Updates on WIA - July 2017

[VK4ADC]

From WIA News fro 22nd July 2017:

 Greetings from WIA VICE PRESIDENT David Ford, VK4MZ

 As we near the end of the first 60 days since the Annual General Meeting, and our first 60 days as a new board, we’ve experienced a lot.
 
 Today I would like to make a few announcements, and talk about what I call, the WIA’s 4 steps to success.

 Those steps are:

 Step 1 Understand & Maintain
 Step 2 Build capability and get ready for change
 Step 3 Build a roadmap for success
 Step 4 Achieve

 Let’s talk about those steps in more detail

 Step 1 - Understand & maintain:

 In the 60 days since the AGM, I’ve by far spent more time with clubs where I am not a member than with my home club in Redcliffe in QLD. Over that time, I’ve had the absolute fortune of being able to present awards to Amateurs with decades of experience supporting the hobby (much more than I), I’ve heard and discussed challenges, I’ve spent many hours and days hearing about the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for individuals, clubs and the industry. I’ve spoken to commercial entities that support hamfests and the hobby, I’ve heard concerns, I’ve heard opportunities for improvement and I’ve heard what the WIA should keep on doing. 

 Within those 60 days the board has been holding its responsibility to ensure that the business as usual activities of the WIA do not falter, and that the wheels of the WIA keep on turning.

 Yes, there are opportunities for improvement and opportunities to take th organisation to the next level. We’re getting ready to address them.
 
 So the wheels are still turning, but what’s next? Business journals talk of the critical nature of organisational transition in the first 90 days. While the board has been listening, and guiding the WIA’s wheels to still turn, we’ve been setting up the building blocks for our next steps.

 Onto Step 2 – Build Capability and get ready for change:

 The idea of doing something for free and volunteering to many might sound strange. We orient ourselves on success and profit, people possessing honed professional skills, and being able to “sell” these skills. However, the value of volunteering strongly depends on how you look at it. For instance, volunteering is one of the greatest examples of how a job can pay off not with just money.

 If you can work with a team of volunteers and help them discover a love for what they do, without money, you know you’re doing well.

 I’ve been lucky enough to coach a few people through their careers and volunteering is the advice that I give to many. Volunteering is how my career started, and it has been a catalyst in driving my career shifts.
 
 Although it may sound paradoxical, volunteering is one of the easiest ways to build a career. After graduating, many get stuck trying to find work but needing work experience. Statistics show 73% of employers would prefer to hire a person with volunteering experience in their chosen field. 94% of employers share the belief that volunteering helps potential employees obtain new skills and diversifies their abilities. In addition, 94% of people who were hired after a volunteering experience say volunteering aided them in getting their job, or benefited them in other ways, such as a quicker promotion, salary increases, or obtaining new skills. Having relevant work experience obtained during volunteering and specifying it in your C.V. can be a kick-starter for your career, because nowadays more and more employers tend to count volunteering almost as valuable as actual work experience.

 So, if you still think you do not have time to volunteer because you need to look for a job, or because volunteering could be a nuisance to your ability to grow your career. You might want to reconsider.

 If you want to demonstrate responsibility, compassion, and how one person can make a difference by personally participating or working as a team and solving problems, you should volunteer. Of course, through volunteering, you can find a lot of useful contacts, resources, and activities for your whole family.

 Interestingly volunteering is good for you, a recent study of more than 600 volunteers found that in most age groups 63% of people said that volunteering reduced their stress levels. And, about 48% of those who volunteered during the last two years felt relief in terms of finding a purpose and that volunteering assisted their overall mental health. 

 Volunteering is also a great opportunity to accelerate your career, or become recognised for your achievements and knowledge. It is an opportunity to give back and see the good that you can do for the community. It is an opportunity for many to leave a legacy.

 The WIA is mostly a volunteer organisation.

 Many of the activities and services we want to provide rely on committees and volunteers. The capability of the WIA to move forward rests in its ability to attract, reward and recognise volunteers. Without volunteers, we can’t move forward.

 The WIA needs you!

 Today, it is my profound pleasure to announce that in partnership with volunteer.com.au  we launch an open, inclusive and transparent volunteer recruitment process. By the time you hear or read this news, five new positions for the Strategic Advisory committee have been advertised publicly.  The advertisements will be in place until the Strategic Advisory committee has a full complement of seven members. And that is five new positions joining Brian Clark and myself on the committee. 

