Originally Posted by
Mixbury
Although I am in this group, I would suggest you leave this sort of proposed action a few months. The previous extensions have only recently been announced, and although it is difficult to see any level of normality returning in 2020, technically, as of now, reduced thresholds are in place as relief. I think your argument gains weight as the months roll by, and this view is supported by the response you received when you raised it at Waterside.
Whilst I see your point, I feel that the suggestion to wait too long is a risky one. Don't take me wrong, I don't think that this is urgent to do this within a week or even a month, but conversely, if you wait till, say, February, you have absolutely no idea whether the next policy will have already been decided or not.
I think that one thing that we have seen is that once BAEC decide on a policy, they don't quite like revising it afterwards. To me, the goal of the letter that
msm2000uk is proposing is to express structured disappointment, signalling that a given group of members feel that they have been short-changed by the initial policy and putting pressure on BAEC to take this into account if and when they think of their next move and conceive the next iteration of the policy, which by the way, a lot of people assume that they will "have" to do but nobody knows for sure.
I think that the idea of waiting works well for those who trust BAEC to do the right thing anyway or feel that the BAEC response has been right, but if those things are the case, frankly, writing a letter would not serve any purpose at all. In that sense, within the framework of what is being proposed here, ie for people who feel that the initial policy was unfair on a number of us, then I think that the case for waiting is not very strong. The main potential gain is that more people may get worried and would thus join a letter, but the main risk is that you have no idea if you might be too late and could end up with a more confusing message too. Furthermore, whilst nobody wants to start passing on monthly messages, sending a letter in coming weeks certainly doesn't preclude re-writing, possibly with even more people involved, in a few months.
My sense is that the best strategy in terms of what
msm2000uk wants to achieve is:
1) a letter in coming weeks (e.g. Sept/Oct at the latest) by those who feel that the previous policy has been inadequate so that the "structured dissatisfaction" is registered and that BAEC have it at the back of their minds when they start considering the next policy, which may well be before the end of 2020 depending on how the situation evolves, followed by
2) another letter that could be sent around April-May if no adequate protective action has been announced by BAEC by then as the first people will start worrying about losing their status.
Simply postponing till February or March would serve little purpose as you still won't have much specific information about how many people specifically will likely lose status, and waiting till April or May runs a very serious risk of BAEC having already decided on their new policy by then, and there is no evidence that they are agile or flexible when it comes to adapting their own decisions after they have initially taken (let alone announced) then so there would be a major risk of being too late and writing for nothing if the message has not been registered before.
PS: can confirm, no reduced thresholds for GUFs, and I suspect that many of us July members have already lost more TPs through airline cancellations since 9 July than accounted for by the reduced thresholds.
PPS: count me among those happy to join the letter in principle. PM sent with the relevant info.