not begrudged, but it's still about the best piece of good luck he/she will ever have, and I can't see the problem with acknowledging it.

It costs just short of seven million to train an operational, deployable FJ mate these days. Euro lottery ticket for tonight anyone?

Hmmm, helluva lot of luck to get through the application process, pass the interview, pass the aircrew selection, get through basic officer training, survive grading, pass elementary flying training, basic flying training, operational flying training, front line flying training, standards flight year after year, simulator checks (full operation environment and tactics) every year, IRT (flown in aircraft with real failures !!!).

Oh, and on the basic officer training, grading, EFT, BFT, OFT it is generally one shot only then you're out. Not very luvvie duvvie! But then, gotta stretch that lucky £500,000 :}

Thread creep, sorry

:E

BA has strong Balpa membership. Those members have come from various sources such as LCC's, the military and straight out of flying school. Many of us have seem the impact of weak union membership in previous companies.

Balpa is only as strong as it's members. Your Company Council is elected by you. Yes, complain that it isn't working but also be prepared to do something about it.

Lets all drive up Terms and Conditions!

the heavy heavy,

From reading your posts I can detect an absolute love for WW.

You are totally in love with the way that he got to where he is today - pilot selection at Aer Lingus, Cadet programme, training paid for by the Tax payer, promotion and elevation to the ranks of earning the big bucks and keeping well clear of the pond life.

There can be no other ideal manager for a man such as yourself.

Not only that but he is Irish.

You scored 10 out of 10 in your criteria when he got the job at BA :}

Regards

DFC

touche

yes i am in fact in love with willy, only slight less than with myself:)

There really are some rissoles on this forum. We (and I mean BA pilots from whatever background) are constantly told how lucky we are, and if we had the temerity to give 8/12/16 years of service to HMQ in exchange for being paid to be taught to fly, we are even luckier.

Well I have news for you wind-up merchants. I, like my contemporaries, have made my own luck. Those of us who have slogged our guts out to achieve high standards care little to see the profession debased and undermined by the petty and small minded. Those who work for free are out of their minds IMO.

You can be sure that BA pilots will defend their terms and conditions against the current crop of "here today, and if I may say so, gone tomorrow" management. It would be quite nice to think that we had the unanimous support of our fellow professionals, but some here seem not capable of grasping the basic issue.

"yes i am in fact in love with willy, only slight less than with myself:)"

Poor old HH, good job he likes himself (and Willie) as I doubt too many others do.

He does not even have enough common sense to realise that by denigrating the ability of some of his fellow pilots, who may not have quite the same "superb level of flying skills or personal charm", but can do their job perfectly well, he is calling into question the "worth" of all pilots including "wunderkind" such as himself.

The millions of pounds of tax payers money may have taught HH how to loop the loop and blow the crap out of people but not surprisingly perhaps it apparently failed to teach him any respect for others.

By the way, didn't Prince William just get his RAF wings after a whole 4 months training? Now to be fair, William is not a total numbnut like his old man but would hardly qualify as one of the "best and brightest" so perhaps HH might not be superman after all?

bill,

You can teach a monkey to fly, I believe NASA did. If you believe that the ability to fly an airliner in normals ops is demanding then fair enough. I tend to believe that its a good idea to have the best people money can buy in the right seats for when the holy sh$t day comes along. Sioux city, the SAS md80, the ba Lagos flight all spring to mind. U appear to have missed my point that the present day managers armed with the safety stats of the modern jet are now so confident that a monkey can do it they have decided they can afford to hire the cheapest and not the best pilot. Im old fashioned, I'd rather be flown by people I trust. Happily jump on an easy flight, wouldn't touch a Ryan air one. Does that clear it up for u?

As for my popularity, im pretty happy that I get on with most of the people I meet and the last 18 years of checks and course's have pretty much confirmed I'm a pretty average bloke amongst a group of pretty talented operators. Excuse me if this is arrogant but Ive been judged by the hardest task masters in the business and not been found wanting, well not often. I'll stop flying when I'm dumb enough to believe I've stopped learning. Im certainly not a superstar, I do know a few though, but I've never paid for a minutes flying. I've had 2 interviews and got 2 jobs. I've trained with men who had talent in abundance and died because they made mistakes. I learned everybody makes mistakes and some of us get lucky and live to learn from them. I've been trained by men whose abilities and conviction were inspiring. At no time did I find myself in a cockpit that I hadn't worked my bollix off to get into on merit, never had to pay a bribe to sit there.

So that all said I, like you, have earned my right to an opinion. You may think its arrogant to want to work with those that have the aptitude and ability regardless of financial resources. I think its sad that you seem to have no idea of the standards and ideals those who made flying a profession strived to achieve.

I refuse to apologise for holding in contempt those that feel that having undermined the principle of fair pay in order to get in cockpits and who now demand balpa spends its energy not fighting for an industry wide line in the sand but for improving the lot of the very pilots that have given ww and mol the evidance that they can demean our position and destroy our futures.

HH,

From what you say you started your flying with the military and have been around long enough to have had your civil training paid for by your employer.

Today the military is still an option for a few to learn to fly, but for many the "authoritarian" and "Rank" environment would be unacceptable. Unlike in your time the opportunities for sponsorship by airlines is limited or non existant.

So since the self sponsored route is effectively the only route open to becoming a pilot these days your dismissive attitude is not only unjustified, it makes no sense. The willingness of people to show their commitment,by paying their own money, rather than use someone elses, should be lauded.