 In future, should there be vacancies for the strategic advisory committee then positions will be readvertised in an open, inviting and inclusive manner.

 But that’s not all, in addition to the strategic advisory committee a Privacy & Complaints officer position is also available. If you would like to build your experience, or you have significant experience in leading compliance agendas and would like to be recognised for your excellence, then register your interest today.

 You will be able to find WIA volunteering opportunities via:

 - The WIA’s website

 - The WIA’s BRAND NEW Facebook page – I “like it” and you should too

 - and both the WIA website and the Facebook page will direct you to the WIA’s new presence on volunteer.com.au where you can register your interest in a volunteer position.

 Keep an eye on the WIA website, its Facebook page and volunteer.com.au as more opportunities will be advertised in the coming weeks.

 So, as we build the capability of the organisation and, in turn have teams of specialised volunteers standing by, then what?

 Well, that takes us onto Step 3 of transition - building a Roadmap for success and it’s happening soon. Next week the board will begin internally trialling a survey which will help guide the WIA’s product mix.  This is the mix of products and services that the WIA will offer going into the future.

 On the 6th of August, the survey will be made available publicly.
 
 With the formation of the strategic advisory committee, the capability build up from Step 2 and the results of the product mix survey along with other ongoing consultation work, we build our roadmap and form our strategic direction.
 
 And In step 4, Achieve, we bring it all together

 With our new-found capability, our strategic direction, our opportunities in front of us, our threats mitigated and a strong and capable organisation at the ready. We achieve.

 So that’s a transition process summarised in four steps.

 What comes next is up to you to shape.

 Enjoy the journey and register your interest in volunteering whenever you can.

 This has been David Ford, VK4MZ, the institutes Vice President.

 ( To register your interest in assisting the WIA as its Privacy
   (& Complaints) Officer please visit
   https://www.volunteer.com.au/opportunity/details/104239 )


   To register your interest in joining the WIA Strategy Committee
   please visit
   https://www.volunteer.com.au/volunteerin...ty/104280/

[VK4ADC]

From WIA News for 30 July 2017:

Hello listeners, this is Greg VK2GPK, one of the relatively “new” directors of  the WIA. 

 In our first 60 days as a majority new board, we have been coming up to speed on the various facets of the WIA’s operation, improving board decision transparency, opening up the committee volunteer process and implementing a new board governance structure. Some of these changes are already visible, such as publishing board minutes for the monthly board meetings, now advertising volunteer vacancies on Seek Volunteer website, or the policy of no directors leading or chairing operational committees. However, other changes will become more apparent over time as we focus on the higher priority issues. As the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Your constructive input is always  welcome. 

 I would also remind WIA members that we ARE a volunteer organisation, a true DIY (Do it yourself) operation and we always need your help and time to keep  this respected 100 year plus organisation viable in its role of focal advocate protecting the rights and RF spectrum of the Radio Amateur cohort. So look for the volunteer roles as they come up. With apologies to the late JFK, Don’t ask what the WIA can do for you, ask what you can do for the WIA! 

 We definitely have some real challenges to deal with over the coming months, which we are approaching with appropriate caution to ensure we have done the research, informed members and considered the impacts, the feedback and the implications of the various improvement options. I will touch on one of the major challenges a little later.

 On board governance, we have adopted corporate best-practice approach based on the ASX governance guidelines and have constituted two board sub-committees. These committees are Audit & Risk sub-committee and the Strategy sub-committee.

 So I wanted to explain how these Sub-committees differ from the operational committees as they operate as an extension of the board,have the delegated authority of the board, and exist solely to assist the board manage the organisation.  These governance sub-committees are the only committees to be led by board members and include a minimum of two board members (for continuity) and volunteers with relevant expertise. The board does not abdicate any board responsibility to the sub-committees, they are simply to assist the board to meet its fiduciary obligations and provide extra input by sharing some of the board work-load.  We have yet to call for volunteers for these particular sub-committees, following finalisation of the terms-of-reference for each committee.

 I think there has been some confusion seen in some social media comments about the sub-committees, especially in that they are chaired by a board member which seemed to conflict with the board platform of not having operational committees chaired by board members. Hopefully I have explained how board sub committees are quite distinct from the operational committees and are only concerned with the effective running of the WIA board. One other thing I should mention is that the Terms of Reference will state that any volunteers on the board sub-committees must be truly independent and cannot have other volunteer roles within the WIA to avoid any perception, real or perceived, of conflict of interest. 

