Mission Statement?

Lspav8r

Senior Member only in age
Joined
Feb 28, 2009
Messages
502
Location
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
Aircraft
Nothing at this time, but I think the daughter and I are gonna get us a 2 place helicopter.
Total Flight Time
600+
I joined the PRA at this years convention and I did not recieve anyting with regard to the mission statement or anything telling of the operations/budget or anything like that. I also found out that the PRA as a whole doesnt own the airport but rather a differant entity. How can this be.

If we (the members) dont own the airport, then who does. I mean name names if you dont mind. I want to know everything about this organization I belong to.

Is my $50.00 just for a card and a magazine, or do I have a vested interest in the operations or what.

Not trying to open a can of worms here but I would like to know all the facts to better understand what I've gotten myself in to by becoming a member.

Jim Skelly
 
Jim,

The budget is published every year in the magazine.

The PRA does own the airport. The PRA legal counsel advised a separate board should run the airport. The officers of the PRA are automatically the officers of the airport board.

I was elected vice president during the last PRA board meeting and so I got to sit in on my first airport board meeting just a few weeks ago.

The topics you are bringing up have been discussed many times over on this forum. You can find a great deal of posts on the topic with the forum search function.

Here is a short version.

No one in the PRA or the board cared about the details of the airport purchase for a long time after it was purchased.

When the PRA was flush with money, it paid for advertising for a small cable TV show on homebuilt rotorcraft. The ads cost far, far more then the few memberships the PRA was getting from the advertising.

When cash got short the PRA president at the time made a motion to stop buying the advertisement time on the TV show.

The producer of the TV show was a board member at the time. He took it personally, and with some of his friends started basically an underhanded smear, fear and doubt campaign against that president and the project he spearheaded, the Mentone airport. Thanks to some avid conspiracy theorists BS took on a life of it's own and still get passed around.

This was about the time I joined the PRA. To get to the bottom of the BS I got a commitment from 2 others to join me in hiring an independent auditor to advise us on how the airport was owned by the PRA. The auditor confirmed what the PRA board had been saying, that the PRA had followed sound advise and nothing was shady at all.

The 2 others that agreed to split the costs of the auditor backed out when they did not get the answer they wanted and stuck me with the bill. They were on a witch hunt and were upset when the offical answer came back that there was no witch.

It turns out that the purchase of the airport has been a god send.

It is a complete no-brain-er. For no more then rent on an office we got an airport. The airport will soon be a great source of revenue that will help fund many of the projects and member benefits that we have been wanting for years.

Even if we did not hold a convention at the airport it is still a fantastic asset and help to the PRA. It provides a stable, experimental rotorcraft friendly place for the office, a related museum and the convention.

Like Oshkosh, only a percentage of PRA members will ever fly into the airport but it is still a benefit to the organization and therefore to the membership as a whole.

With the help of the airport, the PRA will hopefully be able to now be in a position to sponsor/support events in other locations around the country. A number of board members are looking into how this might be done right now.

I have been contacted by several other clubs that want to mirror some of our flight briefing and safety operations used at the convention. What we have, was to a degree modeled off of the EAA/Oshkosh idea, and we improved upon it in our own way. Now it looks like we may be the model for others, who we in turn will learn from also.

Thank you for joining the PRA! I hope you will read some of the threads being posted on this forum about some of the great new projects underway and be a part of making the PRA even more of an asset to the experimental rotorcraft community.

.
 
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Just a note Jim has already jumped in as a volunteer. He's Tim Chick's assistant PRA-TV Editor.
Thank you Jim!!!!

As for out mission statement, I asked Rusty about that a year ago. He said we need to write one and then have the POD implement it.
Best I can tell it's to foster, promote, and popularize education in rotorcraft among its members and the general public.
 
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Best I can tell it's to foster, promote, and popularize education in rotorcraft among its members and the general public.

John why not rephrase this to say "Best as I can dream...."

There is no logical reason for PRA to own an airport except to benefit a few. The systematic and orchestrated promotion of Gyros is not being done to any real extent by PRA. I wish it were otherwise and have voiced my concern, valid suggestions and have volunteered as best I can contribute.... including faithfully paying my dues.... but the truth is the truth.

Yes you and a few others are attempting to turn this Titanic undertaking.... the rest just call each other names and duck low when its time to really do something.
 
John why not rephrase this to say "Best as I can dream...."

There is no logical reason for PRA to own an airport except to benefit a few. The systematic and orchestrated promotion of Gyros is not being done to any real extent by PRA. I wish it were otherwise and have voiced my concern, valid suggestions and have volunteered as best I can contribute.... including faithfully paying my dues.... but the truth is the truth.

