On 7 Feb 2017, at 8:30 AM, Richard Frawley <[email protected]> wrote: > > whats positive Mark is that it is recognised that most of the work that needs > to done has to be at grass roots level, nothing to do with the GFA at all.
Hahah yeah, bullshit. You can’t do a grass-roots MOSP rewrite. Grass roots won’t get a CASR amended to enable glider endorsements on RPLs. > Unfortunately it is a growing weakness in our culture is to blame the > government (or any upstream authority) rather than assume personal > responsibility. Unfortunately it is a growing weakness in GFA to blame the members (for not grass-rooting hard enough) rather than assume responsibility for their jobs and functions. The literal point of the GFA is collective representation to the regulator. There is no other purpose to its existence. If we have a discussion about interactions with regulations, and GFA people say, “Your individual responsibility is deficient,” the mere existence of that conversation represents a total abysmal failure of the GFA to do what the GFA is designed to do. > Its also clear that the GFA has little control over anything in all reality, > except to write documents put some polices in place and hope somebody enacts > them. Most everything else happens between members and the club management Absolute unmitigated rolled-gold 24-carat bullshit. The GFA writes regulations in a fee-for-service arrangement with CASA. As an organization, it has near total power over every aspect of gliding in Australia. If it writes documents to promulgate some policy, it doesn’t need to “hope somebody enacts it,”it does biennial audits with the power to shut anyone down who doesn’t enact it. To point at an organization with that much power and say it “has little control over anything in all reality” is the pinnacle of misguided victimhood. If GFA officeholders really feel that way, they should grow the hell up and have a good hard look at the reality they’re inhabiting. > The good news is that there are clubs that are operating differently and > showing great results. No, there aren’t. There really aren’t. The whole movement is in decline, has been for decades; and the clubs with “great results” will collapse faster than anyone realizes when the rest of the movement lacks the critical mass to sustain them. (Where will the successful clubs get their form-2s done when the businesses providing glider airworthiness close their doors because there aren’t enough active gliders to make it worthwhile? What’ll they do instead, lean harder on volunteers, then sneer at them when they get jaded and leave? ‘Cos that’s been working well so far, hasn’t it?) > And what is also clear its that just about nobody active on this list wants > to do anything other than whinge. As an example, only one person offered to > assist with the L2 ops change….(thanks Bernard) … and, just like that, you get to dismiss everybody who isn’t down with the status quo. Some of us spent a great deal of time and effort advocating for change from inside the system, and gave up in despair. We shouldn’t need to expend even more effort and suffer even more despair to be taken seriously. > Lets all please remember that the GFA is just ordinary people doing > thankless volunteer jobs, No it is not “just” that. Some of it is that, yes. But some of it is also a private organization which receives several hundred thousand dollars per year to act as an outsourced regulator. You appear to be denying that that’s true, which is pretty weird, because GFA has over a million bucks in the bank, and it didn’t get that by publishing gliding magazines. > As a pilot and aircraft owner, I find the whole GFA experience simple, easy > and painless, works well for me and many, many others I know. > As I am getting a self launcher, I do want this L2 ops situation improved and > I will apply efforts towards that. Translation: You’ll agitate for whatever change within GFA you need to make you happy, and not a skerrick more. As you depicted above, anyone who agitates for change within GFA that you’re indifferent to is a whinger. “Individual responsibility.” - mark
_______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring
