Vol 64

Dec  2018

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Merry Christmas everybody, may your Christmas sparkle with moments of love, laughter and goodwill.

We look forward to catching up again in 2019.

Buying a new car?

If you’re contemplating buying a new car, we could save you thousands. The Radschool Association has done a deal with Australia’s biggest car brokers whereby you can purchase a car (your choice of make, colour, specs etc) at fleet discount prices.

To see further details, go to the Radschool Assoc home page (HERE) then click on “New Car Purchase”.

Discounts.

We’re working on obtaining discounts for financial members of the Radschool Association. If you’d like to benefit from these discounts, and you’re not a member, scroll down to the Membership section below, fill in the relevant form and we’ll send you the info.

Current financial members will receive an email from us soon with info on how to obtain a 12% discount on the base rate of the day when hiring a car from Thrifty. With the holiday season upon us, if you’re thinking of hiring a car or an SUV or a people mover, this could save you heaps.

Veterans Card.

Back in June 2018 we wrote to the Minister for Veterans Affairs/Defence Personnel, Hon Darren Chester MP, suggesting the Government should introduce a “Proof of Service” card (see HERE). This was followed up with several bits of correspondence and eventually we were offered a meeting with the Minister’s advisers in Canberra. On the 21^st September, we met in Canberra with David Roberts and the delightful Louise Hooper (right), both advisers to the Minister who gave us about an hour of their valuable time and where we discussed the proposal.

Shortly after, we received THIS from the Minister.  Good News!

As most know, TPI/EDA Vets have access to free Government transport within the state in which they live. State Governments issue a Veterans Travel Card however, the holder of the card is entitled to free transport only within that state. We asked Louise Hooper if there were any plans to make the card a national benefit. She replied: “I understand that harmonisation of state benefits was discussed at the Veteran Ministers Roundtable that was held on 27 October.”

That’s great, we think it is still being discussed – but fingers crossed!

While in Canberra, we also met with the Sarah Huy from the office of Amanda Rishworth (right), the Labor Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. We didn’t get a personal response, but we did get this Media Release.

Savings for veterans.

Once the Proof of Service Card – or Veterans’ Card as it will be called, is implemented, major corporations will be encouraged to offer special services and/or discounts to holders. Businesses will be encouraged to offer discounts on everything from groceries to power bills.

The details of the card will be worked through with state and territory governments and businesses. It will be separate to the Department of Veterans' Affairs health cards but will be similar to the approach adopted by Canada and the US. Already Woolworths, Coles, Kmart, Bunnings, Target, NRMA and Clubs Australia have signed up, while Westpac has expressed support for the idea. The reported percentages where between 5 and 10 per cent.

At present, many businesses and services find it hard to identify who is a veteran, with the problem most acute in states such as NSW and Queensland, each of which are home to more than 80,000 veterans.

Virgin

Back in November, Virgin Australia announced plans to allow priority boarding for members and ex-members of the Australian Defence Force. They offered military veterans the chance to board first and acknowledge their service during in-flight announcements.

Full marks to them, we thought it was a wonderful initiative – but for some inexplicable reason, some didn’t.

The Australia Defence Association (ADA) said the offer was lacking in common sense. Neil James, the executive director of the ADA said “Virgin Australia's move to offer veterans priority boarding and a public thank-you on flights drew a ‘reasonably critical’ response from his members. I think most people would like some practical help rather than what's likely to become a tokenistic gesture”. He said “the US-style of publicly thanking veterans for their service would not necessarily translate well to Australia. There’s a fine line between embarrassing them and thanking them and, in some cases, where they’re suffering a psychological illness, effusively thanking them in public might not necessarily help them.”

Well, let me tell you something Mr James, you don’t speak for me, I’ll be forever grateful to Virgin for offering that benefit – to be able to board early ahead of the rush, I think is fabulous and I’ll accept it with both hands. Anyone, who for whatever reason doesn’t want to accept it, can just sit tight and board with the masses. If you don’t want it, don’t put your hand up – and don’t try and stop others who do want it.

My old nan used to say, “give them an inch and they’ll want a mile!”.  This seems to be the ADA’s doctrine, instead of saying thank you to Virgin, they want to big-note themselves and grizzle. Well, bugger them!

Good for you Virgin. For me it’s a reason to fly with them.

EMAIL Blockage.