Yes you and a few others are attempting to turn this Titanic undertaking.... the rest just call each other names and duck low when its time to really do something.
I can't tell you the number of companies I have heard describe this same way.
I started out my business life and made a living turning sinking ships around, this time You Rob, and 29 others have got a fairly good chance.
It's got to get better cause it can't get worse, unless we do nothing.
 
John why not rephrase this to say "Best as I can dream...."

There is no logical reason for PRA to own an airport except to benefit a few. The systematic and orchestrated promotion of Gyros is not being done to any real extent by PRA. I wish it were otherwise and have voiced my concern, valid suggestions and have volunteered as best I can contribute.... including faithfully paying my dues.... but the truth is the truth.

Yes you and a few others are attempting to turn this Titanic undertaking.... the rest just call each other names and duck low when its time to really do something.

Are you a member of the EAA? Have you voiced your opinion to them that having an airport up in Oshkosh only benefits a small percentage of their members and it's too far for the rest to attend?

Do you want to do away with the flyins alltogether? It seems odd for someone who moved out of the country to complain about Mentone being too far away to attend a flyin.
 
Are you a member of the EAA? Have you voiced your opinion to them that having an airport up in Oshkosh only benefits a small percentage of their members and it's too far for the rest to attend?

Hello Tim,

Winnebago county owns Whitman field, AKA Oshkosh.

Thank you, Vance
 
Hello Tim,

Winnebago county owns Whitman field, AKA Oshkosh.

Thank you, Vance

The EAA owns much of the surrounding property, including buildings and their office as well as a number of hangars, a museum and other properties.

I would really suck for the EAA if the county elected some aviation haters! Thankfully, the county needs the $$ from the event enough to keep that in check for now!

.
 
Hello Tim,

Winnebago county owns Whitman field, AKA Oshkosh.

Thank you, Vance
Hmm, interesting trivia! I wonder if the dog wags the tail or is the tail wagging the dog as far as the Whitman Field operations are concerned. Fortunately the economic impact from the EAA convention is probably keeping the locals quiet if the tail is wagging the dog.

It seems that the PRA is one up on the EAA by owning its own airport. Cheering for us!

In any event, I'm not sure Tim was highlighting who the airport owner was but instead was pointing out that their largest annual event is always held in Oshkosh and not close to the vast majority of members.
 
As for out mission statement, I asked Rusty about that a year ago. He said we need to write one...

John, if PRA is a 501(c)(3) corp, it has to be in your legal documentation somewhere somewhere. The IRS requires it.

There's also this language, from pra.org, required to be in the bylaws of each new chapter:

3. ARTICLE III - Purpose
The principal purpose of the PRA Chapter is to serve as an instrument of unification of men and women with the common interest of advancing the
progress of rotorcraft for personal flying.
It will be a voluntary, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, whose members are dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, public education and safety of privately owned noncommercial rotorcraft.


It's a mess grammatically; rotorcraft can't be educated, publicly or otherwise, but it's a start!
 
1) There is no logical reason for PRA to own an airport except to benefit a few.

2) The systematic and orchestrated promotion of Gyros is not being done to any real extent by PRA.

3) I wish it were otherwise and have voiced my concern, valid suggestions and have volunteered as best I can contribute.... including faithfully paying my dues.... but the truth is the truth.

1) Please read Tim's comment above. We own a $200,000 asset that increases in value every day and earns us money.

2) That is what the PRA has been doing for 47+ years. Remember, we only have 2 paid employees. We rely on volunteers as does the EAA.

3) Please stop cursing the darkness and light a candle already (imagine a yiddish accent)
 
I would like to say for those who have never made the trip to Mentone.

It is one great setup. Sure it could use some help in a few areas, but overall I was very amazed.

If I could find a piece of property like it for 200k, I would be trying to buy it myself. For those who will never go, don't think of it as the PRA owning an airport. It is that the PRA owns the property instead of renting. It happens to have a runway.

It is old news now. It is paid for and is now a great benefit for the headquarters.
For the price paid, it is a great deal.

The fact that it might now generate income is a great bonus.
 
How did a request/statement that I didnt get any of those things when I signed up turn in to this mess about who owns the airport? When you get a new job you are given an employees handbook with all the rules and regulations of the campany included so you dont have to go through the learning curve making mistakes and asking repeated questions. Its not rocket science people. If the forum is not an extension of the PRA then any referance to the PRA should be removed from the forum and all PRA related information should be dealt with through the PRA, plain and simple solution dont ya think?

