Results of 2009 AGM

Andy Stevenson · Post by **Andy Stevenson** » 15 Jul 2009, 01:03

Include Alfonso and Bruce...

It would be difficult not to include Bruce surely? As he appears to continue in an executive position to which he has not been elected.

Until the situation surrounding the vote is resolved should the office of Chairman not remain unfilled?

Cheers

JThompson · Post by **JThompson** » 15 Jul 2009, 01:23

Its not bad enough that we look like clowns because we cant figure out how to count the votes, but now we are going to spend god knows how long arguing about who is right, who is an egotistical ass, who should do what, and all the while we look like idiots.

I cant imagine why ISAF doesnt come running to us asking us to join up. By the time this is done we will be lucky if they will still take us.

Leave the bickering out of this and figure out how to fix it!!!

Jim

RoyL · Post by **RoyL** » 15 Jul 2009, 01:41

Just to prove that a near brush with death really can change a person--I agree 100% with Jim and 90% with Marko. I also promise not to go after Lester no matter how wrong he may be (that's a joke in case anyone has any doubts).

This should be resolved among the affected parties and hopefully in a way that will leave everyone happy. And it should be done quickly. And please, no finger pointing at any of the candidates!

Otherwise we will all suffer.

P.S. Oh, and Marko, I am also trying to be more "Canadian" in my attitude, if you know what I mean eh? I think I'm halfway there already since they just opened a Tim Horton's here in New York City. roy

Roy648 · Post by **Roy648** » 15 Jul 2009, 01:52

Looking at the situation that has resulted it would appear that it may well be appropriate for the new Executive, when finalised, to look at the overall process of NCA voting and in fact how the NCA numbers are arrived at.

NCA "A": Requires annual owner and boat renewal (by way of subscription/levy or even just notification). Only counts owners that have made that renewal.

NCA "B": Operates a 'one off' registration process. No annual update of owners therefore total NCA numbers accumulate year by year regardless of whether the owner is active (and no way of detemining whether owner may in fact be deceased).

NCA "C": Operates a 'one off' for registration but on an annual basis for continued certification.

Under the current Constitution each approach is valid as it does not define how an owner is determined as being "current" and the time limit in the class rules only applies between measurement and certification.

Looking at historical voting strengths (owner numbers) it would appear that some NCAs are operating under the "B" or "C" scenarios above.

It may well be time to formalise voting procedures as a whole so that the current situation is not repeated.

Cheers

Barry Fox CAN262 · Post by **Barry Fox CAN262** » 15 Jul 2009, 04:43

I should refrain from commenting but I'll do it and try to hopefully let you know that something is going on.

There is no re-vote taking place. There is a re-affirmation of what any of NCAs had intended to be done with their votes. As a point of record, the only official day for receipt of votes is June 16th. The request to the NCAs to tell us what their preference for vote distribution is has gone out to all of them with a July 24th deadline. So far not all have responded so until we receive all of those responses or July 24th comes around or something else is decided. That is the process in place.

Although I don't think it will matter, the "2004 Resolutions" may not even have to be invoked. It is conceivable that this will work out without having to reference them.

That these resolutions appear to have been voted on with a one vote per NCA basis is a concern as far as their validity. They look to have passed if you view the poll but that poll was not voted on by the appropriate voting strength of each NCA. I'm not sure there is anyway to find that out. They could be valid but, contrary to a few opinions (and that's all they are as there is no documentation that I can find so far to support that vote count), they are at least questionable.

This also points out that our prime documents haven't been kept up to date. Although you can go hunting and find these individual items, no one should have to. Particularly 5 years after they are voted on.

So my point is that something is happening. It is an independent review. I'm not going to answer anymore because some folks will just need to try to pick at the wound some more. In 10 days or less there will be formal, documented, hopefully indisputable announcements made and we will move on.

Surely, one of the prime efforts of the incoming Exec and the entire WC will be to scour our documents and processes to ensure that we don't have to go through this kind of exercise again any time real soon.

Please let it happen.

CHATIN Achille · Post by **CHATIN Achille** » 16 Jul 2009, 11:02

Whooow! My brain is boiling!

Percentages for each NCA vote, for each person, for IOMICA Bureau !!!! What a mess! I thought majority vote from each NCA was the common way.

I was at the IOMICA AGM in BAR, from the real beginning, together with R BrÃ¨s as we were FRA representatives.
First of all, I was surprised to see only ONE person sitting behind the desk (because he was member of the former Bureau, and re-elected, as he said).
Also, vote results were briefly announced by that elected candidate ; it should be done by a neutral person.
It was my first experience in an IOMICA AGM, so I did not dare to say anything, as I was afraid to say some wrong thing. Nor did I interfere between Alfonso and Bruce.

On my point of view, there is no need to proceed to re-election, only to apply most usual way - majority for each country - to determine elected people : that seems to me the fairest & honnest.

Furthermore, NCAs should not send to IOMICA unclear votes as 50/50 : it is not a position!

RoyL · Post by **RoyL** » 16 Jul 2009, 17:41

Just to clarify a few matters about the AGM in Barbados.

The class rules require that a member of the existing executive chair the AGM.

By default, Bruce Andersen was the only officer in attendance so the job fell to him.

The vote count and results were supplied to Bruce by Anders Wallin, the IOMICA infocoms officer who was responsible for vote collection and tabulation. Anders was not running for re-election.

