AOPA Petition to Board of Trustees

Lindberg said:
Ah, well, then I guess they needn't make any changes on your behalf.
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Only if they don't care if I cancel my subscription again. And next time I won't be so easy to persuade to return
 
Lindberg said:
The membership elects the Board members.

The real question is whether everyone who's been dumping their memberships because of this will rejoin. If they were even members to begin with.
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Read the bylaws and show me how the members can vote for the Board Members other than attending the annual meeting in person or delegating their proxy to someone who can attend. Also show me how the members can propose someone to the ballot.
 
Hang 4 said:
Read the bylaws and show me how the members can vote for the Board Members other than attending the annual meeting in person or delegating their proxy to someone who can attend. Also show me how the members can propose someone to the ballot.
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Now you're imposing additional requirements.
 
“Do good, people. You know how.”
 
Half Fast said:
FYI - Board members are unpaid.
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I didnt say or imply they were. Board members set bloated salaries for the staff. As long as the board continues to pay half mil and better for mgmt, nothing will change.
 
The AOPA has posted proposed bylaws changes at https://www.aopa.org/about/governance/aopa-by-laws/changes-to-aopa-by-laws . While some of the changes are in line with what many of us have requested, the change to proxy voting,

The change under consideration would establish a deadline for the submission of proxies before the annual meeting, requiring that all proxies be submitted in writing to the Secretary no later than the last day of the calendar month before the annual membership meeting.​

falls far, far short of what is needed. All it does is impose a deadline.

The Board is doing nothing to make it practical for members to vote, like mail-in or online voting. Without that, everything else is little more than window dressing. This Board is determined to keep meaningful control out of the membership's hands.

I sent a couple of rather firm emails yesterday in addition to completing the bylaws survey, and I hope other POA folks will do the same.
[email protected]
[email protected]
 
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Just got this from AOPA

The AOPA Board of Trustees is considering a set of governance updates designed to modernize the association, strengthen accountability, and reflect best practices. The board invites every member to read the changes under consideration and share feedback before the changes are brought to a vote.

When I looked at the updates a couple of changes that I saw were a superficial ones. One is that the Members would be able to suggest Candidates to the Board, nothing saying if those suggestion would be followed. The other was Term Limits for Trustees, nothing saying how long the terms would be.
So it looks like no changes at all.
 
jayhawk74 said:
Just got this from AOPA

The AOPA Board of Trustees is considering a set of governance updates designed to modernize the association, strengthen accountability, and reflect best practices. The board invites every member to read the changes under consideration and share feedback before the changes are brought to a vote.

When I looked at the updates a couple of changes that I saw were a superficial ones. One is that the Members would be able to suggest Candidates to the Board, nothing saying if those suggestion would be followed. The other was Term Limits for Trustees, nothing saying how long the terms would be.
So it looks like no changes at all.
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Exactly. It’s window dressing. Still no practical method for member voting, and without that none of the changes really change anything.
 
Half Fast said:
Exactly. It’s window dressing. Still no practical method for member voting, and without that none of the changes really change anything.
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Because the board knows you folks will all calm down and continue to renew.
 
Tick toc AOPA. There thousands who turned of auto renewal who are commenting and providing constructive feedback who waiting for real changes.
 
I turned off auto renew, it expired, yet I still get the magazine. I wonder if they’re still counting the expired members as members?
 
Initial Fix said:
It seems that AOPA made some suggested changes and have an upcoming vote. The vote is actually on a weekend where folks could reasonably attend. From what I'm reading, they made some window dressing changes, and missed the mark.

https://avbrief.com/aopa-releases-proposed-bylaw-changes
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Electronic voting is a good move. Making it easier to assign your proxy to a member present at the meeting could be a good change (I think you could already do this, but it was not trivial; if they implement an online proxy transfer method or otherwise make the process easier, that will be an improvement).

