Letters excluded from the December Aerospace Professional

At its meeting on 9 November 2009 the Council took the extraordinary decision to deny members the opportunity to express their views on the move of the Library and Careers Centre in the pages of The AerospaceProfessional. Instead, the letters would be published in the Members Only pages of the Society website.  Access to the site is not difficult, but members who have not yet registered with the site will need to give their membership number and date of birth in order to be allowed in. The letters can be found on ‘Library Letters’ on the Library box.  The page includes the letters published previously in the October and November issues as well as the letters excluded from the December issue.  The three December letters are reproduced below.

1.   The Library and Careers Centre – letter from John Green protesting at the misrepresentation of the
     Past Presidents actions by Phil Boyle, Council Member and Chairman of the Working Party on the
     Future Governance of the Society

There is much in Phil Boyle’s letter to the November The Aerospace Professional that I would challenge but, in present circumstances, I will confine myself to drawing attention to his misrepresentation of the actions of the 12 Past Presidents who triggered the requisition of a General Meeting. He has a paragraph about two thirds of the way through his letter in which he asserts that I, as their spokesman, presented the Council with “non-negotiable demands and an ultimatum that, if their demands weren’t met instantly, then a resolution for a General Meeting would be submitted!” He adds, “Personally I find such behaviour totally unacceptable”.

Let me set out the facts. In mid July it became known that the Library and Careers Centre were to be moved to Farnborough in August, without any prior consultation of the members or discussion in Council. A number of Past Presidents wrote to the President asking for the moves to be put on hold to allow time for wider consultation. The requests were refused. It was made clear to the President that the consequence of presenting the members with a fait accompli on such an important issue would almost certainly be a call for a General Meeting of the Society. There were further requests to put the moves on hold, to no avail, and it was decided to seek support for a General Meeting, for which 50 signatures by Fellows, Companions or Members are required.

 Let us be clear. The requisition was the direct consequence of the refusal to delay the moves. Requisition forms were sent out to voters between 1 and 5 August and in less than a week more than 100 signatures had been received. A requisition with more than 50 signatures could have been delivered to the Chief Executive by 7 August but, to comply with the By-Laws, that would have required notice of the meeting to be sent by post to all voters. In order to save the Society this cost, and in consultation with the President, we delayed delivery of the requisition until 3 September so that the General Meeting could to be announced in the October issue of The Aerospace Professional. By that date we had 203 signatures (from a total mailing of about 260 requests for support).

  In the week after the requisition had been submitted, a small delegation attended the Council meeting on 7 September to see if there was any possibility of resolving the problem without the General Meeting. At the Council meeting I made it clear that the only possibility of avoiding the General Meeting lay in the Council deciding to accept the two resolutions on the requisition. Being an expression of the wishes of 203 members of the Society, these were non-negotiable. We had no power to withdraw the requisition if the resolutions were not essentially met. Our only room for manoeuvre was in the interpretation of the demand for the restoration of the “status quo ante”.
The resolutions passed by the Council at the meeting did not provide that room for manoeuvre. We did not reject the Council’s position at the meeting, however, but undertook to consult our fellow Past Presidents – a regrettable misjudgement since it gave the Council the opportunity not to set a date for the General Meeting and thereby delay it for a month. Having seen the texts, all 12 Past Presidents were agreed that the Council decisions did not provide a basis on which we could justify, to the 203 members who had signed it, the withdrawal of the requisition.

The situation was made perfectly clear at the Council meeting. All there understood that we did not have the power to withdraw the requisition if its resolutions were not adopted by Council. I, and my 11 fellow Past Presidents, are surprised and dismayed that the current chairman of the Council Working Group on the Future Governance of the Society should choose so seriously to misrepresent our position at the Council meeting on 7 September and then categorise his inaccurate description as “totally unacceptable behaviour.”

Dr John Green, FREng, FRAeS

2.   General Meeting 30 November 2009 10.30 am – Letter from Harold Caplan repeating the contents
       of communications to the Chief Executive on 1 October and to the President on 19 October seeking
       information pertinent to the issues before the General Meeting 

It is my hope that (if there is no postal strike) this letter may appear just in time to be useful to those Voters in the UK who intend to attend the forthcoming General Meeting. 

As indicated in my e-mail to the President (19 October) my purpose in submitting the REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (below) is to save precious time at the GM. Apparently my e-mail of 1 October to the Chief Executive - listing some relevant questions - was not made available to Council which met the next day. 

Because there is nothing in the November issue which throws light on my questions, I repeat them below. The only significant new impression I derive from that issue is that the President and Council have retrospectively approved the abrupt removal of the Library and Careers Services from 4HP and the installation of staff from the adjacent private gambling club in the Society’s headquarters. 

