I got through the job-jar at home that seems to get fuller when you go away, so I can come out and play for awhile.
I think most of you know how I feel about an association, no need for me to elaborate on that.
A BIG THANK-YOU Blackmac for taking the initiative on all our behalfs in establishing a professional association. I have been through the NPO documents, and I believe you have quite a task ahead of you, so I appreciate your efforts.
I have been busy in the last couple of months encouraging people to work outside this forum in recruiting interest, I would ask that those people continue to do so, but send your results to Blackmac, as he will need to see some membership numbers.
Blackmac, here are some ideas that you might want to consider:
I think we all appreciate this forum and the opportunity it affords some of us to post our ideas, but I am convinced the internet only reaches a minority of potential members. 100% of the people I spoke to on my last tour did not know this forum and association discussion even existed!! You are probably already looking into this, but our industry publications would be a great way to get this out there. A fax campaign might also be a good way to reach both owners and potential members.
I was looking into a 1 800 number. This all costs money I know, but it looks like you have a few people who want to send some money, myself included.
I will probably get my pee-pee slapped for this, but save yourself some grief by just getting this thing up and running with some basic by-laws. The NPO guidelines allow you to go in later and adopt the more definitive structure once you have your directors and a quorum. To get every "i" dotted and "t" crossed at the start would be difficult and time consuming, especially when you are attempting to bring all the special groups under one professional hat. As somebody told me, "build it and they will come". I agree though; we are a industry that does not work without the efforts of all our specialized groups, therefore one should not have precedence over the other - as long as the pilots get more recognition - kidding, just kidding!
Once you have your directors and basic association in place, you might want to approach HAC or a group of owners and let them know what the goals of the association will be. There are bound to be a few who think this is a "U" word. As you correctly mentioned in your first post, the Corporations Act prevents an association from acting in that capacity, but it will probably take some convincing. The owners need to be on-side to a certain degree. We can be as professional as we want, but if they are un-willing to recoginize those efforts and implement them into the way the industry does business, whats the point?
Just some thoughts, please give me a shout if you need a hand, or a cheque, or whatever.
Cheers!
p.s: I would like to see donairs adopted as the official food of the association!