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Posted: 25 Oct 2009, 21:52
by RoyL
Actually, US Sailing regulations currently require that in a US Sailing Championship all members from the US must be US Sailing members. Current membership fee is approximately $60 (I think) each year. Assuming (per Brig) thirty IOM sailors will have to join US Sailing that is $1800 total per year.

As to a change in the dynamic between AMYA and US Sailing, currently AMYA with its approximately 3000 members is not on US Sailing's radar. As I said before, no one knows what will happen between AMYA and US Sailing if we approach them to sanction our US IOM Nationals. Is it possible nothing could change-- sure. Is it also possible that US Sailing will ask that r/c sailors and r/c sailing clubs join US sailing-- yes.

But hey, if you want to play with the big boys, you got to be prepared to follow their rules and pay their fees.

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 00:02
by Brig North
Correct Roy, it's $60 to join US Sailing. What you are saying is that it is possilbe that US Sailing could require all R/C sailors in the United States to join US Sailing in order to allow the US IOM Nationals. Is that possible? Sure, anything is possible (it's possible I could be elected president of the United States, although not likely!). Likely? Not based on how things have been run in the past.

This seems to be an extraordinarily extreme scenario you are putting out there, in my opinion (based solely on my four years of R/C sailing experience).

Brig North
Dallas, Texas USA

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 05:58
by RoyL
Just to end this little dialogue--what I am actually saying is:

(i) that it is likely that all IOM sailors in the United States who want to participate in a US Sailing sanctioned IOM race will have to spend $60 per year to join US Sailing (unless, of course, Brig North volunteers to pay it for them lol); and

(ii) that once US Sailing is asked to sanction a United States IOM National Championship there is more than a remote possibility that it will raise questions within US Sailing about the status and nature of its relationship with AMYA. I am concerned because this is exactly the situation that is being experienced by our friends in both Australia and New Zealand.

And finally, given the popularity of the last President of the United States from Texas, I agree that Brig North being elected President is extremely unlikely (lol).

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 15:37
by jandejmo
Gary Jobson Elected President of US SAILING at Annual General Meeting

“We will not make a US SAILING membership mandatory,â€

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 16:09
by RoyL
Great statement of principal from Gary Jobson, not sure exactly what it means. However, best I can see, the US Sailing regulations (Membership, Section 2) still require a US Sailing membership to participate in major races.

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 18:10
by jandejmo
Gary Jobson has only been in office since Saturday from what I understand :wink:

An opportunity to build bridges?

We almost lost Appendix E at one stage when one of the biggest sailing federations argued that the Appendix had no relevance to ISAF sailing. The request was withdrawn however after a report on the status of radio sailing in various MNA countries and in the MNA country in question in particular.

Jan

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 18:20
by Brig North
Roy,

Let’s look at what you’re saying (I have paraphrased a bit):

1) It’s likely that all US IOM sailors will have to spend $60 per year to join US Sailing. Me: If such is the case, and all US IOM sailors have to join, will they still have to join AMYA? Under your scenario, the AMYA will have been stripped and US Sailing will hold all the cards. The cost to belong to AMYA is $35 annually. Is not the net increase under your “worst caseâ€

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 19:18
by Roy648
Far From it Brig far from it.

So far 32% of our members have voted and at least another 5% expected in the mail today.

It will close early to allow travel to our Marblehead Champs, and of course we are ahead of you anyway in time zones.

From the looks of things the USA vote stalled a couple of weeks ago what % of members?

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 20:29
by Brig North
Roy,

Yes, there has not been much activity on the US voting front. We are at 18%, alas.

I assumed your polls were closed when you said that voting in NZL was 100% against affiliation. I didn't take into account "currently." I was looking at the post through the glasses of how US presidential elections are held. The contiguous 48 states are in four different time zones, so what happened in the past was that there was concern that by releasing polling numbers from the east coast while voting was still occurring on the west coast, the east coast numbers were influencing the vote. Hence, the poll numbers come out pretty close to the same time, so that this perceived undue influence will not be an issue. But again, my mistake as I was looking at things through this prism. And also, we have the same issue in the IOM class here as the numbers are posted on an ongoing basis.

I admire y'all for having such a great turnout! This is an important issue, and it's awesome to see democracy in action.

Sincerely,

Brig North

Posted: 26 Oct 2009, 21:37
by Roy648
Thank you Brig for your compliments with respect to our turnout.

Before anyone jumps down my throat the current vote is under the current structure – end of story.

Your response does however bring out the wider issue of how voting within IOMICA is structured and whether or not it is democratic.