In the context of governance of the Society, the questions posed in my message of 1 October were: 

(a)       When was the decision taken to move Library and Careers to Farnborough? 

(b)       Who took the decision and under what authority? 

(c)       Why were the three steps [i.e. Council Resolutions 7 September] not taken before the decision? 

(d)       What was the urgency? 

(e)       What are the costs and benefits of this move? 

(f)         In advance, who approved the statement of costs, benefits and alternatives? 

(g)       Can Council’s plans be put on hold sufficiently to enable all relevant issues to be considered at the GM?
           [The President had referred, in the October issue, to a ‘real possibility that by the time the [GM]
         concludes, things will have moved on’]. 

I also expressed the view that licenses issued to Les Ambassadeurs for the use of space at the Society’s headquarters were repugnant to that part of the Royal Charter which specifies that “...no part of the property or funds of the Society shall be applied for other than charitable objects”. 

I therefore suggest that the onus is on the Council to disclose what advice they have received on this issue, together with their subsequent conclusions and reasoning. 

I emphasise that, although I speak only for myself, in the list below I seek nothing which cannot be made available to any Voter.

Harold Caplan, FRAeS

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Information which Harold Caplan believes is essential for all Voters in advance of the General Meeting 30
November 2009

[submitted to the President October 2009] 

A: GENERAL 

1          Any guidance given to Council members concerning the exercise of their responsibilities as Trustees. 

2          Terms of Reference (or job descriptions) in force as at January 2009 [or subsequently], as determined by Council and/or Trustees [if the only relevant Terms of Reference were issued subsequent to January, dates would be appreciated] for the following:

                        (a)       the Advisory Committee

                        (b)       Governance Working Group

                        (c)       The Finance Group

                        (d)       the Library Working Group

                        (e)       the Launchpad for Learning Committee in relation to the Society’s Career services

                        (f)        the Strategic Review Board [The Aerospace Professional August 2009 p 5] in so far as
                                   it includes NAL, the library at 4HP, and the Career services

                        (g)       the Chief Executive

                        (h)       the Editor of Aerospace International

                        (i)         the Librarian

                        (j)         the Honorary Solicitor 

3          Budgets & Financial Planning

                        (a)       elements in the budgets for 2009 and 2010 relating to the costs of NAL, and the Library
                                   and Careers services at 4HP

                        (b)       in 2009, any studies of the cost, benefits and alternatives available for supporting NAL,
                                   Library and Careers services 

B: SPECIFIC

4          Minutes 

Extracts from the 2009 Minutes of the following relating to the NAL, Library and Careers services:

                        (a)       Council and/or Trustees

                        (b)       Advisory Committee

                        (c)       Governance Working Group

                        (d)       The Finance Group

                        (e)       Library Working group

                        (f)        Launchpad for Learning

                        (g)       Strategic Review Board

5          Interests of the Chief Executive

Dates and details of any formal disclosures made to the Council and/or Trustees by the Chief Executive in relation to interests (if any) in organisations such as the Air League, the Conservative Party, the Hampshire County Council,
Les Ambassadeurs or the like - to the extent which may be required by paragraph 4(a) of THE CODE OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT OF MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY. 

6          Honorary Solicitor 

Any advice or opinions given in his capacity as Honorary Solicitor relating to:

                        (a)       NAL, the Library and Careers office

                        (b)       use of 4HP by Les Ambassadeurs

                        (c)       publication of my letter to AP 5 October 

7          Les Ambassadeurs 

Dates and details of any advice received by the Society concerning the use of 4HP by Les Ambassadeurs, obtained from the Society’s Auditors; the Local Planning Authority, the Privy Council or the Charities Commission. 

8          Interim Conclusions Any interim or final conclusions of the Council and/or Trustees; the Advisory Committee; Library Working Group; Launchpad for Learning or Strategic Review Board concerning the two Resolutions for the GM - if available in advance of that meeting. 

9          My Correspondence Any answers to the points raised in my two e-mails - 1 October to the Chief Executive, and 5 October to the Editor of The Aerospace Professional (published November).

 3.  The Library location – letter from Fellow in New Zealand supporting the request to restore the
       Library to 4 Hamilton Place 

As a Fellow of some 91 years and the author of a number of books and who, on at least one occasion, has given a paper at a Society gathering at the central London location, I have on occasions had a friend who is an Air New Zealand Captain call and make contacts etc. relative to aspects of research I take from time to time.  

The move to Farnborough is an adverse move when one considers the real reason for the Library's existence is to hold a collection of historical aviation publications and so enable research throughout the years ahead. 

I have been a Fellow for some 30 years or more and have three aviation historical books published.  

I am fully in support of any moves on the part of other senior Fellows etc. who are taking steps to protest at the relocation process and would vote in support of any steps they propose. 

Maurice E. McGreal, FRAeS