Hi!
From another poster in another thread:
Quote:
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I used to be on my division's board, but the politics turned much uglier than I was willing to deal with.
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This matches a sentiment that I have read many times over here on f.net, and observed IRL.
Fencing leadership seems to attract more than its fair share of people who want to be in a position of power for the
wrong reasons. Two typical versions of that, but by no means an exhaustive list, are:
1. Parent of fencer who runs for office, intent on furthering the interests of the fencer/child to the exclusion of all other goals.
2. Club leader who runs for office in order to be in a position to steer local resources towards his club, first and foremost.
I am sure that you can fill in more examples.
That kind of people - unconsciously or not - treat fencing organizations as a cupboard full of resources, which are there for them to take for themselves. Left unchecked, they will run any organization into the ground.
However, the pool of potential candidates is often quite small, so anyone who puts in some effort has a quite good chance of getting elected/selected for some kind of post.
Instead, I want to have people elected which have the best for the organization for their eyes, and are capable of recognizing that there are some possible actions which will help their child/club/group/whatever in both the long and short term,
while at the same time hurt fencing as a whole in the long term. Furthermore, I want them to choose the 2nd action in such cases.
Enough of the problem background. Now for the question:
How should one do in order to discourage that kind of resource-grubbers from running in the first place, and if they get elected, make it difficult for them to create damage? At the same time, possible candidates which look to the big pictures should be encouraged to run for office. Ideally, the organizational structure should simultaneously discourage the former while encourage the latter.
Can anyone come up with an already existing elected body which is strongly resistant to pork-barrel tactics? If so, why did it work out that way in that organization? What can be adapted and/or copied by fencing organizations?
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson