ALL MEMBERS ! Please fill out those proxy forms..!!

[Paul Catanach]

.... reading threats of votes of no confidence...

Where?

Paul.
Rather curious why you omitted the rest of that sentence, "or otherwise" ?
Ref: your post, top of page 15.
The words "vote of confidence" would imply that some might vote otherwise.
It looks like you are having a pop at me.
Please stop selective nit picking, I don't like it, I don't like it one bit!!
If you have something to say, go to PM and get it said!

Back on track.
"Give her the trophy back and move on"
I think that would be the worst thing we could do, like giving in to a spoilt child to stop them screaming.

Trevor, calm down. I’m not having a ‘pop’ at anyone. If I had something to say to you I would have said it. God knows there’s been enough deception over the last two years, I’m not adding to it. Mine was a genuine question as I was wondering whether I had missed someone calling for a vote of no confidence or whether, like a previous poster, you had misinterpreted my suggestion of a vote of confidence. If you also read my reply to Mike Hallam further down page 15 you’ll see I make it very clear where I stand when I wrote “(I wasn't suggest a vote of NO confidence, quite the opposite).”.

I’m not sure how I could have made it any clearer*.

For the avoidance of doubt my views are as follows:

The awards committee were as misled as everyone else. They acted in good faith and have absolutely nothing to apologise for.

A vote of NO confidence is a bad idea however transparency is needed. There are aspects of this whole affair that have me and others wondering how the member in question apparently came to know the content of confidential information (see Chris Martyr’s post regarding the 2016 motion). He and Bill McCarthy raised that question here but I do not see an answer yet.

I do not believe the award should be reinstated. It is blatantly obvious that the Africa flight was not as publicised and I do not believe the excuses for that. I have watched her stories change and read/heard the feeblest of explanations with regard to a number of things. Her descriptions of wanton rule breaking do not impress me, nor do stories of threatening minor officials with “an international incident” for chastising her. We all make mistakes in aviation but this intentional behaviour does not deserve a reward.

I had intended to stay off this thread until the AGM unless something new cropped up but as I’m here anyway I’m going to say this:

When Miss Curtis-Taylor joined this thread she apologised for us having to be here again and wrote of “our” LAA. The easy way to deal with the first part is to acknowledge that the Africa trip was not as described, in any of its iterations, show some moral courage and decline the award, go away and do some real outreach or community work and perhaps some genuinely worthy flights. Do that and hell, I’ll vote for you.

For the second part it strikes me that as a member of “our” Association Miss Curtis-Taylor has not once acknowledged the membership. Questions have been put directly to her here, and studiously ignored. Is any of this the behaviour of someone with the interests of “our” Association to heart?



* Trevor. ‘E’ communication is the worst kind, it’s so easy to misinterpret. If you wish to talk further I have PM’d you my phone number. Give me a call, we can have a chat. So much more civilised than this trolling or whatever it is we’re all allegedly doing.

[tnowak]

Food for thought:
If you read what Harry Hopkins wrote (on here) he says: (extract of post):

"Ms Curtis-Taylor did not, repeat not, solicit this award and neither did any one solicit it on her behalf: it was entirely our idea.

No other nomination for the award had been received or mooted; hence no other contender was denied the trophy by our selection.

Conscious that GPS is now ubiquitous and that such long distance flights commonly are supported by a team, we never the less judged it to be a meritorious flight: it was a long flight over some inhospitable terrain in a slow aircraft, the controls of which are quite heavy and was therefore a feat of endurance, airmanship, tenacity and not a little courage."

The citation for the award read:
"Award of the Bill Woodhams Trophy for a feat of navigation – Tracey Curtis-Taylor for her flight from Cape Town to Cairo in a Boeing Stearman — a feat of navigation, aviation, tenacity and endurance"

No actual mention of the word "solo" was used in the citation....

Tony

[Bill McCarthy]

One more question - since TCT has been seen in “photoshoots”, is cited in the press as a “friend” of HRH Prince Michael of Kent and that he is the Patron of our Association, has he at any time had influence or requested possible reinstatement ?

[Chris Martyr]

the Patron of our Association, has he at any time had influence or requested possible reinstatement ?

Just vote ,,,,,,,,,,,,nothing else matters .

[John Dean]

What is more to the point though is this ; Did the person mentioned above have an 'input' in the award going to her in the first place ?

Chris, if there was an award for inventing conspiracy theories you would win by a mile.

I am appalled at the slur on the good name of Harry Hopkins and his team in suggesting that they may have been influenced by Prince Michael. Harry is a long standing and hard working member of the Association and is honest and trustworthy and would have nothing to do with what you are suggesting.
He has already said "Ms Curtis-Taylor did not, repeat not, solicit this award and neither did any one solicit it on her behalf: it was entirely our idea".


I think you owe him and his team a public apology.

[jollyrog]

This is what happens when you dabble in diversity politics. It bites back.

Only do it if you have to. Photographs of smiling middle aged white men handing out trinkets to [insert minority person here] on your corporate website or magazine may come at a cost.

Apply the same standards to everybody and you are less likely to go wrong.

Question - would "experienced male pilot with borrowed, well maintained, GPS equipped, foreign registered, non-LAA aircraft, highly funded by sponsors and assisted by support team..." have attracted the attention of the awards team?

Unlikely, because the sponsors, who are also dabbling in diversity politics probably wouldn't have touched it and it would never have got airborne.

[Chris Martyr]

it’s probably just easier to give her the blasted trophy back

Jonathan , you have just inadvertently revealed the total ludicrousness of everything that is going on here .

The trophy is not hers to 'have back' ! It came her way in 2014 ,,,undeservedly in many peoples eyes . But even so ,,,it was only in her custodianship for that year .

