Changes at the top.

AWAL has grown during 2009, in more ways than one. More members with more aircraft, more responsibilities under the self administration of Limited Category, and a much, much greater workload. Until recently this workload was borne by the committee of voluntary Directors and a couple of paid consultants. With this team, we achieved the substantial goal of self admin, thus preserving the right to fly aircraft that would otherwise be grounded. We have many to thank for their efforts along the way. Bruce Simpson, Bill Hamilton, Judy Pay, Stephen Dines, Trevor Merton, and more recently Stephen Crocker, to name just a few. Sadly several of these people who have put in so much work over many years have dropped out along the way, with precious little thanks for their efforts
Achieving self admin is one thing. Administering Limited Category is another. CASA has rightly demanded that we employ key people to do the job, as it is way beyond what can be expected of volunteers. Thus earlier this year we appointed Charlie Camilleri as our Director of Self Administration. Charlie is an engineer and pilot, and he now works for us 2 1/2 days per week. He is doing a great job on the technical side of operations.
As of October 1st we have appointed Steve Crocker as our CEO. Steve has of course been our President for the last 2 years. As a paid employee of AWAL, (also 2 ½ days per week), he could not continue as President, so by the time you read this we will have a new President. Our safety seminar and AGM will have been conducted at the time of printing of this magazine.
Financially AWAL is managing, and is enjoying the respect of many who openly forecast that we would never achieve the goal of self admin. Probably the only cloud over our operations is that there are a persistent few who loudly criticize the fact that we charge fees for our services, and some even refuse to pay our registration fees for their aircraft. Many, many words have been written over the last 6 years on why AWAL had to take on self admin. We’ve spoken at seminars, airshows, and fly-ins, but some just won’t get the message. They are of course happy for AWAL’s Directors to put in huge amounts of time for nothing, but refuse to contribute themselves.
They’re in for a shock. The CASA instrument that allowed Limited Category aircraft to fly without self admin in place has expired. If you own or operate such an aircraft that is not registered with AWAL, look out!

Jeff Muller
AWAL sec/treasurer