Keep us posted Bill.
Keep us posted Bill.
I recently received this email. It is going around our chapter and really gaining support:
Hi Everyone,
If many of you follow =VAF=, you're probably aware that there is a campaign within the EAA Membership community to participate in the upcoming election of the EAA Board of Directors. We figured that instead of just complaining, we should actually participate in the democratic elections.
This simple idea led to more than 1 month of stone walling from the EAA. Still to this day, they have not provided a simple document that allows their members to participate in the election. So we copied their language that assigns the proxy rights to Rod Hightower and changed the name on it to reflect me. The EAA has admitted that this is a document that they can't turn down at the elections in a few weeks.
In the past there were 3 choices for EAA members to participate in the election:
1) They could choose not to participate.
2) They could show up in person to cast their vote at the annual business meeting.
3) They could assign their vote to Rod Hightower. (This is a check box on your annual renewal)
Long story short, the elections would look like 13 votes for some members and 16,000 votes for those that Hightower wanted. So they ended up being appointments and not elections by the members.
I am receiving proxy forms from all over the globe and if you are frustrated with the EAA, I would appreciate it if you would do that same thing. The form can be found at this link.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26343935/EAA%20Member%20Proxy%20Statement.pdf
You can send me a scanned copy or the original to:
Phillip W. Perry
C/O David Carr
1100 W Monroe St
Austin, TX 78704
Here are the votes we will be placing and the justification for selecting them:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showpost.php?p=678549&postcount=68
Today the EAA retaliated against their members and sent out a link asking them to assign proxy votes to Rod Hightower. Please don't give total control of EAA to the current membership and choose to put control of the EAA back in the hands of the membership. Here's some details on that message:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?p=679285
Please don't assign your proxy to the EAA Leadership, and if you feel compelled I would be honored to carry your proxy vote forward at the business meeting at AirVenture. This is the first time (that I'm aware of) in the history of EAA that the members have found a way to legitimately participate.
We need to get this word out to everyone who supports the effort ASAP. So if you agree, please highlight this proxy effort and share the message on every message board you can before some unknowing soul gives his vote to Rod Hightower and his buddies.
We are going to be continuing this effort going into 2013 too and can use your support and even you active participation.
Thanks,
Phil Perry
RV-10 #40750
EAA Lifetime Member
The Van's Airforce Website pulled down the threads in questions after some pressure from someone claiming they were too political. Giving Mr. Perry our proxies won't make a difference at this point compared to the number at Mr. Hightowers disposal, but will make a strong statement regarding the direction of the EAA. Hopeless causes CAN be worthwhile!
This was also on the RV web site.
My name is Rick Beebe and I'm a current Board member. I've been on the board since 2006. I'm a member of Chapter 27 in Meriden, Connecticut and I've been the newsletter editor for the past 12 years. I am not a homebuilder--I don't have time--but I have helped others. I will be in the market for an RV6 or 7 as soon as I sell my Cherokee. I don't need four seats any more and want more speed!
I've read this entire thread and there are some asked but answered questions and some mis-information that I'd like to clear up. I'm not speaking officially for the board, of course but as an EAA member.
Board nomination is easy. The process is detailed in the January issue of Sport Aviation every year. Basically you need a petition with 10 signatures of current EAA members. You must be an EAA member. You send it with a bio and your photo to the nominating committee.
Despite his name on the proxy, Rod does NOT determine who the proxy votes are cast for. The other two names, Louis and Eric are elected board members (chairman and treasurer). All of the candidates are discussed at a closed board meeting held during AirVenture week and the board as a whole decides who to cast the votes for. If you show up with more proxies than the board holds you will get to elect whichever 5 candidates you want. There is no provision for write-in votes so you'll need to get your candidate(s) nominated next January. I believe (but I'm also not a lawyer) that the proxy posted earlier should be fine. Some of us on the board ARE trying to get the proxy process changed to allow you to write your vote on your proxy. Sort of a write-in ballot.
Someone guessed correctly: we believe the decline in the number of proxies is directly related to on-line renewals and the autopilot (automatic renewal) program.
Just being an enthusiastic EAA member, however, should not be why you elect someone. The Board's primary job is to generally offer guidance and approve management's overall strategy for the organization and to make sure that it is being run in a fiscally responsible way. If you don't know how to read financial documents, please learn before you nominate yourself. The board does not (and should not) get to dictate details of how Rod does his job. Also, be prepared to travel to Oshkosh at least 3 times a year and to participate in 3 or 4 other teleconferences--usually of 2 hours each.
Regarding the previous CEO search. I was one of the people who voted against hiring Pete Bunce and I comfortably stand behind that decision. He's a great guy and does a wonderful job with GAMA but I firmly believe he was not the right man for our job. Frankly the directors who resigned over it had their own agenda and it did not align well with EAA. Contrary to what someone posted, EAA did not spend $400,000 on these two searches. The real number was less than $200,000. I'm also happy with Rod as President. Yes, he's a successful businessman. Why would we entrust our organization to someone who didn't know how to run a business? But he's also one of us. His two planes are a T-6 and a Stearman that he restored from a pile of rusted tubes.