 I am now going to talk about the WIA financial situation. Bear with me, as this is very important. The WIA has limited financial resources, about 80 - 85% of its revenue comes from the 4200 or so members through membership fees. The rest comes from fees for exams and licence management, sales of WIA books (such as the Callbook), some minor advertising sales from AR magazine and some admin cost recovery from ACMA.  

 This revenue amounts to just on $500,000 dollars a year – which to an individual member sounds a lot, but there are large expenses in running the WIA. These were documented in the last WIA financial report (FY2016-2017).

 The largest expense is the 11 editions a year of the AR magazine, closely followed by the two full time office staff.  Just these two expenses alone account for two-thirds of the expenses of the WIA last year.  Last year AR magazine cost over $180,000 and the office around $120,000. So, $300,000 dollar and we haven’t included the costs of keeping the office open – electricity, rates, many insurance policies now required. Then there are the part-time book keeper costs (usually one day a week), accountant fees and auditor fees. Plus a multitude of smaller amounts. 

 Why am I mentioning this – because the WIA is running at loss, and has been for the previous two years. Its expenses exceed its revenue by about $50,000 a year. Over the last two years the WIA has used $90,000 dollars of its prior cash reserves to maintain its operation as a going concern – this obviously cannot continue as we are on about a five-year runway toward insolvency if this is not corrected – and it will be! Unless we can increase membership by around 10-15%, around 500 new members there is no alternative to cutting expenses, and almost certainly, some services.

 Reviewing the audited financial results from last year the new board has found no evidence of systemic expense abuse or fraud. The social media claims of WIA funded director overseas trips are just that, baseless claims. In fact, total director expenses for last year were around $3000 dollars of legitimate WIA specific expenses or well less than 1% of revenue. These expenses include WIA required director training course fees at around $600 per director. As volunteer directors, we cover our own travel and out-of-pocket expenses. 

 The root-cause of the losses is that expenses have risen significantly faster than revenue over the 5 or 6 years. There are only two fixes, but they are not mutually exclusive - increase revenue or cut expenses. 

 Looking at office expenses first, following a recent on-site review by three directors a few weeks ago, the is no practical scope to to reduce the office staff below 2 FTE (Full time equivalent). In fact, these staff are over-committed and only just coping with the administration work load. In the past the office operated with a minimum of three full-time staff –  that would be a more sustainable staff complement to cope with the workload peaks, leave, illness etc. To assist the current staff we have dropped the phone contact hours from 6 to 5 hours a day, a small change admittedly, to allow them more time to do the admin tasks. It would help, as much as is possible, if members wishing to contact the WIA use email as it is more efficient in the use of their time, especially if they have to refer a query to a volunteer member for resolution.

 Looking at the AR magazine, potentially the “elephant in the room”, its printing and production costs have risen from $120K a few years ago to $180K last year.  The option of ceasing production of the hard-copy is not seen as a first-course of action, as we gain a lot of exposure to future amateurs form the hard-copy in newsagents and the majority of members we have asked prefer the hard-copy version – although there is a higher rate of preference for the digital version with younger members. But in the absence of new revenue,we have to get the costs back to the prior levels.  The publication team have been asked to identify cost savings, and they have, but not to the level that would be achieved by say reducing the 11 editions a year to 6. 

 We have made no decision as yet on reducing the number of editions, but we wanted the membership to understand and share our struggle with keeping the WIA viable. And we need more volunteers – so keep an eye for new roles!

 Thanks for listening, Greg VK2GPK.

[VK3ALB]

I encourage those who have dropped their WIA membership to sign up again.

Why?

You see a bloke struggling in the river going down for the count. You figure that if he makes it to shore you'll give him a hand. If he doesn't make it then it was never meant to be.

That is the very thing that many hams have done by taking their membership from the WIA over the last few years. Whatever happened in the past is now gone and over.

Now we see a new board trying to do the best they can with what they have but what they really need is support from those of us who are already here. Based on what I have seen over the last months from the new board I think they deserve our help. Don't punish them because of something that happened to you or others in the past.

I've heard a number of people say that they'll come back to the WIA if they see a positive change from the new board. I sure hope the board doesn't drown while 2/3 of the ham population sit on the river bank telling them how to save themselves.

Show those guys that have committed themselves to manage YOUR HOBBY that you at least acknowledge their effort. Seems to me $95 is not such a big impost.

[VK2ZRH]

Thanks Lou. An excellent, and telling, metaphor. I'll second that.