PAY YOUR MISASA FEES OR WHAT

[Oddball]

Some more thoughts garnered over lunch; perhaps in a less beligerant style... these are my personal thoughts and not anything 'official'

I have wondered what the aim of an organisation such as MISASA should be for a while; arranging outings and events is really at the behest of some individual who wants to make something happen. Usually the event is self funding and is essentially a group of like minded people conforming to some arrangment. Unless someone takes charge of an event and drives it then it won't happen, and an official organisation staffed by volounteers simply does not have the resources to arrange many events.

What is it that the collective money of the organisations members can do? I think that the biggest thing really is to employ one person who can be a central point that will coordinate 'things'; the lists of AP's, who to contact at the CAA for this or that; who to direct a press enquiry to; who would know such and such; and so on.

This person needs to be employed in a manner that entices them to stick around and form some sort of continuity (a reasonable salary...) but does not need to know everything about flying- that is the comittee's job.

The rest of the processes that revolve about the organisation will be driven by interested parties; therefore, no interested parties, no events or extras.... which may not be that bad a thing- pilots will always arrange thier own things anyway.

Anyway, lookout for the questionaire coming around; you may also receive a phone call where someone will ask you to answer the questionaire/ poll telephonically.

By the way, the committee volounteered to support this forum financially a couple of months ago. The offer was made but I believe that Barry had the matter in hand and elected not to use the funds. There would be no problem with supporting this forum; in fact I think that it is required.

[mike2flyfar]

http://www.aeroclub.org.za/applications ... MISASA.pdf

That is the link for the MISASA membership application


To summarise:
Aeroclub membership is R205
MISASA membership R400
R500,000 3rd party insurance R250
R1 mil 3rd party insurance R375

For the rest of this year you pay half.

Cheers
M

[KFA]

Hi Guys, I think the right question is not what your money can do for you but what your money does for our sport. There is a lot of things happening at the CAA that would get out of hand if MISASA is not involved. I must agree with odball that if you want something to happen in your area you have to take charge and organise it. You can not expect MISASA to represent you nationally and to organise your local events as well.

Mike and the team are fighting tooth and nail and mostly at their own expence. My opinion is that we should leave the yap yap behind pay your fees and get involved. If everyone paid there fees it will be halve that next year.
Happy flying.

[Wart]

and will retire gracefully from further comment on the subject

Demon retires to his corner and sulks

Demon it was just the general tone of where the thread was going. I know that your heart and sole is in microlighting and that you only have the best interest in seeing our sport grow. Thanks too for all your efforts (and late nights and sore heads and upset wives!); my observation was that there is a lot of negativity towards MISASA and if only we all gave them our support we will, I am sure, see our sport grow.

Thanks to everyone for their input and this is an open forum and we need to able to air our views.

[mike2flyfar]

Good morning Barry
Thanks for your thoughts ... I know that your heart and soul is in the sport and there is no doubt in my mind that you have done more for our sport than anyone...
Still, out of strife comes positives and you are absolutely correct - we really need to jack up our communication a notch. To that end I will work on a communication policy so that the comms are maybe shorter and more detailed, but more regular and are posted on all forums.

To everyone on this forum ... what you can now do for our sport is to encourage everyone to answer the survey that I will send out in about a week. We are hoping that the results of the survey will help us determine the way forward, what fees everyone is prepared to pay etc.

Sunshine
Mike

[Wart]

Mike

There is the ability to post the survey here. That way you get input from MISASA members and those that are sitting on the fence.

[Fairy Flycatcher]

There are many things about MISASA which I feel should change.

I have been a member of MISASA since 1999, and have done my fair share of work, (both for reward and not for reward), and am still a member.

Some continuity is very important, and where I have seen the greatest damage done, is that each committee does things very, very differently from the previous committee, and we don't have any "experts" to guide us.

Communication is lacking. I would much prefer the lovely magazine to have been a decent newsletter, inviting opinion and giving decent information, than a busy, colourful glossy. Now I see even that communication medium is to stop

Mostly, what I see wrong with MISASA, is that they have taken up too much responsibility, without reaping the benefits. So, too many fingers in too many pies, so that they can't taste even a morsel of one. With a group of volunteers, MISASA can be a social network, arranging events and communicating with members, or MISASA can take on a lot of responsibility for legislative matters, but you can't do both.

