Chairman’s Message: Building a Stronger and Even More Responsive Association for Our Members

by CJP Chair Randy Broiles

Every few years, the CJP board comes together to focus on our longer term Association and Foundation objectives. In early February of this year, the CJP voting board members met for a full day and a half in Austin to do just that. This short update summarizes a few highlights of our work.

First, a sincere thank you to those members who took the time to respond to our most recent member and convention surveys. Marc Dulude did a terrific job summarizing your survey results as well as facilitating our discussion in Austin. Your survey responses provided important member perspectives for the board. Second, members clearly indicated that they’re comfortable with CJP goals. However, several members feel that we have more work to do with event and services execution. Members also indicated that they continue to be concerned about fuel and insurance pricing as well as deeply concerned about future insurance availability.

At the end of our early February discussions, CJP’s longer-term mission and objectives remain largely unchanged. We will continue to focus on flying safety, member interaction opportunities, product & services advocacy, and aviation community services (formerly labeled “philanthropy.”) However, with our robust Association growth, now at over 900 tails and 1400 members, the board felt strongly about providing improved organization execution and sustainability with more consistent Association services to members. As you likely know, we’ve historically relied on volunteers for much of our CJP work. However, this has generated mixed results for us in years past.

CJP income is largely provided from three sources: CJP membership dues, the annual CJP convention and CJP Partner/Sponsor contributions. The recent global COVID threat rightly caused our cancelled convention in 2020 as well as understandable caution from many CJP Partners/Sponsors which resulted in lower, or deferred, partnership/sponsorship contributions. These events, combined with a need for continued safety focus and improved event and program execution, caused the board to unanimously vote, effective March 1, to increase our annual member dues from $300 to $500 per year as well as increase our CJP Lifetime Member contribution from $5000 to $8000.

These revenues will be used, in part, to add an additional full time CJP Special Projects Manager, reporting to our CEO. The position will focus on CJP execution including event planning, fundraising and compilation of member FOQA flight and Safe to Land data as these important safety programs gain traction and momentum.

As you likely know, we identified our Special Projects Manager in February. We’re thrilled to welcome Liz Nixon to the CJP team in this new position. Liz is a mother of two and a graduate of University of Oklahoma. Aside from her contagious energy, enthusiasm and keen interest to learn all matters CJP, she brings a rich background in event planning, problem solving, member services and communication. You can look forward to meeting Liz online or at upcoming CJP events.

Cindy and I look forward to seeing many of you soon. Fly safely in the meantime!