The economic crisis of 2008 affected EAA as much as the rest of the country. One of the specific tasks that the Board directed at Rod was to bring costs inline with revenue. That is not an easy, or popular, task but one that he has done well. There is not, as some have intimated, a huge profit motive here. As a 501(c)(3), EAA cannot really make a profit. There are no sharedholders getting paid and the Board is all volunteer. It needs to make enough money to cover its expenses, create new programs, and sustain itself in times of trouble. In years past (prior to 2007) EAA was in serious debt. I'm happy to say that for the most part we have remained debt free since then (two exceptions--we use short-term debt to some extent prior to AirVenture and the $10 million IRB that we're using to improve the grounds) in large part to the board insisting on a balanced budget and instituting a rolling five-year plan.
We also, of course, expected Rod to be a leader and a visionary. His six areas of focus for EAA were published in the March 2012 issue of Sport Aviation. There was an internal reorganization to help align the organization with those goals. People don't like change so it's not unusual that some have left.
Making EAA another AOPA is not one of the goals although I encourage greater cooperation between the two groups. The threats to flying from Washington are real and dangerous and the more voices the better. EAA has always had a strong advocacy presence in Washington but have not been very good about telling the members about it. That's something the board has been asking for which is why you see more articles in SA about what EAA has been doing. It's an important member benefit that was too invisible before.
If you read the annual report you'll note that AirVenture accounts for approximately 1/3 of the EAAs $35 million budget. So it is important to EAA. I was on the committee that was responsible for the site improvements and a CONSTANT message from us was that improvements we made to generate more income should be paying for improvements that the members see. Like the rebuilt/new shower buildings and flush toilets. Also that things put in place for benefit of our corporate sponsors should not be in-the-face of the average member. That said, management does not need board approval for everything they do. But I can assure you those chalets WILL be a topic of discussion at the next board meeting.
There is not a grand conspiracy to abandon the homebuilders. Many of the board members are or have been homebuilders and not forgetting the organization's roots is important. However our member surveys show that only one-third of members are homebuilders and it is important that we also pay attention to the other two-thirds. EAA started as a homebuilding organization because that (and restoration) was the easiest way for someone to get into flying inexpensively. All aspects of recreational flying is really what the EAA's core mission is about.
The board membership is not a secret. It used to be listed under the 'Members Only' section of the web site. It does seem to have disappeared. They have been struggling with the website, though, so I'm sure it's inadvertent. I will ask to have it put back.
I hope that's cleared up some of the mystery. Phil I encourage you to show up with your proxies and I encourage all members who are at AirVenture to come to the annual member meeting on Saturday morning. It's a rare year when there are more than 50 people there (and most of those are families of people running for the board). At the very least you'll get to meet the members of the board. We're generally all there.
That said, I will say that I did not see in this thread an answer to the question of what, specifically, you're trying to change. Or why I, as a member, would want to assign my proxy to you. It's irrelevant to me as I will be there in person, but if you expect to collect 15,000 proxies next year, you're going to need a solid advertising message.
--Rick
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Thanks for participating. It is good to see a Board member involved.Originally Posted by RV8505
Maybe some of them, but I consider myself a friend of Mike Dale and believe you have just made an unwarranted slur on his character and motivations.
A more pertinent question would be "why would we entrust our organization with no experience of running a serious non-profit, mission-driven business?"
You do know that a checkbook and Kent McMakin at Brodhead were involved in the story ?!
I'm interested to know what you would consider a normal number of departures, from a staff of less than 200.
Is the Board adequately informed, with unfiltered information, of what's actually happening? The word is out that Rod refused to provide the Board with a list of employees that left, and that departures can't be mentioned any more in the staff newsletter.
Again, I appreciate your willingness to participate in the discussion. The apparent lack of Board transparency over the proxy questions has been quite shocking to the average member. It really helps to have some dialogue, even if we don't agree. I do respect your position on these issues.
I just cut and past from the Van's web site. I am not on the board.
It's too bad the VAF guys didn't have the stones to leave the threads up.
I disagree, I found their methods were somewhat tactical. There really wasn't any common defined goals or objectives other than seeking proxy forms from members. Maybe the cause was nobil but they need to be more strategic if they want to affect change. Personaly, I think you should be a lifetime member or a member over 20 years to participate in the direction of the EAA.
Leaving threads with disagreements or opinions contrary to the site owner's up is not really VAF's style.
Ryan Winslow
EAA 525529
Stinson 108-1 "Big Red", RV-7 under construction
Jim Weir tried to collect proxies on the internet one year, but there just isn't any way that an independent operation is going to garner enough to counter the ones blindly signed over to the board.
I'm one of the posters in the deleted VAF thread. One of the things the open discussion allowed was for people to go back and forth and develop some common goals and ideas. If there are 1,000 pilots in the room, there are 1,000 individual goals. It appeared that things were moving towards some straightforward objectives for this year and subsequent years. I think losing those threads is a real loss to the effort to build concensus around how much input members should have with the EAA.
I do respect the site owner's choice in removing the threads, but I also wish they had simply been locked, not removed. We could have at least looked back at the threads and built on the best ideas .
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