After a bit debating on here , it was voted to rescind it in 2016 . That's it . Nothing more ! Maybe in hindsight , we should have voted for a 'Cessation of Recognition' of that award . But what the heck, it's all water under the bridge now.

Had it been carried through as a 'cessation of recognition' , then would all of this idiotic business we are now being subjected to had any kind of significance whatsoever ? Definitely not - and neither does it now ! What are her legal eagles going to force the LAA to do then ? Impregnate all of our minds with the thoughts that we had in our heads prior to October 22nd 2016 ?.....

You don't need to spend much time on here to see what the general consensus is . However powerful her legal representatives are , they are not ever going to change that .

And to go after our Chairman like she has is reprehensible beyond words !

But the one thing that Jonathan did say that I have to agree with , was in his last paragraph .

[DaveWhite]

I think you owe him and his team a public apology.

Agree.

This is a big enough mess already without the Membership continuing to fight amongst ourselves for no reason other than unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

[Chris Martyr]

I am appalled at the slur on the good name of Harry Hopkins and his team .

John : I would like to make it absolutely clear that the good names and reputations of Harry and the awards chaps remain as blemish-free now as they always have been and have never been called into question . !

SO JUST VOTE !! NOTHING ELSE MATTERS !

[T Wilcock]

I am appalled at the slur on the good name of Harry Hopkins and his team .

John : I would like to make it absolutely clear that the good names and reputations of Harry and the awards chaps remain as blemish-free now as they always have been and have never been called into question .

I am sure that all other contributors to this will echo what I have said and if Harry , Brian & fellows took this as anything aimed at them , then I apologise unreservedly . It was not !

Chris - your apology shouldn't be "if they took it as aimed at them"; if it wasn't aimed at them, who was it aimed at? I think you got too excited at the mention of our patron. I suggest you just apologise for your error, without adding criteria. You went too far.

[Planemike]

As I said, just let her take it and let’s move on. If we don’t, she has the ability and determination to bring the LAA down unless there is a more robust and intolerant approach to being bullied from the Board.

Jonathon.............

As I explained in my earlier post, that would be entirely wrong. Just giving in to bullying tactics.
There is a principle at stake here.

[Chris Martyr]

Let's just all vote and get it all over with . I'm sick up to the back teeth with it .

[Chris Martyr]

Chris, if there was an award for inventing conspiracy theories you would win by a mile. .

I can reassure you that I would only come second .

[Nigel Hitchman]

Wow, what a lot of conspiracy theories and suppositions!
I am glad to see that Harry Hopkins has set the record straight regarding the 2014 award, as he also did at the 2016 AGM. The award was made fairly and met the criteria, although with hindsight might have been awarded to the whole team. None of the arguments regarding gps, or solo have any bearing on the award. A number of the award winners in the past weren’t solo and probably most since gps has been available have used gps. There may well have been more deserving flights that could have been given the award, but the committee weren’t aware of them. It should also be remembered that although some of the award winners have done fantastic flights, some of the others have been much more mundane, on years when the committee didn’t know of any better flights. A late good friend once won the award for going to a few European fly-ins, sometimes solo, sometimes with another pilot. Another for doing a few “long” trips in his single seater, not sure if he even went out of the U.K. so compared to them this was a worthy winner, even with a team and gps!
Anyway, the awards are just a bit of fun really, you can’t take them too seriously. It’s certainly not a “prestigious Industry award” as is made out in some quarters.

I voted against the motion in 2016, as did many of the people I know who were at the AGM, regular LAA members who often went to the AGM, some others I know voted the other way. There was no TCT “entourage” at the AGM as has been reported, I think she was with two or three other people. There certainly was shock when the number of proxy votes supporting the motion were counted. But we didn’t know about the PPrune campaign. My vote as with many I know was because the awards committee decision should be final. We really were quite shocked by the result, having expected the motion to easily be defeated, it was a very odd atmosphere for the rest of the AGM.
But I thought, ok, the motion is passed, now those supporting it will be happy, it will be written in the minutes and everyone will forget about it, after all who can remember any of the previous award winners?
But no, the trolls from PPrune with their press contacts made sure it was in all the national newspapers!! When was the last time anything from the LAA AGM was in the press?

Reading various forums it was clear this was really a personal spat, with a few hangars on who like to stir. But then it might have all gone away, but we open our magazines to find these new motions and now this all here!
I kind of think TCT is her own worst enemy, I’m sure this will only backfire on her, because again most of the active people on the subject are against and by insulting us has only made more people against her. Even if she was to win, those negative headlines would still be out there and any positive she might gain on the subject would only also remind everyone of the previous negatives. The questions will still be there. It would have been far better just to take it on the chin and forget about it. Keep up the good work promoting aviation particularly to women and let the film win the argument for you.

I don’t like the fact that TCT has been threatening the LAA with lawyers letters and called into question the actions of the board, the way I see it the board has done nothing wrong. You could see from the reactions from the chairman at the 2016 AGM that he didn’t like the motion being raised and he didn’t like the result, but he acted totally fairly and completely within the rules.
I shall certainly be voting against the first motion, I wonder why this is in Stewart Jackson’s name?

As for the second, well I believe the original award was correct and the motion to remove it was based on a lot of misinformation (like the winner had to be solo etc) and was only passed due to the nasty Internet campaign again based on misinformation about the award. But I also don’t like being threatened by lawyers and insulted....

[stenny]

It seems to me that T C-T, with Bird in a Biplane is essentially in the business of producing "reality" type TV and film shows - hence the apparent need to "big up" and over dramatise her exploits to make them more dramatic to the non aviation public. Our TV is full of such like programmes these days where the subterfuge is not supposed to be noticed by anyone.

The real question is - does the LAA wish to be associated with this world?

Alistair Stenhouse 024467