MISASA should not have spent so much energy on trying to change laws, doing TS, AP ratings, accident investigations and so on, without serious financial support from CAA.

This is not MISASA's fault though. It lies with CAA, which is an organization that cannot keep its management, and does not have any expertise in our field. So accident investigation is a disaster, aircraft registration, imports and quality control is a even worse. School approval is pathetic and impute on laws (which lumps us with ex-military jets), is so useless that it should almost all be scrapped.

It is only naturally that people who are passionate about their sport will try and fill the huge ugly gaps in our CAA's management of thing. But under MISASA they have to do this without remuneration, without expertise and without support. So time and time again, MISASA gets less done on all fronts.

And in all this mess, Aero Club decides to take over Air shows (for glory or money or what?). The worst air shows we have ever seen at Virginia has been under ASSA, and still Aero Club has not assisted in fixing any problems we have as pilots.

So I think supporting MISASA is important, if MISASA can figure out what it can fit into its organization, realistically. And CAA must either wise up, or MISASA must have a change in structure, or another body must fill this awful gap. At the moment, and for the last couple of years, its been a mess. Everybody knows that.

About events. We have a fly-away e-mail group in Natal. Its slowly growing, but there are events every weekend. We already have about 150 members. So what MISASA does not do for us, we DO do ourselves. Also for no remuneration. Ask Wart. He should be getting his news-letter almost weekly from us, when last from MISASA? And how much have you paid for getting our newsletter?

[Wart]

Ask Wart. He should be getting his news-letter almost weekly from us, when last from MISASA? And how much have you paid for getting our newsletter?

To be honest I got a MISASA newsletter not 3 hours ago. But apart from that FF you guys have been great in making the social / fly-away side of KZN flying more accessable to a lot more people. Unfortunately I haven't been able to take you up on any of your events due to my "jet setting". Keep up the great work and hopefully soon you will bump into me on one of your fly-aways or down at LM for breakfast.

[alanmack]

PS - Just in case you do not get to the bottom of this posting - SA Nationals Scorecard is posted in the MISASA section of this chat group.

Ok - I put the magazine "Teaser" out there "The next issue will be the last issue ?" - This does not mean that there is to be no magazine - What does it mean then? Ha Ha - read the September Microflight Magazine Chairman's Report.

If you read the June Issue - Read no further - For the benefit of non-members who do not get the magazine - I wrote the following:

We should seek to earn the reputation for wisdom, insight and reflection.

Flying, it’s the closest thing to the twilight zone and miraculously, we remain free to fly. As a consumer group, traumatic doesn’t quite describe dealing with bureaucracy. Sadly, bureaucracy tends to lend an ear to representative organisations and then only if they are sufficiently large to become a pressure group. As an individual you may get lucky with a letter to a Minister. I have, but I suspect that the fact that we regularly sit in formal meetings together and share an elevator from time to time, may have helped. This is my third rant as your Editor and so I hope to reap the just reward of “third time lucky”. Yes, I intend not to panic when one of you write to me about, say, having developed a constructive safety action plan.

Membership of MISASA is voluntary.

If you belonged to the group called “The Zimbabweans” and you wanted to leave, you would probably have done so, a long time ago. If you stayed, however, paying membership would be compulsory. Belonging to your local flying club should certainly cater to your visible needs such as a hangar and buddies to fly with. Of course life is fabulous; you do not need to join MISASA because even if you do not join you share the sky. This raises a point to moot. If they only join half way through the year, should pilots that have held MPL’s for the full year qualify for a pro rata reduction in the membership fees of MISASA? Should a new MPL pay for the nine months that she was not a pilot? Ask yourself. Have they shared the sky? There is a positive morality about the matter. Just for once, be more loveable and less argumentative!

At the AGM the new committee was appointed on a completely voluntary basis. The work of MISASA is thus done without payment to the subject matter specialists that look after your interests. The fact that they are prepared to give of their time, without a salary, should in no way reduce their responsibility and accountability to you the membership. You cannot afford to gamble on the future of your “twilight zone”. If free and safe skies are our shared vision and if it is to cost then so be it. This then brings me to the debate on reducing the MISASA fees. Without a full-time paid chairman, cost projections indicate that a reduction in fees is possible. The short-term central focus of MISASA must be to increase membership or to lobby for the CAA to make membership compulsory.

