[AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTION] Proposal to members

[Martin Stockzell (1294494)]

Greetings all members of VATSIM Scandinavia. For a while there has been a need to update the constitution of VATSCA to better reflect the current practices.

So on behalf of the board, this is the proposed version we would like to implement.

 

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7.4 Amendment of the Constitution

Proposals for amendments to this constitution must be announced by the board to all members for discussion for a period of 14 days. If no objections are received by the board during this period, the constitution will be deemed amended. If such an objection is made, a referendum on the constitution shall be put in place for a period of 14 days to determine whether the amendment should pass.

According to our current constitution the new proposal shall be available to the members, for a period of 14 days, to be able to object.

Process if member like to object:

• Respond in this thread or by sending an email to board@vatsim-scandinavia.org using your VATSIM registered email account.
• State clearly that you object! Please give the reason for what you object to!
• Only Active ATC members have right to express their objection in this process according to our constitution 4.2.1 and 7.1. You can check your status from TAS (tas.vatsim-scandinavia.org)(Active -> True) or from our member roster (http://vatsim-scandinavia.org/information/member-roster/)(Active -> Yes). 

The full list of amended sections are on the last page, pointing to each section and paragraph, but to make it easier I'll paste it here as well:

• 2.7 Teamspeak server discontinued and replaced with Discord.
• 3 Finland FIR renamed to Helsinki FIR. Søndrestrøm FIR replaced with Nuuk FIR.
• 4.2.1 LoA removed. Period of mandatory ATC hours to remain as active ATC changed from 6 months to 12.
• 4.4 Small grammar change.
• 4.5 Wording changed due to implementation of the Data Protection Policy.
• 5.3 Finland FIR renamed to Helsinki FIR. Reykjavik FIR renamed CTA to better match real world operations.
• 5.5.1 Small grammar change.
• 5.5.4 New paragraph. Working description of the Data Protection Officer.
• 5.6 Small grammar change.
• 5.7 Small grammar change.
• 5.7.3 New procedures for appointment of executive staff to meet VATEUD criterias.
• 6.1 Wording changed due to removal of LoA.
• 7.1 Wording changed due to removal of LoA.
• 7.2 Wording changed due to removal of LoA.

As you can see, there is mostly minute changes such as correcting some wording. But the "bigger" issues is that we propose that a member now has 12 instead of 6 month to gain 10 hours of ATC to remain as an active ATC, the complete removal of the option to request leave and an adjustment regarding appointment of the executive staff (director excluded) so that no public voting will be neccessary (more or less a demand from VATEUD).

 

The last day to be able to object is june 24th at 23.59Z. If no objections is recieved before that the amendment should be considered  approved and will be sent to VATEUD for a final approval before it's implemented.

 

VATSIM_Scandinavia_Constitution_Proposal_2019.pdf

[Claus Hemberg Joergensen (1138158)]

What is the boards motivation for changing the requirement of 10 active hours per 6 months to per 12 months?

[Martin Stockzell (1294494)]

1 hour ago, Claus Hemberg Joergensen said:

What is the boards motivation for changing the requirement of 10 active hours per 6 months to per 12 months?

It's a valid question!

First of all it helps with a lot of unnecessary administration. And today we acctually have stricter rules then a real world pilot has to keep his pilot licence active. 

VATSIM CoC also takes care of this in the "C" (controller) section paragraph 1:
 

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1. Controllers who are new to the hobby or are otherwise unfamiliar with an airspace should educate themselves, whenever possible, by first observing operations and/or studying procedures used in the region. Information is usually available at the appropriate regional web site and generally includes procedures, frequencies, appropriate positions and charts.

So it's acctually already a rule that if you don't have the neccessary knowledge, you are obliged to gain that knowledge before controlling.

And my personal opinion is that I doubt that just because a controller have 9.5hr of controlling during the past year that ALL knowledge is just suddenly lost. And if there has been a lot of updates with files, procedures and so forth you are still obliged to refresh yourself according to the CoC.

The background and the reason for the paragraph in the first place is that controllers not active AT ALL should be marked inactive.

 

Hope that answers your question!

[Adrian Bjerke (1339353)]

2 hours ago, Martin Stockzell said:

First of all it helps with a lot of unnecessary administration. And today we acctually have stricter rules then a real world pilot has to keep his pilot licence active. 

But in VATSCA to get those 10 hours, you can just log onto a very very quiet airport as a tower (no matter S2/S3/C1/C3 rating), do not do anything for 10 hours and then be qualified for that year.

How would you still avoid people who does this and after lets say 2-4 years come back and do not meet the expected requirements of knownledge?
Are you allowed to "remove" their active status, or do we just have to live with that unexperienced controller now?

For me it do not really matter if its a 6 month or 12 month period of activity, however I atleast want any backup policy to avoid people abusing this policy like this and therefor be very inexperienced when they return to us.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Adrian Bjerke

[Martin Stockzell (1294494)]

11 minutes ago, Adrian Bjerke said:

But in VATSCA to get those 10 hours, you can just log onto a very very quiet airport as a tower (no matter S2/S3/C1/C3 rating), do not do anything for 10 hours and then be qualified for that year.

How would you still avoid people who does this and after lets say 2-4 years come back and do not meet the expected requirements of knownledge?
Are you allowed to "remove" their active status, or do we just have to live with that unexperienced controller now?

For me it do not really matter if its a 6 month or 12 month period of activity, however I atleast want any backup policy to avoid people abusing this policy like this and therefor be very inexperienced when they return to us.

All good remarks as well.

