CEO Blog 14th October 2009
The concept of this is to provide informal background on what’s going on at LAA HQ. If it becomes too manic, perhaps a stream of consciousness from Turweston will emerge.
I’ll target fortnightly initially and see how that goes. How about starting with a review / update since beginning of September?
In no particular order:
Events
Sywell Revival 4th 5th and 6th September 09. Lots written on this and, unusually, almost universal approval for the way we did it. Under-set expectations, then over-meet delivery. It’s a recipe for success. Glad I insisted on the extra burger van and even that wasn’t enough. Sorry to those that waited for grub.
There have been ongoing meetings with the Sywell team since, with a view to 2010. We hope to have a deliverable plan in place for early November. Once again, the aim is ‘fun and affordable’. Keep the risk low, the fun high and costs as low as possible for everyone. Target date is currently first weekend of September 2010. The management team are Ian Harrison, Nigel Ramsay, Chris Brockis and myself.
Events 2
We have ongoing event planning for AeroExpo next June at Wycombe AirPark (hopefully an even larger LAA presence). Chris Brockis and Dave Hanchet of Berkshire (sorry, that’s Royal Berkshire) strut were largely responsible for 2009’s successful LAA effort at AeroExpo and are once more taking the lead for 2010. AE is important to the LAA since it puts us in front of a more ‘certified’ GA audience. Last year 40 new members were signed up at the event and many more witnessed at first hand the impressive range of aircraft the modern day LAA has to offer. Ours is a good story. Great, in fact!
Events 3
More immediate is The Flying Show on 28th and 29th November, ‘Splash’ as was, still at the NEC, but a different hall to the last couple of years. Geoff Weighell and myself discussed this earlier last week regarding the LAA stand. It’s good to see the BMAA taking a lead in this annual event and a shame that BHPA are not able to share the risk. However, it is understandable, especially after our own reluctant step down from a full blow Rally this year. November’s an ideal time of year to host an internal, non-flying event and if the costs can be kept low for exhibitors and visitors, should continue as a successful venue. Subject to a few details, we should be there.
Website
Updating our website and technical infrastructure: We’ve been reviewing, with increasing focus, our web and database. The web will become the major communication portal for the majority of our LAA work. It wont happen overnight, but even now, the database is creaking under the multiple sticky plaster repairs to keep it going for the engineering and membership tasks it must perform. The day is fast approaching when a major re-vamp behind the scenes is required. Arguably the day is already here for a revamp of the visual look and feel. We discussed the technical and process components of our web at an all day workshop. This will be an ongoing project for many months.
EASA industry briefing - management board update. Both Roger Hopkinson and myself visited the DfT offices for an industry update from the EASA board. These are useful meetings for providing not only the headline decisions, but much of the thinking that supports the more obvious headlines. One of the major initiatives emerging from EASA is a new safety working group and focus. We await what this means, but one of my personal gripes is the lack of metrics for measuring success in safety. This means we can never be deemed safe enough, no matter how safe our processes and results prove to be and no matter how much is spent. Safety is in danger of becoming an emotion driven concept, rather than evidential. More on this to come.
EC meeting – main points re-structuring.
The EC met just before the EGM on re-structuring. Besides the usual update from around the sub committees was a final review of the restructuring plans. Assuming the restructure goes ahead, the board will shrink to 12 members and more of the work will be performed by the sub-committee structure. This is starting to happen anyway. The volume of work and coverage by the LAA is growing at an increasing rate and often led by the individuals within EC. We are always on the look-out for more qualified and active volunteers.
LAA Re-structuring
As posted elsewhere on the LAA website, the LAA organisational re-structuring EGM gave overwhelming support to the EC to proceed with this important change. Whilst the high level requirements are relatively straightforward (and there are many that would say even these are complex) the devil is in the detail. My job is to ensure we have a smooth transition to the new arrangements, that it’s legal and that we’ve thought of everything. To that end, we’ve been planning and consulting with our legal advisors to ensure we implement workable and pragmatic systems. Take just one aspect, the shares: the CEO is supposed to be the registered shareholder of all the Association’s shares, acting on behalf of all members as their appointed nominee. This means we don’t lodge all your names with Companies House, it also ensures we don’t have to issue share certificates, or have the challenge of trying to retrieve certificates from members who have left the Association (we have about an 8% churn per annum – 650 members) or replace those lost, etc. On the other hand we must put in place contingency arrangements for if the CEO ‘walks under a bus’, is sectioned, or goes rotten and is sacked. I sometimes think at least one of those is a real possibility…
So, if I am to hold your share, I need your permission and that needs writing into the membership joining documentation and the renewal documentation. What happens if you forget to renew for a few days? Is your share called back and issued to someone else? Or maybe, since many simply forget to renew for just a few days, we operate a continuing membership for a few weeks until renewal (without voting rights) as a pragmatic operation of the system. What do we do with the ‘spare’ membership shares? How many should we have issued at any one time? We certainly need to accommodate membership increases caused by events (AeroExpo, Rally, etc). All this and more must be accommodated, with a simple presentation to the membership, but protection for us all. We’re working on it. Currently, we’re aiming to implement the new system for January 1st 2010, but that might be subject to change.
