IRSA elections, CEEFIE newsletter #7, Voting & Transparency

[Lester]

Dear IOM sailors, we know these newsletters make riveting reading, but sadly this is probably our last...

Dear IRSA DNM
Our seventh, and, we believe, last e-mail "newsletter" to you (parts will also be posted on-line).

Voting
There are some DNMs who may not be familiar with the procedures for voting at the 2014 GA as laid down by the IRSA Executive Committee.

Your DNM vote will NOT count if you do not notify the Secretary of the details of your DNM GA representative. The deadline for this is 23:00GMT on 25th April 2014 – you have one more day if you are BEL, CAN, CZE, FIN, FRA, ITA, JPN, POL, or POR.

"Under clause 6.2 of the constitution, each Member is required to give written notice of their Representative prior to the appointed time for the start of the GA. However, in order that the necessary pre-meeting administration can be carried out, the deadline for this notification to be received by the General Secretary will be 23:00GMT on 25th April 2014 (ie 7 days prior to the formal commencement of the GA)." http://www.radiosailing.org/main/admini ... 4-main.htm, "Documents" tab, "Procedures and Notes applying to the GA" document.

Your DNM vote will NOT count if your DNM GA representative does not register their attendance at the GA.

"Where a Member has not registered their attendance at the meeting prior to agenda items (9) and (11) being dealt with, their vote will be excluded from the relevant count." "Procedures and Notes applying to the GA" document.


Transparency
Most radio sailors probably know more about the workings, discussions, and decisions of their national secret service than they do about IRSA. We will seek to change that.

It is true that some things need to be discussed and decided behind closed doors. They tend to be things where people could get hurt or property damaged. Anything else is probably better discussed and decided openly. Errors are more likely to be spotted and constituents are more likely to feel that justice is being done and being seen to be done. If elected,

• We will set up an IRSA Executive Committee blog site. Every quarter or thereabouts, each executive committee portfolio owner (Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Technical, Racing, Events, Infocomms, Classes) will blog about their portfolio matters.
• A particular feature of the proposed blog site is to give visibility to likely future matters on the planning horizons of the various EC committees (Technical, Racing, Events, Classes).
• We will publish how EC and committee officers vote on the proposals and resolutions which are put before them.


We hope you are sympathetic to the CEEFIE manifesto, and ask that you please vote for the CEEFIE candidates. CEEFIE are a determined group of concerned volunteers from a large variety of backgrounds with a common goal of wishing to make a difference in our sport, please help us achieve this by electing the whole group in May.

The CEEFIE candidates

Code: Select all

Chairman   								     Lester Gilbert (GBR)
Vice Chairman								   Eric van der Kindere (BEL)
General Secretary / Treasurer			  Henning Faas (GER)
Racing Committee Chairman					Nigel Winkley (GER)
Technical Committee Chairman			   Graham Bantock (GBR)
Organisation & Policy Committee Chairman	Terry Rensch (GBR)
Publicity Officer							  Pedro Egea (ESP)
Regional Officer Americas					Patrice Montero (FRA)
Regional Officer Europe					  Matteo Longhi (ITA)
Regional Officer Oceania					 Selwyn Holland (AUS)

[David L Alston]

This has to be some sort of record on two fronts:-

• I wound if anyone can remember such an intensive campaigning to get elected to any Radio Sailing Committee before, I certainly have not.
• Every post has attracted at least two Candidates.

It would be fantastic if the MYA have three people clambering for the post of Chairman, Secretary, Race officer and Technical Charmin in place of what has always seemed to be a 'done deal' come ballot time.

CEEFIE has certainly run a hard fought campaign. One is however not certain that some of the comments made by our Mr Gilbert, on their behalf, are indeed justified or indeed fair.

I for one know very little about the inner workings, discussions, and decisions of the MYA let alone the IRSA and to the extent that if they do not interfere with my sailing I really could not care less.

We must trust in their judgment and impartiality. After all this is why they were elected and it is not as if we pay them for their efforts.

Not that, over the years, the IRSA has done anything particularly earth shattering that I am aware of.

Ok, there is that silly thing about the sail numbering but it was the MYA Race Officer that imposed it upon us and a few people had to take a One or a Zero from their sails. Most sensible people just ignored him. But that is all over now, we have moved on and peace and harmony has been one again restored to the ponds of the UK.