However, this is exactly the case today as well. I can login at, for example, ESND_I_TWR and sit there with 0 traffic for 10 hours and then I'm good.

We really can't avoid that people does this (although I really hope that this is not the case, then perhaps this hobby isn't really for that person...)

But to make a rough interpretation of your second thing with the example of a controller that put's this in to system just to remain active (which again, if you become inactive - the only thing you need to do is make contact with your local TA and either perform a refresh session or at least "prove" to the TA that you still have the appropriate knowledge) I would say that this not only is a violation against CoC C1 (perhaps even A14) but also against the gist of the constitution and a violation of 4.3.1 (Adhere to instructions regarding manning of ATC‐positions within VATSIM Scandinavia airspace.) which means that you could be subject to disciplinary action.

If a controller is "caught" not having the appropriate knowledge, then I hope that this is reported to the board so that the neccessary actions can be taken, even if that action just consists of a friendly chat asking the controller to get a refresh before controlling again.

The feedback email is not only there to recieve "good" reviews of controllers, but also so that we can get the "bad" stuff and make the appropriate changes to resolve it.


Pretty long, boring and formal answer, I know.

 

The short answer is that, yes, there is always a backup. Since we have the CoC AND our own (current and future) constitution to lean against when something like this happens

 

[Martin Stockzell (1294494)]

Topic moved to the General Forum instead, to get rid of the function that comments have to be approved!

[Daniel Klepp (1035750)]

Let me just add that the rule is not necessarily there to punish those who have 9 hours in a year. But to avoid that long absent controllers simply just log in and start controlling without being up to date with the current procedures. Anyone can fool the system as Adrian says, but that would hopefully be catched by other barriers.

[Daniel Edvardsson]

On 6/10/2019 at 12:23 PM, Martin Stockzell said:

It's a valid question!

First of all it helps with a lot of unnecessary administration. And today we acctually have stricter rules then a real world pilot has to keep his pilot licence active. 

I'm a bit puzzled to hear the main reason (and the only reason you present) is the administration. What is it worth keeping the standards up and what signals do you, as Director, send the members with this suggestion? What are the main reasons why controllers don't stay active? Are there other adjustments we can make, in order to keep the controllers active? Have you analyzed the training requests on refreshment training and seen that this particular change would help controllers staying active - or are we just guessing that this would be a game-changer in keeping controllers active?

A lot of questions, I know, but it feels like you want to take shortcuts without thinking it through.

Edited June 13, 2019 by Daniel Edvardsson

[Martin Loxbo (811805)]

1 hour ago, Daniel Edvardsson said:

A lot of questions, I know, but it feels like you want to take shortcuts without thinking it through.

That's a bit harsh! This has been a topic for several years in the board, and the general feeling has been that the 10 hours per 6 months rule was too strict. There have been several instances of experienced controllers with seasonal controlling habits falling "victim" to this rule, i.e. even if you do a lot of controlling in the winter time, if you didn't do your 10 hours in summer you are set as inactive and have to contact the TD and wait for your case to be evaluated before being able to control again. We felt that this was not fair, and that extending the 6 months to 12 months would be more appropriate.

With this said, it's not written in stone that the rule has to be 10 hours per year forever. One option would be to increase the required hours to let's say 15-20 hours per 12 months. Then you could still take a break for a few months without having to go through any special procedure, as long as you do the hours in the rest of the year. I'm open for this possibility, but for now the proposal is 10 hours per 12 months.

As others have already touched on, regardless of the hour/time limit this rule is not a perfect rule to ensure ATC quality, but it does give us an instrument to give refresher training to controllers who are likely to need it, and it means that a controller who got his rating in the last century on ASRC cannot just rock up and start making a mess around himself. If we want perfect ATC quality we'd probably have to do annual refresher training/checks for everyone, but I don't think we have the resources for that, and also it's not really compatible with VATSIM rules.

[Martin Stockzell (1294494)]

EDITED: Well Martin Loxbo already gave more or less my exact answer.

However, to answer your direct question. Yes, the administration is one reason (and since it was the only one provided I understand that it counts as the main one). But the main reasons are given by Martin above.

But again, we already have rules, that streches higher then our constitution, which states that controller must be well familiar with the procedures. So the paragraph itself could actually be deemed unnecessary. But as Adrian and Claus mentioned before, it's always good to have SOME local regulations that specifies a bit more detail.

And  to answer your question regarding our current situation. VATSIM Scandinavia has a pretty large amount of really inactive ATC (years) which mostly concists of people with early CID:s that has left the hobby all together or just otherwise occupied. The number of inactive ATC with fairly recent training are quite few. And many of them falls under the category that Martin mentions above, which takes unnecessary resources from the Training Department who I would like to prioritize new students over people who already have the skills, but due to a rule that got them inactive due to vacation (or whatever the cause may be) has to be "refreshed"
 

[Daniel Edvardsson]

Thank you @Martin Loxbo for providing the background information and analysis to why there is a need to change the rule. I do not agree that my comments and questions are harsh, only that the information given by the Director was not sufficient at all. I am happy you have sorted it out and I think the proposal now seems fair. 

And thank you @Martin Stockzell for you clarifications as well. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by Daniel Edvardsson

[Martin Stockzell (1294494)]

Yeah, I do agree that I could have been more detailed as to why this change is proposed, since it's one of the bigger things. I'll keep that in mind for the next issue!

[Martin Stockzell (1294494)]

Since no formal objections has been made. The constitution is hereby declared amended, but needs approval from VATEUD lead first. When this is complete an annoucement will be made!