Health and safety visit
Whilst safety is in-built to the LAA engineering processes as a primary objective, the office itself carries a H&S / HR contract with an external supplier. We are checked annually for the usual office based activities, plus have extra support on stand-by in the unlikely event of needing expert help. It’s unlikely a mere CEO like myself could be expected to keep abreast of HR law, so this external contract is most reassuring.
Insurance
The most important topic on my desk. These are increasingly litigious times, so must keep a close eye on our exposure and mitigate wherever possible.
We were asked at very short notice if LAA can cover (insure) a fly-in. We cover official strut fly-ins, when there’s a safety officer and a safety assessment is performed as known by the struts. However, this was an informal meeting, not via a strut and not actually organised by a member. After quick calls with our helpful insurers (the underwriters are visiting next month) we were at least able to direct the organiser to a likely source of insurance.
HQ building
Our lease is due for renewal in November. I’ve been reviewing options and it’s rather surprising what is available. We do want to keep our options open and certainly find this current location at Turweston aerodrome convenient, with a very helpful landlord. He’s certainly been supportive of our Educational Trust portacabin facility.
Finance
Might be a dirty word to some, but is vital. I took the view early this year that keeping our capital intact was more important than the interest received. We split our cash reserves across 5 banks, all ‘good’ brands and did the best we could with interest. Clearly, interest receivable will remain low for the near future, but we’ll review over the next few months to consider if assembling larger lump sums fro investment will provide a significantly better income.
Internal management meetings – we have these every month. We discuss the usual financial position, engineering throughput (a record year and credit to Malcolm, Ken, Fiona and Maxine). Penny reports membership is down a mere 40 from this time last year to 8130. Not bad considering the recession, cut backs, etc. We have a regular 8% churn of memberships. The chasing up for renewals takes a disproportionate amount of resource, so helpful if members can renew promptly, without waiting for the renewal letters. Better still, set up a direct debit. Cost to us is low and we’ll always cancel it should you change your mind.
Courses
We’re now into the next round of ET courses. There’s a couple more this year and full details of all the courses and dates can be found here.
Claire, Penny and Sheila are the enthusiastic co-ordination team for the ET activity, including courses. Contact them at et@laa.uk.com
EASA and other NAA meetings
Roger Hopkinson has been very active behind the scenes endeavouring to extend our UK privileges. You can read elsewhere on this website about the recent good news of the Channel Islands accepting NPPL holders without prior arrangement. Rest assured, we are actively promoting and chasing a wider geography.
There has also been discussion on the bulletin board about EASA and Annex2. There is no immediate threat to Annex2 status from EASA. Indeed, EASA have recently been directed by the Commission to focus their resources on Commercial aviation. This is a pragmatic attempt to deliver as much of the legally binding regulation as possible within the EU Parliament agreed timescales. The result will probably be much of the regulation affecting our GA end of the market being left to the NAA (our own CAA). It’s possible the NPPL could be with us for a few years yet (but that’s conjecture). Indeed, we spend some time working out the different scenarios and the impact they might have on our operations and privileges. As an example, we are generally in favour of the new EASA LPL (Light Pilot’s Licence), assuming the medical requirements remain lightweight. We also expect and hope that NPPL holders would ‘grandfather’ into an LPL automatically. However, the LPL would only apply while you’re flying EASA aircraft and if our Permit aircraft remain Annex2, it doesn’t count…don’t worry, it’s being worked on, but a small example of the many loose ends that need tidying.
And finally
John Brady, James Tannock and Bob Littledale deserve special mention. John for his continuing efforts on the consultation work. Stansted, Glasgow, Norwich and others are examples of airspace change requests that could seriously affect our operations. John co-ordinates the vast majority of our official responses. Knowledgeable and direct, we are very fortunate to have his vast experience. James and Bob have borne the brunt of the re-structuring work over the last year, wading through tomes of legal and regulatory paperwork. The current structure has served us well for almost 60 years, but is long overdue for update. Their input has made my job significantly easier.
If you have any feedback from this informal update, please let me know:
Pete Harvey
LAA CEO