15 March 2025
Comox, BC
RCAF Association Members
Follow-on Letter – RCAF Association Prognosis
I promised in my last letter to you on 15 December 2024 that I would continue to update you on the progress of your Board of Directors’ efforts to “right the ship” of the Association following the events of last Fall. Unfortunately, it appears that not all members received a copy of that letter, so I shall summarize it, briefly. Last November, the sudden resignation announcements of the senior staff and Board Chair left us in a quandary and this, coupled with our looming financial problem, led to the perception by some that we may be on the road to dissolution. There was a palpable sense of angst and concern that we could lose what many of us had worked for, for many years, that is, a viable, cohesive and productive Association. All that said, there is nothing like a crisis to “focus the mind” and generate action and that is precisely what happened. It is worth noting that in the Chinese language, the word “crisis” is written in two symbols, – the first symbol means “danger”, the second is interpreted as “opportunity. I am happy to now report that the situation is much more secure, and that we have made significant progress towards ongoing security. I shall detail some of that in the following paragraphs.
The fact that the situation within the RCAFA is overshadowed by two much larger ones, the Canadian political uncertainty and the geopolitical instability that is all around us only means that our efforts to support our Air Force are now even more important. The overwhelming consensus is that Canada now needs a strong well equipped Air Force more than ever, and we don’t have a lot of time to get there. Historians amongst us will recognize a similar scenario that occurred in Canada in the late 1930’s. Then, Canada rose to the occasion and I’m sure we can and will now, but we all need to pull together. For this, we will need your help. It has been proven already that our advocacy efforts do make a difference because the RCAFA has a direct voice to decision makers, and we can make our thoughts known and assist where we can.
We are in the latter stages of completing the 2025 Strategic plan that specifies our way forward; it will be rolled out prior to the next AGM for your formal consideration, but you will already see essential parts of it in action. Brook Bangsboll is now firmly in the Executive Director’s chair and has completed his handover. We have engaged an accounting firm experienced in the running of Associations like ours to manage the books and membership files, they have many suggestions on how to streamline and simplify, for example, our dues collection processes and membership registration. This is being done in conjunction with a complete overhaul of our cumbersome website to make it more relevant and agile.
The biggest change you will see in the short term will be in our great Air Force magazine. As many of you are aware, printing and distribution costs were literally submerging us, so this essential part of our communications package is going digital and we hope to see the first issue sometime in late April. We are very excited about the new direction being taken with the magazine, with a greatly expanded readership and contributions from more of our stakeholders. This will also enable us to solicit more advertising, which of course helps our bottom line. The editorial team, led by Terry Leversedge are integrated into our Strategic Communications committee and have tons of great ideas. Finally, your Board of Directors is fully engaged in moving forward specific parts of our processes, relieving some of the onerous load that we had previously applied to our executive director.
Digitization is certainly the way of the future, and we are moving towards that process in managing our website, membership database and revenue collection to facilitate amongst other things, the joining and renewal procedure. Because we had moved to a biennial general meeting format, many members observed that they have insufficient ability to let their views be known about their Association, and that our communications processes very much need to be improved. I could not agree more. We are going to employ modern methods, such as Zoom townhalls and virtual AGMs to permit our members to have a voice once again. An additional benefit to this is that our members-at-large can finally have a voice in our operations. In this vein, we will be holding a series of regional town halls in mid-April to allow our members to ask questions and voice their opinions about our Association and where it is headed. Your regional or group directors will be coordinating this activity, and we look very much forward to those exchanges. Elbows up !
Per ardua !
Terry Chester, Colonel (Ret’d), Chairman, RCAF Association Board of Directors