If you are still flying and have not moved to the "Dark Side" I assume that you must fly with some of these "awful self funded chappies" as there must be increasing numbers at BA. It might hurt your pride, but by definition they are just as "good" as you and there are more of them currently flying for Easy, Ryan or whoever on their way!

The pilots at the other airlines would of course like to have better T&C's but for people like you to consider them as "inferior" and the "enemy" rather than the Management suits the latter perfectly. Rather than denegrate them it would be better to show solidarity, with a view to trying to improve conditions across the board. As others have pointed out, if the conditions at BA deteriorate then this will affect pilots elsewhere. Of course it would be equally true that if conditions improved elsewhere then they would at BA also. Time to recognise and know your enemy and as far as you can act together to overcome him.

By the way, as a person who appears to have an aversion to people paying their own way, could I be impertinent and ask if you are amongst the 10% or so of BA pilots who are happy to freeload by not belonging to BALPA?

Never had to pay a bribe to sit there!! What are you suggesting HH??
If BA pilots want our support do not imply that the rest of us have bribed our way into flying.:=

BA's training is not as impressive as we (BA pilots) would like to think. I believe that our recruitment is robust and we tend to set a minimum standard that sometimes causes 'shortages of suitability', but our training community have become slowly wedded to management. Senior positions within the training community tend to be managers or trainers who are keenest to become managers (with notable exceptions). The result is that the overall 'ethos' within BA has been one of risk management rather than airmanship. 'Airmanship' was even outlawed by training as an expression of overall ability a few years back!

Where the misconceptions lie within the non-BA UK flying community is the belief that BA pilots are arrogant or even think themselves superior to others. They garner this impression from our conversations with ATCO's, which often are to the say the least, 'assertive' in nature. From our side of the cockpit door, we are gagged by the industries most limiting SOP's that are formulated from the "Ministry of Trend Analysis".

SESMA (Trend Analysis) has caused the outlawing of Manual Throttles on the Airbus. The insistence of Gear Down at 2000' (Only changed recently on the basis of fuel useage). The list is very long. Most are sensible gates. Some are not.

We are governed by Risk Analysis first, Airmanship second and I hope that we differ from other UK pilots because of that. I would contest that our priorities, for a company our size, are in the right order. Where we seem to lack 'skill' is some of our community find it difficult to put subtly, our more restrictive SOP's within the context of the flying environment to other pilots and ATCO's!

The Heavy Heavy

I sometimes think that one of the main reasons for our disfunctional relationship with our managers is because at the moment, the BACC consists mainly of non-ex-military and management is mainly ex-military.

Nope, me neither.

Had to work as a tea boy in a tool shop :{ and a baggage loader to pay for the 'self improver' route...... never applied to the RAF or BA :sad:

Guess that makes me inferior then:ugh:

Bill,

Absolutely true, there is indeed a flip side to the coin that BALPA have been ignoring for years. Unfortunately it's now coming back to haunt them.

Blimey - why can't some people accept that just because some of us took different routes - doesn't make us any 'better' or 'worse'.

I guess HH must hate me - after all I'm self sponsored - not 'daddys' money, but the product of 15 years hard work in a professional career and some property development. I also didn't fly pointy things very fast, I didn't fail selection - I never applied, not what I wanted to do back then, I guess that makes me a bad pilot then.
I didn't get sponsored as there was no sponsorship available in the recession of the 90's. When BA re-introduced sponsorship, I applied at the ripe old age of 29. "sorry old boy, to old".
Yes I paid for my training, but I also worked hard, passed assesments and made my own luck.
I've got utter respect for anyone who gets the grade to do this job, but lets not pretend that some of us are superior, just because you were lucky enough to get sponsored training. And yes it was luck - sure you had to pass assesments and kudos to you for that, but it was luck that you were the right age in the right economic circumstances.

Nice shot from the hip.

If you cannot be bothered to research the history then I for one cannot be bothered to explain.

HH, if you want a thread about how military pilots are better and BA pilots better then start your own thread.
Just to enlighten you there are many extremely capable pilots some exmil some pure civ background working in the other airlines.

In the mean time this is about the direction Balpa is going, NOT about BA:rolleyes:

PS. I used to train EFT and I've seen your type before, I know exactly which drop file to put you in. Go figure.

Now I'll happily continue that argument in your own thread....

Fascinating !
All this talk about who's good and who's bad.

We've ALL had to work bl**dy hard (despite what the average Joe Public thinks when he hears how much or how little we earn)
Doesn't matter whether we're ex-mil, Hamster, Prestwick, CTC or the long route from the local aero club.

Surprisingly some of the best "pairs of hands" I've ever come across are the ones who have started as a "chock" at the local airfield. They're in fact the ones who have worked the hardest.

Since when did sitting on autopilot at treetop, doing 500+kts, with matey in the back telling you where to go, qualify one to be an ace airline pilot ?

Come on, guys, we're all in the same boat. Take the blinkers off and support each other.

Rgds,
Sleeve. (Treetop,500+kts,single seat,no autopilot, oh, and a carefully folded half mil map.)

Nauseating arrogance from HH. Look forward to you answering if you are a paid up Balpa member......The principle of collective representation and surrendering to collective will never rests easily on you self obsessed sky gods in my experience.

In the meantime and, back to topic, I have to say that this months Log gives the impression that Balpa has only one issue in focus. What is more worrying is the appraisal by PN John Moore which clearly alludes to the fact that the very existence of Balpa is at stake as a result of this action.

I entirely agree with Sleeve Wing.

I just wonder how much talent has been lost due to the policies of some of the major players.

MP;)