Unless MISASA is fully representative of microlight aviation then failure becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Without representivity MISASA too would have to believe in luck and hope to catch the elevator with a Minister on the way to a meeting with another representative organisation. Fees and representivity go hand in hand. If we can add 500 members we become a much stronger organisation and the fee structure can be significantly reduced. Included with this magazine is a membership form. Take it to a MPL that has lost faith and convince him that only by vigorous membership debate and by membership contribution to the objectives will we, together, be affordably able to keep the skies safe and free. Taking a short-term free ride on other contributing members will have long term consequences. Consequences are about cause and effect. Belonging is something not done to you it is done for you.

How did we get here? You could fret about it or you could pretend to be dumb or you could be rebellious! Did we too have a “simpler, better, faster” approach and bank on having safer and free skies? The simpler, better and faster approach would certainly have been to not get involved and just leave. Should we too then become “motivated, inspired and involved?” Sounds appealing but given that man has always yearned for the freedom of flight and coupled with the need for the safety of such flight I propose that MISASA adopt a brand calling for WISDOM, INSIGHT & REFLECTION. As pilots that enjoy the freedom of flight, whilst holding our lives in our hands, we should have the wisdom of insight and reflection so that we are able to apply wisdom gleaned from these special attributes in our decision taking.

So what must you do?
Focus now— more members, more representivity, more influence. Fewer members, less influence. If you do what you did you’ll get what you got! It all becomes a self fulfilling prophecy so please take the membership form to a lost soul and give him this elevator speech.

[Junkie]

Ive decided - im sticking with MISASA

[DarkHelmet]

I'm with Junkie!

[mike2flyfar]

And I'm with Dark Helmet!

PS. The survey will only be sent out by about Wednesday next week ... it is still being fine tuned.
PS2 Anyone who did not receive the latest MISASA e-News please pop Annette at secretary@misasa.co.za a note and then go to www.misasa.co.za and sign on for the newsletter.

[Morph]

I'll join in Jan, I'm not going to pay half price for the next 3 months

[Arnulf]

Joined about 3 Weeks ago.

The SA CAA is pretty dysfuntional presently. It is staffed primarily by office workers, who cannot comprehend why anybody would be so daft to want to fly in an "pyp en lap" aerrie. For them the okes flying in those aerries are just a pain in the a%$e. The easy way out for them is to just ban this type of flying, and get rid of this irritation. Point in case is Switzerland and Austria. Flexwing aircraft in these countries are VERBOTEN!!!!. Read the book "Freedom Flight". It will give an interesting insight in countries where any form of private flying is VERBOTEN. Look at the number of NTCA aircraft flying in neighbouring countries compared to SA. (See MISASA Newsletter). Private flying, and especially flying pyp and lap aerries is a very "un African" pasttime, very eurocentric. If we don't have a body that steers the CAA and legislation into a direction we want, they will steer the legislation into a direction that will be too ghastly to contemplate. See the kneejerk reaction of wanting to ground aerries with ropestarts.

MISASA does not have to organise flyaways for me, and give me pretty t shirts. I can do that myself. I need them to look after our collective interest at the CAA.

In our present political dispensation it is every microlight pilot's moral obligation to belong to MISASA.

Regards,
Arnulf

[IFLYHI]

FF wrote:

About events. We have a fly-away e-mail group in Natal. Its slowly growing, but there are events every weekend. We already have about 150 members. So what MISASA does not do for us, we DO do ourselves. Also for no remuneration. Ask Wart. He should be getting his news-letter almost weekly from us, when last from MISASA? And how much have you paid for getting our newsletter?

I think everybody is saying the same thing

mf2f is running a committee and deal on a national level with bigwigs
The committee also organizes/assist with big events eg. Gariep, Africa Cup, Nationals etc.

Regions to do local events eg Regional championships, have a stall at each air show and assist the clubs with events, ie what FF is doing above for Natal.

Clubs/Local fields organize fly-aways breakfasts and participants for Regionals eg. Miroland Breakfasts, Flyday, Sun City outing and one I partaked in, the Dragons Peak Fly away

If I got this wrong I have a good flak jacket