Sharpy01
Posts: 600
Joined: 9/9/2003
From: Kenora, ON, CANADA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: brayon1
I usually refrain from getting involve in some discussions, but I must set something straight here.
How interesting to see some of the discussions on the ACC – Aero Club of Canada. Seems like many facts have been left aside. I would like to make a statement here on how the “MAAC fiasco” as it is called by some, came forward.
First of all, at the time I was the Vice-President of MAAC. President Rick Reid decided to assist at the AGM of the ACC. At that meeting, the ACC was getting in financial difficulties because of funding from the Federal government being removed and they wanted more money from the different associations (7) to pay for the FAI fees.
*** Let’s explain how FAI establishes fees (at least how it was done in 1995). FAI bases the country’s fees by the estimated # of pilots in the country. Problem is that the biggest pilot Association (COPA) with about 20,000 members do not belong to the ACC, neither does the Cadets, the Homebuilt aircraft association, ultralights, etc…. After discussion with COPA we realised that they asked the “competing group of pilots” to form their own associations - the Canadian Sport Aeroplane Association (CSAA) and also Aerobatics Canada that would handle any FAI related affairs. ***
At the time the ACC represented around 15,000 members from 7 different organisations, 12,000 of those being MAAC members.
Because MAAC represented the most membership in the ACC, we saw the biggest increase which would more than double the previous fees paid to ACC for that same year and we would now go from $ 9,000 a year to about $ 19.000. Because only about 200 members of MAAC are considered “competitors”, Rick Reid asked that the MAAC fee be adjusted, which ACC refused. Rick then asked that COPA and any other related organization be involved in the payment of the FAI fees, which ACC said they were not interested in pursuing.
Rick asked why MAAC should be punished because we have the largest amount of members, 98 % being non FAI competitors. Because the ACC were not even willing to look at any other options, Rick could not commit MAAC at accepting such an increase. – Be it noted that no previous information had been provided to the President Rick Reid about this proposed increase.
Rick informed ACC that since our own AGM was coming in the following week, he would bring this information and proposal to the Board.
In the meantime we checked what other countries were paying for FAI fees. At the time, France (with many more modelers than Canada), Australia, South Africa, etc. were paying much much less than us!!. Well, these countries did not count their whole modelers as being FAI members, only their competitors or those members interested in joining the FAI. So why should we not do the same….
So at the AGM, it was decided that the new executive, with I as being the new President, would come up with a proposal that would try to satisfy the FAI requirements and save some money to MAAC. The proposal was as follow: The “competitors” would regroup themselves under a SIG (Special Interest Group). They would be separated from MAAC, but still fully supported by MAAC. That would mean that the “New Group” of less than 200 members would belong to the ACC, and MAAC would pay the FAI fees to help them out. Because the total membership of the ACC would now be of about 3200 rather than 15,000, the other groups would have to pay more, which we believe would be more fair. We proposed that the MAAC fee be dropped. We offer to pay as much as $ 5000 during 5 years, (then hopefully have this reduced to a more resonable amount) which is still much more than a proportional amount ( 200 members from MAAC vs 3000 members for other groups = just over $ 1000 for MAAC/ year).
ACC refused this new proposal, as they were afraid that the other groups would not be willing to pay more. By removing ourselves from the ACC, this entity would simply disappear. By the way, in such a case, FAI offers the possibility that any competitors can still get his FAI license directly from them.
We also had problem with our own people. WOW – now we are asking the “competitors” to organized themselves! MAAC would always be there to support them. We would pay all the fees related to ACC/FAI. Even better, the money saved from the decreased ACC fees would be given directly to this group. Seems that this was too much to be asked. Right away a few of these guys decided that they would not do so, that it was up to the MAAC office to take care of these issues…. Dave Larkin with the support of some new ZD and competitors decided to fight for their “rights”, without any approval from the Board, with the result that we now know – we are still paying for all our 12,000 members, which in my mind does not make sense. I am sure that in his own mind, Dave Larkin, think he was doing the right things for MAAC, but he (and others) never looked more deeply into the options the executive had come forward. Too bad that they were looking more after the survival of the ACC than the benefits of MAAC.
Now we are still paying big bucks for an organisation (ACC) that survives only because MAAC is still paying for the bulk of the fees.
Hope this made this situation clearer.
Louis Lebel
Past-President for MAAC
Thank You Louis. This took guts and is the first time we have seen anything close to the "other side of the story" from someone who was deeply involved.................besides Ken of course. (is that a big grin I see glowing West of the MB/ON border?)
..........here we go. I hope to see something better than the usual, "uphold the constitution" and "maac was organized by competitors for competitors stuff" because I hate that Martinism stuff....(ie: wrapping yourself in a flag to avoid the issues). How about some honest discussion because Louis has touched on a number of interesting ideas and some countering facts from what has previously been offered by some.
..........a dozen pages.
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