For some time, our site and our emails were blocked by the Defence gate-keeper if and when they contained a link or a Pdf document. Some years ago, we were hacked by some mob and some firms that provide Virus Protection black-balled us. We did get things cleared up and engaged a firm called Securi to ensure we weren’t hacked again. We would get a report every week confirming the site was clear but Defence, on the side of caution, continued to block us whenever we tried to send a link or a Pdf. And – no matter how many phone calls we had to the RAAF and to Defence begging them to lift the blockage, they were having nothing of it. We believe this sort of blockage is standard procedure for the ADF.

Then we met with Louise Hooper in Canberra – and she contacted Defence IT and we shortly had a phone call from a senior Navy officer and voila, the blockage has been lifted.

Thanks again to Louise and thank you to the Navy!!

2021 Celebration.

We’ve had to put our preparations on hold until 1 July 2019 – see the latest update HERE.

We’re planning for the Sunday Concert event to be open to all in Melbourne and it could look like this below, you’ll definitely want a reserved seat. A thousand of those seats down the front will be reserved for those that attend the reunion – we’re limited to 1000 for other events too, so if you think you’ll be able to attend, even though it’s a while off, we suggest you get your name in now. After we have 1000, you’ll have to go onto the wait list. At the moment we have 213 – don’t put it off, if you wait too long you could miss out.  Tell all your friends too – get them involved.

Please click HERE and do so, the more numbers we have the easier it is when we discuss our plans with venues and sponsors.

We must stress though, this is not an official Air Force event, it is being organised by the Radschool Association.

Remember, the “other day” Celebration events are open to anyone and everyone who has spent time at Ballarat, Laverton, Point Cook, St Kilda or Frognall, it’s open to clerks, cooks, framies, pilots, instructor, even radtechs, it’s irrespective of mustering. The individual cost to everyone will be minimal as we’re down the road aways with sponsors and it’s looking good.

If you’re an ex-WAAAF, ex-WRAAF or female RAAF and you would like a “Girls-own” night on the Thursday 25 March in the Officers Mess at Laverton, we’re pretty sure we can arrange this, it will all depend on whether there is enough demand (there isn't at the moment - there's only 3) and whether the RAAF has plans for the night – which at this stage looks like they don’t. You’ll need to fill in the FORM though.

We’ve also arranged to hold a “Sleep Rough” night to be held in the Melbourne Showgrounds to honour and remember those that went before us and fought in WW2. A lot of those brave men and women were billeted or worked at the Showgrounds during the war and this will be our way of remembering them. If you want a rough night out, we ask that you get sponsored as we would like this to be a fund raiser event for the RAAF Association. Bring your own sleeping gear but we'll supply the food and water.

Early in 2020 we’ll need you to commit and fill in another form with all names, shirt sizes etc and soon after that you’ll need to make a payment – but more on that later too. Remember, the cost to everyone will be minimal as we’re down the road aways with sponsors and it’s looking good.

We’ll be asking for volunteers later too, people to help with set up, team leaders, crowd management, waiters etc, more on that later too.

Remember, keep an eye on our UPDATE page for the latest info.

Membership.

We’ve decided to go with the following membership.

·                1 year’s full membership for $12.00.  (now till 30 June 2019

·                Full membership for $35.00 to 30 June 2021.

Annual Membership will run from July one year to June the next, with this year’s annual membership now expiring in June 2019. As we’ve said, full membership is not compulsory, you can still receive the RAM which will remain open, free and available on the net.

So, if you’d like to contribute and help us with the ever increasing costs, please join as a full member.

If you are already a member (ie: if your name is on this LIST), please fill in the form below and send it to us, if you haven’t already joined (if you're not on the list), please use the form HERE.

BSB: 124-021       Account number: 1048 7401      Title:  RAAF Radschool Association.

Bank:  Bank of Queensland.

and include your name in the "Remarks" window on the deposit.

You can of course pay more if you wish!!

AND!!  If you work for or know of a firm that would be kind and generous enough to sponsor the Radschool Association, please get in touch.

Reunions.

If you're having a reunion and you would like us to cover it and publish it, let us know and we'll see what can be done.

Errors

Our aim is to have this site error free – but that’s probably impossible. But with your help I reckon we can get pretty close. If you see any errors, be they punctuation, spelling, links that don’t work, facts wrong etc, (no matter how small) please let us know so we can fix them.

You can download the full magazine in PDF format HERE.

It is a very large file, contains 330 pages and will take a while to download.

The margins have been set so you can print on both sides of the page.

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