The nominating committee remains a big constraint on change. If the Board is trustworthy, then keeping nominations only from the Board-appointed nominating committee avoids the potential for radical change from activist members. However, if the membership is dissatisfied with the Board and wants to effect change (as has been the case recently), that will remain essentially impossible since these Bylaw modifications keep the door closed against nominations from outside the nominating committee, which is still established by the Board.
 
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If an organization is concerned about some sort of hostile takeover by short term influencers and some sort of pop-up majorities of people that show up at any given time to vote, there are ways to deal with that. A couple of clubs I've been in have the board members serving 3 year terms, with 1/3 elected each year, so that it's not possible to put in a surprise majority in one year.

But if the concern is that they don't really want a membership run organization at all, then they're not going to change it. They're just going to make superficial changes to make it appear like they're listening, when really it's just a corporation run by X board members, and everyone else just pays their dues and pretends they have something more than an ability to make suggestions. Or, members just look at it as supporting a service, and they're completely fine that they don't have any involvement.
 
Believe me, I'm on the board of an organization that it used to be that anybody who could scrape together 20 names on his ballot pettition could run (regardless of qualifications). The bylaws changed a few years ago to give a committee the job of taking applicaitons (no signatures requred) and vetting potential candidates. That worked well for a few cycles and now is falling apart.
 
dans2992 said:
I turned off auto renew, it expired, yet I still get the magazine. I wonder if they’re still counting the expired members as members?
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I'd be shocked if they didn't still count you as a "reader" when they use that number to sell advertising. The first objective of cancelling your membership shouldn't be to make the membership number fall, but to deny them your dues money. If they want a return of dues-paying members, they should be made to heel and be more responsive to members' concerns.
 
Jim_R said:
Electronic voting is a good move.
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Well, it certainly will be if they really implement it. That's one item that I've harped on with emails and in 1-on-1 conversations with board members. But I don't know whether we're really going to get it. The proposed bylaws change reads (emphasis added):

Section 5. Election Process. Elections shall be by a majority of votes cast by members​
present in person or by proxy, including votes cast by electronic means before the Annual Meeting​
of Members pursuant to any process approved in advance by the Board of Trustees for this purpose.​

This still leaves it up to the board, and nothing ensures that the board will approve a process. If they do, nothing ensures that the process will really be easily accessible to members.

The board nominating committee is still exclusively comprised of board members, and there is no means to nominate someone to the board without their approval.

This board is absolutely determined to keep tight control over the organization and to prevent the membership from exercising any real authority over their own organization.
 
If they wanted to quell the demand for change, a clever AOPA board would just quietly support Dan Gryder for next AOPA president and watch the membership clamor for MORE board protections, vetting committees, and fewer proxy options.
 
schmookeeg said:
If they wanted to quell the demand for change, a clever AOPA board would just quietly support Dan Gryder for next AOPA president and watch the membership clamor for MORE board protections, vetting committees, and fewer proxy options.
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I don’t know…. Grider might be an improvement ;)
 
Half Fast said:
Well, it certainly will be if they really implement it. That's one item that I've harped on with emails and in 1-on-1 conversations with board members. But I don't know whether we're really going to get it.
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Yes, of course the devil is in the details. Certainly they could implement a stupid way of voting, like from one specific machine in a rural Wyoming library that's only open from 1-4 pm on Tuesdays. Or they could opt not to implement electronic voting at all.

But since they are responding to a groundswell of dissatisfaction from the membership and taking steps to placate the masses, it seems unlikely that the Board will shoot themselves in the foot and exacerbate the situation by doing something so antagonistic. Dangling a carrot and then yanking it away would be worse than just quietly letting the hunger persist.

I think it's more likely that the Board's intention is to implement some reasonable method of electronic voting, but it's early days and they have intentionally left the wording in the bylaws flexible while they figure out the details.

Either way, we'll have to wait and see what they come up with (if anything).
 
One day you folks will figure out the AOPA main goal is to protect business jet owners and as member you are there to serve as the business jet owners auxiliary.
 
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