Reply To: increased membership fee

[Harald Strehling]

Dear Marc,
let me reply as secretary to the topics I was involved relating to your post and the few comments received. To begin with, I am somehow surprised about the timing for rising these questions.
Let’s start with the budget. I posted the new budget options on Nov. 10th under “items to vote” in our member area under 79th GA. On November 14th I reminded the members to check the items for voting and to contact the EC if there are any questions. In Athens, Hans reminded the audience at the opening to check the budget options. So, it should not have been a surprise to anybody.
In the budget document as posted, it referred to the steady increase of costs and proposed the membership increase in Option B to maintain our current activity level in 2024 and safeguard our savings. Our Treasurer repeated this in his presentation just before the vote and pointed out, that the European Cost Index raised since 2015 by 24% and we ask to increase only by 12%.
I believe most members understood this and 76% voted for Option B.
Now, if you were looking for added value and more activities this should have been mentioned either before or during the GA. There were enough opportunities. Now the budget 2024 has been approved as proposed. We have made allowances for host compensation for 2 physical GA’s but no provision for extra host support, i.e. for hosting an instructor seminar as clearly visible in the document.
Now, let’s talk about the instructor seminar. Yes, Jay is correct when talking about the “pandemic hangover” because it was our main focus to return to 2 physical GA’s, as this was the main request by our members and the supervisory board. There was still a problem for some members to be allowed to travel up till now, I believe you were one of them. Some member organizations still have travel budget restraints to this date. This is the reason why we are still going to the extra effort and expense to do a live stream of our GA on WEBEX.
Historically, the instructor seminar was organized by a member organization showcasing their school and training activities with exchange from instructor to instructor. EASA sent a representative to give an update on regulatory changes and Ian supported the host in the administration of the event. In the past there was no financial support for the host as the participants paid for lunches and social event.
The one instructor seminar we had with QCM in Bern was of slightly different nature, Margriet will remember, as she did a lot of organizing and was heavily involved. As EC we had to travel twice to Bern to organize, support and do a large part of the instructor seminar. We received a large number of registrations and had to waitlist people, but ended up with a lot of now-shows with no explanation or excuses. The ones who showed up took part in the well-organized social event but some decided not to pay their bills leaving it to the host to cover it.
Now, to hold an instructor seminar, for the time being we would have to do it without EASA involvement. EASA just started to come to the GA again for the first time after the pandemic and this needs to be stabilized as they also have personnel shortage, budget constraints and travel restrictions. More important, we would need a host who has to show something in the way of new teaching technologies or different teaching approaches, something other instructors can benefit from. In addition, we should consider a substantial registration fee, to avoid no-shows and maybe use it for the social event. It would be of great support, if you could present this topic at the next GA to initiate a discussion and see, if we have potential hosts and get the members reaction to this.
A short side note regarding EASA. No, we are not doing more work for EASA; we are working in the different EASA WG’s in order to get topics important to us in their programmes and increase our weight when it comes to decisions. Again, this is in line with the request of the member and the supervisory board, to increase the EAMTC footprint within the authorities. Without these activities EAMTC and maintenance training needs would most likely not be recognized at all any more.
Lastly, to the point of detailed presentations on the Part-66 / 147 rule making changes which directly addresses me and was also mentioned in the feedback received. Please bear in mind that throughout the RMT’s .0255 and .0544 there was a steady process of presenting the changes from working group activities, NPA comments received and consolidated to opinion 07/2022 with a detailed presentation on the significant changes at the 77th GA in Kiel. This presentation is still available in the member area. The last presentation in Athens was a mere reference to the now relevant documents and discrepancies we noted and which are now being addressed by EASA. A presentation giving all the details would have taken the majority of the time of the GA and very much challenged some participants as feed-backs point out, not to go into details which can be read elsewhere.
Please note, that right now the NPA 2023-10 is being prepared as excel table by Carlos and will be available for your comments after the holidays. We are looking forward to seeing your feedback on this topic.
Finally, let me wish all of you a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous and healthy New Year
Best regards,
Harald