I see nothing in the forum about Viet Nam Pilots Association or Association of Commercial Helicopter Pilots. So why have something regarding the Popular Rotorcraft Association?

Sounds obsurd doesnt it? But it sure would stop the crap on this forum from flying. (No pun intended) Perhaps the PRA website would be the right place for a forum on this specific subject/sport.

Jim Skelly
 
When you get a new job you are given an employees handbook with all the rules and regulations of the campany included so you dont have to go through the learning curve making mistakes and asking repeated questions. Its not rocket science people.

If the forum is not an extension of the PRA then any referance to the PRA should be removed from the forum and all PRA related information should be dealt with through the PRA, plain and simple solution dont ya think?

I see nothing in the forum about Viet Nam Pilots Association or Association of Commercial Helicopter Pilots. So why have something regarding the Popular Rotorcraft Association?

Jim,

We are working (actually John Roundtree is working his butt off) on the new PRA web site.

The Rotary Forum is an open board. You can discuss anything you please (except US government politics).

The PRA can not (and in my opinion should not) ask the Rotary Forum to ban people from talking about the PRA.

I am VERY much in agreement that we need a PRA members only discussion area and it will happen.

I like the idea of a PRA welcome kit.

I might start working on a draft this week. If I do will you help me critique it?


Lastly, in answer to your thread question: I got this from www.PRA.org

http://www.pra.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=129&Itemid=68

PURPOSE


To encourage, aid and engage in scientific research for the improvement and better understanding of the art of flying by an individual and the science of vertical lift aeronautics.

To foster, promote, and popularize education in rotorcraft among it's members and the general public.

To establish and maintain a rotorcraft museum and air education center to contain exhibits of historical and scientific interest.
 
Even if we had other options the Airport still a great buy, we should buy others if possible.
Immokalee is strugling with speculators attacks, they were thinking about buying adjacent property and start a flying condominium there. Maybe PRA could jump in and partner with the city.
Don´t know if they still there and willing after almost 3 years out.
There is a property for sale down here, around 600 g´s US, payments in 24 months, divide that by our membership and we have a place for vacation and timeshare living right in the middle of the biggest ongoing party in the planet.
How much is that a month?
Heron
 
Barnstorm2 I would be very interested in a wlcome kit. I just joined the PRA as well and would be happy to critique it. I have been on the forum going on a year or so and have seen and heard alot, the happy and the unhappy and yes those that seam to just want to make as many other unhappy as possible. I have been the member of many organizations over the years and retired from one after 24 years. I can tell you with any organization that is made up of a group of indipendent folks the organization equals what the group as a whole puts into it or what they don't. The PRA is such a group.

We can humm and drumm about what has happened in the past or we as a group can do something about it. We all love gyros weather we fly them or not or we would not be here on theis forum in the first place. The PRA supports our love and sport so we should support it. If each and everyone of us was to talk, show, and promote our individual gyros to the folks around us everyday the interest in gyros would skyrocket just to see the ultimate man toy, ladies don't shoot me for that staement but you know how guys are. We love our toys. The PRA would be thousands strong in just one year.

We as a whole have been our own worst nemosis from what I have seen for years, if we could just pull together and support each other this could be really something worth belonging to IMO.
 
When you get a new job you are given an employees handbook with all the rules and regulations of the campany included so you dont have to go through the learning curve making mistakes and asking repeated questions...

Jim, I hear ya, but when you get a new job, you've also gone through an interview process and checked out the company to make sure it's a place you want to work. It would be fair to ask, if these things are important to you, why didn't you insist on answers before joining?

For me, this points to a need for a more inclusive history/mission section on pra.org, including detail on the airport ownership structure. I wonder how many people have decided not to join based on incomplete or erroneous information.
 
Barnstorm2 I would be very interested in a wlcome kit. I just joined the PRA as well and would be happy to critique it. .

Thank you!

I will do it then.

It will have to be all digital but I don't think that will be a big handicap for now.

.
 
1 million people

1 million people

Tim,

The EAA is light years ahead of the PRA.

Would you suggest we have 1 million guests show up at Scotts place ? or yours ?




Are you a member of the EAA? Have you voiced your opinion to them that having an airport up in Oshkosh only benefits a small percentage of their members and it's too far for the rest to attend?

Do you want to do away with the flyins alltogether? It seems odd for someone who moved out of the country to complain about Mentone being too far away to attend a flyin.
 
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