IRSA elections, CEEFIE January news

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Lester
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IRSA elections, CEEFIE January news

Post by Lester » 30 Jan 2014, 08:57

We recently circulated a newsletter to the IRSA DNM Electors from Graham Bantock and Lester Gilbert regarding the IRSA EC elections. IOM sailors might find it interesting.

Dear IRSA DNM
We thought you might find it helpful to hear from us, as we are candidates for the IRSA Executive Committee. We have decided to send an e-mail "newsletter" to you (which we will also post on radio sailing forums and web sites), and explain this decision below.

No access to the DNM Forum

The IRSA EC has refused to give election candidates access to the GA 2014 part of the DNM Forum. We would have preferred to have an open discussion with you, rather than e-mailing you in this way. We asked the IRSA Executive if election candidates could have access to the "official" DNM Forum. Our reasoning was that external candidates otherwise have no "official" way to contact the DNM electors and engage in discussion and explanation. We note that existing IRSA officers who are "internal" candidates do have privileged access to this Forum, where they can see and discuss issues which DNM representatives might want to raise. We were disappointed to be refused access, and you can read the reasons given by the IRSA EC under the "News" tab here

http://www.radiosailing.org/main/admini ... 4-main.htm.

So we would ask you, if there is anything in this newsletter that you would like to comment on or question, or indeed if there is any other matter, please feel free to contact us. lg11@soton.ac.uk, and/or graham@sailsetc.com.

Seeking a range of candidates

It is always important to have a range of candidates at an election, so that genuine choices can be made about people, proposals, and policies. We are seeking other candidates for the IRSA Executive Committee. This is the letter of invitation we will send, and it expresses our philosophy of how we want the IRSA EC to work. If you know of anyone who might wish to join with us, we would be very pleased to hear from you or them!

"Dear XXXX, you will have heard about CEEFIE (the Committee for the Election of an Effective IRSA Executive) and our concern to make IRSA more effective. To this end Lester Gilbert is standing for Chairman of IRSA and Graham Bantock for Chairman of the Technical Committee. But we cannot do the best job on our own and will need help. We ask if you would agree to be nominated as a candidate for election to the IRSA Executive Committee? We know that you, like most people active in our sport, are probably already busy. We feel we are busy enough already too, but we are also concerned enough about the lack of proper management of our sport to want to do something about it in a practical way. Busy people tend to be better at getting difficult tasks done and good management should minimise wasted time and maximise the impact. That is the way we want to work and we want to work alongside others who are supportive of each other's efforts."

January IRSA “Press release”

The January 2014 IRSA "Press Release" can be found here

http://www.radiosailing.org/document-fi ... y_2014.pdf

Rather than a general document setting out IRSA news, it seems that it is an election response from internal candidates Fairbanks, Rowan, and Hobbs to the CEEFIE manifesto. We notice that it acknowledges many of the issues raised by CEEFIE, and we entirely agree that much time and effort ("enormous hours of work" and "many e-mails") has undoubtedly been spent by the EC on matters such as an IRSA Constitution. The facts are, however, that the Constitution is essentially unchanged from 2003 except that "RSD" has been replaced by "IRSA", and that the Regulations remain unchanged at their 2003 version and still talk about RSD.

The "press release" emphasises that the IRSA EC comprises volunteers, and suggests that it is in the inevitable nature of volunteering that matters become delayed, additional difficulties emerge, and the work load increases. Our point of view is to the contrary. There is nothing about volunteering which brings delay and difficulty, and we do not agree that volunteering provides an acceptable excuse for such delay and difficulty. Instead we feel that, with the right volunteers, there is no reason why committee work cannot be done to the highest of standards and with minimum delay.

IRSA EC attempting to suppress Bantock nomination

While Lester's nomination by the MYA has been accepted by the IRSA EC, there is currently an attempt by the IRSA Executive to refuse Graham's nomination. The IRSA EC have said that the "nomination by the MYA is inappropriate" because of the "conflict of interest between the nominated role of Technical Officer and his business activity". We have looked through the IRSA Constitution and Regulations to see where a nomination can be refused by IRSA, and it seems that Clause 7.3 of the Constitution applies: "Any individual, in good standing with his Member, is eligible to be nominated for the Executive Committee." We hope that the IRSA EC will refer to its own Constitution when deciding whether a nomination is acceptable or not.

http://www.radiosailing.org/document-fi ... n_2012.pdf

CEEFIE manifesto summary

Finally, we would like to outline the key CEEFIE manifesto issues for a future IRSA.

Transparency: We seek to make IRSA and the activities of the EC and the IRSA Committees public and transparent.
Class administration: IRSA is responsible for the M, 10R, and A, and we seek a committee for each class which will operate as an international class association. In addition, we actively seek applications for recognition from other classes which are raced internationally.
Rules administration: We seek to introduce procedures to yield the kinds of rules that radio sailors want, including the effective management of the four-year cycle of Appendix E changes.
IRSA EC structure: We seek to move from a regional representation system to a class based representation system, as noted above. We seek to introduce long-needed committees for 'Events' and for 'Information and Communications'.
Lester Gilbert
http://www.onemetre.net/

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