Should the USA vote remain stalled it is possible that the NZL number of votes will end up within one or two of the USA vote. Yet USA will get 50% more NCA votes than NZL, is that democratic?

Please, do not take this as knocking USA for its turnout, I know how hard it is to get people to spend 2 minutes. Prior to the current NZL Council taking office NZL was lucky to get a 10% turnout.

I do believe that is time to seriously look at how votes are cast at the ICA level.

I fully understand the difficulty larger NCAs have in contacting and activating all its members. However, if sufficient effort is made to inform and prod owners turnout can be improved, the AUS and GBR current number of votes would tend support this compared with previous votes.

Perhaps a hybrid system whereby the current “populationâ€

Posted: 27 Oct 2009, 23:17
by Alfonso
Hi Roy648,

Regarding your post of October 23th. I would like to make the following comments:

First, it is true that probably the type of affiliation between the NCAs or the DMs and the MNA may be different from country to country, but if you realized that this could be a problem for the IOM owners of your country, why did you wait 77 days to inform us? May be we could have tried to find a solution with ISAF and YNZ.

Therefore I have the feeling that the economic issue is not really the problem. If you would have wanted to affiliate ISAF we could have found a solution for this problem, so the real reason should be different, probably the same than others have said more clearly: let us stay all the radiosailing classes together because we are not strong enough. This makes more sense taking into account that you are the main nominator of all the members of the future RSD PC.

Second, when you make the cost approach to the problem I think you forgot the other side of the coin. What about the profits? I don't know what would you get if you affiliate YNZ, but let me give you a few examples of what I get when I affiliate my MNA: a life, medical and liability insurance, subsidies for the organization of the ranking events, subsidies for travelling to the international events, training with a national trainer, seminars for umpires and judges...

So may be is also worthy to approach your MNA and know what you get for your 60$ and then make the balance.
Roy648 wrote:Your response does however bring out the wider issue of how voting within IOMICA is structured and whether or not it is democratic.
My question is and what about RSD? Is it democratic RSD? Is the next PC going to do something about it?

Posted: 27 Oct 2009, 23:50
by Brig North
Roy,

Since you mentioned me by name in your most recent message, I thought I might reply, at least as it pertains to voting percentages. I appreciate that you chose not to bash the Good Ole USA too much in your post!

I won’t address whether the current format of voting in the IOM class meets the definition of democracy. But here is some information I have gathered:

We are at 19.5% response now, as of October 27, 2009.

You say that your country will end up well north of 37%. Even if you peaked at 37%, it is certainly greater than 19.5%, that is for sure, and anything greater is gravy!

You also state that prior to the assumption of leadership by the current council in your country, the turnout was around 10%. So even if you got to only 37%, if that is where y'all end up, that is very, very commendable!

What I would ask is that before we go overboard on the turnout of the USA and whether it meets the definition of democracy, that we look around at the response from other countries. For instance, the Australians have an open, active forum, and Mr. Ken Dobbie (your co nominee for RSD) gives voting figures for the Australian NCA’s past elections. This post is from the Australian forum on October 16, 2009:

Don't trust "informed" sources

Our best return was 49 in 2006, the worst 37 for the 2009 WC Meeting which by the way had the longest lead time for voting.

Our vote is running in the high 40's as of this morning so I would expect a final result of 60 plus. Still not a good result but we see the same patterns in local goverment elections where voting is also non compulsory.

Ken
IOM NCA Representative – Australia

That post if from two weeks ago, and unlike the US forum, there isn’t a running total of votes. But if we assume Mr. Dobbie’s estimate is correct, if we go with the current Australian member count of 486 members, and if we assume voter turnout to be 70 (at least as great as Mr. Dobbie’s 60+ estimate), doesn’t that put Australia’s return at 14.4%? The US, then, would have a better turnout as a percentage of its members, correct?

Two of your co nominees for RSD, Roy, are from the US, those being Roy Langbord and Bruce Andersen. Apparently their efforts to turn out the vote in the US (despite several “good old college triesâ€

Posted: 28 Oct 2009, 00:28
by Ken Dobbie
Brig North wrote:
That post if from two weeks ago, and unlike the US forum, there isn’t a running total of votes. But if we assume Mr. Dobbie’s estimate is correct, and if we go with the current Australian member count of 486 members, and if we assume voter turnout to be 70 (at least as great as Mr. Dobbie’s 60+ estimate), doesn’t that put Australia’s return at 14.4%? The US, then, would have a better turnout as a percentage of its members, correct?
The AUS vote as of this morning was 107 which is more than double our previous best and a better % return than the USA. I guess in this case there is an issue that our members feel strongly about. The smaller the NCA, the greater the opportunity to encourage all members to vote and I certainly wouldn't regard a 50% return from a NCA with say 60 members as a good result.