Of concern however is that this power group, CEEFIE, for this is how they have presented themselves to the radio sailing world, do not seem to appreciate that the IRSA is a body who, to loosely quote :-

Currently represents over 30 Member countries in 3 Regions,

The key word/phrase being:- REPRESENT its Member Countries.

The greatest challenge any Multi-national Governing Body has to face is facilitating agreement between its Members. This I know from personal experience in my professional life.

It is not the task or indeed the remit of the IRSA ( or the CEEFIE as it is in danger of becoming,) to impose decisions upon its Member Countries. The decisions must come from the Member Countries.


Similarly it is the task of the Member Countries to keep their members informed as to what they are discussing. So if it seems that the IRSA is a secret society is it not the MYA, ARYA, CRYA, DSV, SARSA etc. who should shoulder the criticism for NOT informing their Members.


The IRSA’s task it to promote all Radio Sailing, provide assistance to Class associations and Member Countries.
They should NOT to interfere in the running of Member Countries or Class Associations or indeed hand down decisions either transparently or secretly.

I am confident that the Radio Sailing Voting Community i.e. the MYA, ARYA, CRYA, DSV, SARSA etc. will see through this bling and realise that power groups as this, whilst probably well meaning, will not be beneficial to the larger radio sailing community and that Power / Interest Groups seeking to take over en block should be avoided at all costs for once in it will be impossible to rid ourselves of them.


Thank you for reading this far. I would appreciate your comment = But now Let us go sailing together and put all this silliness behind us.

Dr David Alston (23) MYA 2342
.

[Hiljoball]

I am appalled that CEEFIE in its desire to propose an officer for every position would be so disingenuous as to propose someone from Europe to be the Regional Officer representative for the AMERICAS. This is an insult to all the sailors of the Americas.

I urge Patrice to correct this situation by withdrawing his name from the ballot.

Regional Officer Americas Patrice Montero (FRA)


John

[Lester]

Hi John

The CEEFIE manifesto and the various CEEFIE newsletters explain the CEEFIE proposals that the regional offices be replaced by class committees. Indeed, the entire CEEFIE newsletter #4 on Class Administration was constructed by Patrice Montero (candidate for Regional Office Americas), Matteo Longhi (candidate for Regional Office Europe), and Selwyn Holland (candidate for Regional Office Oceania). If elected, none of the CEEFIE candidates will "represent" their regions, as explicitly explained :-

Post subject: IRSA elections, candidates
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 2:49 pm
[CEEFIE] will seek to establish a committee for each International class (M, A, 10R) [...] [and move] from a regional representation system to a class based representation system.

Post subject: IRSA elections, CEEFIE January news
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 8:57 am
[...] the key CEEFIE manifesto issues for a future IRSA. [...] We seek to move from a regional representation system to a class based representation system

Post subject: IRSA elections, CEEFIE February news
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 11:58 am
[...] We seek to move from a regional representation system to a class based representation system

Post subject: IRSA elections, CEEFIE newsletter #4: Class Administration
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 4:32 pm
Patrice Montero (candidate for Regional Office Americas), Matteo Longhi (candidate for Regional Office Europe), Selwyn Holland (candidate for Regional Office Oceania): [...] we will seek to establish a committee for each of these classes from the elected Executive Committee which will operate as an international class association

Post subject: IRSA elections, CEEFIE newsletter #5: Executive Committee
Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:51 am
[...] the EC structure will move from regional representation to an EC with a class based representation system

CEEFIE has been the opposite of disingenuous. I urge you to reconsider your slur and withdraw it, such emotive accusations do you no credit if you wish to be considered an authority in international radio sailing with a reputation for the careful, thoughtful, and unbiased consideration of what is said and written.

[Hiljoball]

Sorry Lester, but I stand by my comments. The current format of the board includes a regional officer for each continental zone. The changes you propose are not yet made. To implement them requires the support and/or voting of the (new) board members. It requires preparation of changes to the constitution. Your proposed slate of officers includes a French sailor to displace a sailor from the Americas on the board for such activities. That detracts from the representation of ARG, BRA, BAR, CAN and USA and their many active members in those deliberations.

It appears that you were unsuccessful in attracting an Americas’ sailor to your team, and so it looks like you are trying to ‘stack the deck’ in the new board.

Yes, you published what you wanted to achieve. It never occurred to me that a member country of one zone would nominate one of their own sailors to represent another zone while those zones still exist.

John