My understanding was that the meeting was supposed to be longer, but that due to the timing of other events (dinner, etc.), the slot for the AGM was shortened by the Barbados event organizers.

Like a lot of other things, maybe how we run our AGMs needs a re-think.

Barry Fox CAN262 · Post by **Barry Fox CAN262** » 17 Jul 2009, 00:41

I have asked all the members of the World Council, including all of the "current" Exec members (elected or not) to consider declaring the entire recent AGM to be invalid and start over.

For me, I have been placed in a position where no matter what my decisions on a process to follow might be, I am in a complete "no-win" situation. I have stated that in a lengthy letter that I sent to all of your Class Representatives.

I know some of you have very direct pipelines into the various Class Association, Council members and Exec so I will save you the trouble of feeling the need to scold me for my opinion and simply tell you I don't care. For some of you, certainly a small number I would like to think you could find a better way to channel your energy and your sometime lengthy preaching to actually improve the organization and not simply have to be "right.

I'm going to work on my boats, prepare to run a local IOM regatta this weekend (one of many I take the time to do each year), and try not to labour over this completely embarrassing position that has at its root the "management" of the association some number of years ago.

I'll be watching.

RoyL · Post by **RoyL** » 17 Jul 2009, 03:16

Barry: Sometimes with only a few loud voices talking it can seem that the reasoned and reasonable approach you are championing isn't appreciated or welcome. In fact you should know that you are exactly what the class needs at this time and you have a world of support behind you.

I can only urge you to hang on and hope that the rest of the Executive can follow your lead and help us find a solution to this situation that satisfies everyone.

Whether we have a re-vote or a shared or rotating championship or a new election in a year's time or anything else that is agreed upon between the candidates is less important than having all the members of the class feel that the right thing was done and no one was treated unfairly.

Most important--thanks. Bet you never thought it would get this intense this soon. Best wishes. Roy

Hiljoball · Post by **Hiljoball** » 17 Jul 2009, 18:31

I have looked through the documents available online and I think that the problem around how to count the votes stems from the resolution at the 2004 AGM on vote splitting.

http://www.iomclass.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=242

To me, a resolution is like a bylaw. However, anything to do with proportioning votes is a constitutional matter and must be expressed as a constitutional change (and requires a 2/3 majority).

To me, the resolution leading to this problem is 'out of order' and should not be used.

So then the question is "what are we left with"?

I cannot find any reference in the IOMICA constitution that helps. If each NCA wants to vote in a 'first past the post' or in a proportional split, should that not be spelled out in that NCA's own constitution?

In the absence of such documentation, I believe that all of an NCA's votes go to the winner.

I say this in the knowledge that counting the votes this way will cause the election to go to the person that I did not vote for. However, to me resolving the matter democratically is more important than seeing the class torn apart by this internal dissent.

John

Bruce Andersen · Post by **Bruce Andersen** » 17 Jul 2009, 22:07

I think you've focused in on the problem - how NCA votes are to be counted.

Some think that IOMICA should decide how to cast the NCAs' votes based upon how their members vote. As you (and others) have noticed, this is not a power clearly given to the EXEC, and the resolutions to allow it are in question (by some).

Some think that the NCA's should decide how to cast their votes, based upon their practice and policies. I fall into this camp.

Either way, the laws governing our voting system need to be clarified and updated to prevent this from happening again.

How to solve the present situation? Since the NCA's most directly represent the membership, let them decide.

How to do that? Re-submit the votes, specifying how each NCA wants them cast.

What if not enough NCA's participate in this process to reflect the desires of the class?

You could have me and Robert (and Alpohnso and Val) stand down and let the un-opposed members of the EXEC run things while a new election for Chairman and VC Tech is organized.

Lester is calling for an outside moderator to decide - I'd like to think the NCA's are able to do it themselves.

Alfonso · Post by **Alfonso** » 18 Jul 2009, 10:15

Dear owners, this is a passage of the post I have just wrote in the World Council forum:

Alfonso wrote:The second question to solve the second problem is how the Executive Committee should solve this situation? Well, this is the real heart of the problem and in this case we do not have two more questions but two answers (there could be more, but I am just going to explain what IMHO are the two easiest, most logicall and fastest solutions):

The first answer is: Stop the re-count of the votes because taking into account that the Exec already has all the votes that were sent to Anders Walling and according with the precedents of previous elections and Andersâ€™s e mail the Exec can take a decision. Of course this solution is the best for me because in that case I will be the chairman. So let us see the other one.

The second answer is: Everybody knows that the key in this election is GBRâ€™s vote. If they vote proportional Bruce will be the chairman, but if they vote as a block then I will be the chairman.

As I have already explained in the previous topic of this panel I do not agree with this solution, IMHO all the votes of each country should go for one of the candidates and only when the votes of the owners are too close they should be divided equally. But taking into account that we need to find a solution as soon and as fairest as possible I ask the members of the Executive Committee to accept this solution like the right one.

I also urge the GBR NCA representative to declare how the votes of his country should be allocated to finish this situation ASAP.

I am glad to know that Bruce has the same opinion

Bruce wrote:How to do that? Re-submit the votes, specifying how each NCA wants them cast.

So now we just need the answer of the GBR NCA representative and we will have the solution.

Just one comment before we wait for the answer. If I am elected chairman I will run for re-election next year instead in 2011.