I am not aware of any NCA other than the USA who provided progressive voting details. Bad in my view as the results are able to influence swinging voters. Why go against the trend?

In Brig's posts he makes several references to candidates in the forthcoming RSD elections with the inference that there is some ulterior motive to their posts on this forum. Brig, let me assure you that my motive is nothing more than to see RSD return to its former position as an organisation which actively looked after the interests of all radio sailors.

Posted: 28 Oct 2009, 01:25
by Brig North
Dear Mr. Dobbie:

Y'all have it goin' on! And you're absolutely right that the numbers go up when people have more passion about a subject. And at the end of the day, that, in my opinion, is the answer to all Roy G. mooted regarding whether the voting is a reflection of democracy. The subject is flat more important to some than others, and hence, some subjects get more voters out. The "hot button" for one group may not be that for another group. The challenge to a leader is to balance all of those issues, some of which are more important to some people than others.

I salute you and your NCA for a turnout exceeding your expectations!

Regarding the RSD nominee references, that is a statement of fact. The people cited are RSD nominees and will hold important positions when the new RSD comes into being shortly.

Sincerely,

Brig North
Dallas, Texas, USA

Posted: 28 Oct 2009, 02:04
by RoyL
I'm surprised that our Chairman is claiming that the first time he heard of a possible problem between various NCAs and their local big boat sailing authorities was a few days ago from Roy G.

Australia has been talking about this problem for over a year. I am pretty sure this was even discussed at the start of this thread.

I'm also not sure how it could be claimed that if the Executive had known of this problem earlier, perhaps something could have been done in its talks with ISAF. First, the Executive filed the application to join ISAF only a week after it took office and to the best of my knowledge didn't consult with the NCAs on the World Council before taking this step. Second, Lester Gilbert (speaking on behalf of the Executive I assume) stated rather definitively that there were no negotiations with ISAF.

Let me urge again, that our Executive's first responsibility is to listen to the class and try to respond to their needs. Blaming an NCA doesn't build bridges, it creates discontent.

Finally, how did this become a question of IOMICA vs. RSD? I've always believed the question was whether or not we had the right deal with ISAF. I don't think we have done all our homework and have the best deal possible. RSD has nothing whatsoever to do with that issue.

Posted: 28 Oct 2009, 09:46
by Roy648
Hi Alfonso,
May be we could have tried to find a solution with ISAF and YNZ.
It would be enlightening to know who the "we" are who will be able to take YNZ, probably one of the most successful NMAs by head of population, by the scruff of the neck and convince them they should treat the IOM better than they do other ISAF classes.

Posted: 28 Oct 2009, 21:32
by Alfonso
Hi Roy648,

When I said we I was thinking in the Exec and NZL RSD of course.

I agree with you that YNZ is probably one of the most successful NMAs by head of population, although if you have a look to the Sailing Medal Tally in the last Olympics http://www.sailing.org/olympics/ and then you make the ratio by the number of licences you will find that ESP is not very far away. :wink:

Well but the point here is that MNAs, as a difference from ISAF, treat the different classes in a different way depending on many reasons. Just let me give you an example, do you know the 29er class?, this boat may cost more than 6.000 USD brand new, well now in ESP some people can buy this boat for almost half of the price or even sail one for free during a period of time. With this example I just wanted to explain you that may be there were a solution for NZL problem, but of course if there is no real intention of studying different possibilities is impossible.

Posted: 01 Nov 2009, 18:14
by Barry Fox CAN262
The meeting has been closed and the results tabulated.

The full results will be posted on the web page shortly.

Three NCAs did not submit Owner Lists by the time limit imposed. Of the 21 NCAs eligible to submit votes, 20 submitted their vote counts by the deadline of 11:59 PM, PDT, October 31. All 6 Executive Council members submitted their votes. It is necessary that the resolution receive a 2/3rd majority vote in order to gain approval and satisfy the conditions applied to Special Resolutions.


The results of the vote are:

Yes – In Favour of the Motion 37 47%
No – Opposed to the Motion 42 53%

The motion is defeated.

Posted: 02 Nov 2009, 14:33
by Alfonso
According with the minute of the last AGM the job of the Exec was:

“Task incoming IOMICA Exec with investigating affiliating with ISAF as an international class. The Exec will bring these data to the WC for discussion and vote prior to a final commitment regarding ISAF affiliationâ€