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Perfuming the pig...

Posted 9 months, 3 days ago

Perfuming the pig...
There's an old saying that if you were to design an animal by committee, then you would end up with a camel so it's with some interest that I opened Scuttlebutt this morning to read the diatribe against Andy Rice and people making "points of order." The problem is that the points of order are exactly the root cause of the problem. Listen to this: "We also advised the President that it is for the Executive Committee alone to decide if a submission is urgent. It is not correct that the Constitution Committee advised that the selection issue is not urgent. We did not address that question. It was not our place to do so." Oh for goodness sake. Can't you see that this is exactly where sailing stalls head to wind? "Not me Guv'nor...if it's not on the agenda we can't mention it!" Absolute nonsense! And then I took a look at the ever hilarious ISAF website to try and find out just how stuffed to the gills with committees our governing body is - it is absolutely astounding! There's the ISAF Council, audit committee, development committee, events committee, match racing committee, race officials committee, regional games committee, executive committee, constitution committee, equipment committee, ISAF classes committee, offshore committee, racing rules committee, windsurfing committee, review board committee and even archive committees! Then you have at least 19 working parties with committee-style panels and heaven-knows how many sub-committees.... Goldman Sachs doesn't even have that much governance and they've got real teeth in the banking world. ISAF is a toothless entity stuffed to the gills with 'yes' men whose decision making ranks with George Bush and Tony Blair. And then when anyone says anything, they all run around writing into blog sites making "points of order" and saying that "biased and inaccurate postings aren't constructive"...well excuse me, cramming as many retirees as possible onto committees to debate the price of peas is hardly "constructive." Look at the dull Olympics, look at the cowboys banning people from sailing on lakes in Switzerland, look at the furore every time the word ISAF is mentioned, look at the boring stuck-in-the-60's courses and did I mention how dull the Olympics is...You can't perfume the pig. ISAF needs a massive streamlining.... Full Story »

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