@ Al – They are indeed visiting regularly. We can see repeat visitors from people who left comments praising the SNZ board, since their IP addresses don’t lie. I maintain the site and read its analytics statistics, and their repeat visits (daily) amuse me.

@ Hurf Durf – Quite, and we have been focusing on strong gestures, but I’m also the sole recipient of the bile that pours of this site’s comments section. In other words, all the comments, approved or rejected, go to my email. We publish most of them, but not all – some things really can’t be printed.

I like knowing that the people who made the most outlandish accusations about this site and its author come back and read about the regions’ proactive affirmation of that which they so mindlessly attacked.

There is nothing productive about either side – those who support Swimming New Zealand to the letter, or those who find their management deplorable – calling each other illiterate or retarded, so I do very much enjoy publishing comments that contribute to the solution.

Now, as a tired Londoner, I am getting offline and turning off my TV too, because I’ve seen enough conflict for one week :) All further comments approved after 9am BST tomorrow morning :p No rioting or looting in the mean time, please.

Jane, as a tired Londoner you do nice work regardless. Keep up the ideas and facts.

Surely the letter sent to SNZ by eight Regions amd the Coaches/Teachers Assn has been the subject of a direct reply to them by SNZ?

If NOT, they have been insulted by Coulter, his Bd and their trusty advisors.
If the notice of meeting that you set out here is the only response by SNZ then swimming in godzone has reached an all-time low. The effort the SNZ Board puts into its scheming (for holding power; for vindication) is greater than the effort they ever put into leadership or good governance! Thank God that the Ineson report will always be there to testify to that.

I sometimes think that extravagant langauge gets in the way of the message but this time I say David’s comments about Coulter are right on the mark.

Like Swimwatch I have commented before about \independence\. Murray Coulter smuggly claims that Kerry McDonald and Nelson Cull will be INDEPENDENT faciliators. What rubbish. They both attend at SNZ board meetings. They have done so before the date of the Ineson report. They provide \advice\ to the board. They have been involved in what is in fact an attempt to re-engineer the natural consequences that flow from the Ineson report.

SNZ management has a habit of using the \independent\ label. They say they have two “independent directors”. That is a fancy distinction about the basis of appointment – what they mean is that Ross Butler and Jane Wrightson were appointed to their positions by the SNZ board itself, as opposed to board members being elected through the membership. Would anyone in their right mind accept that Butler or Wrightson exercised \independent\ judgement and thereby stood out aginst fellow direectors in their collective failures of governance?

Now, concerning Nelson Cull. He was a party to setting up that hp governance committee, the SNZ reaction to the brutal reality of Chris Ineson’s work. In fact Nelson Cull is on that very committee! How in good conscience could Murray Coulter say he has two independent facilitators then!!?

In part its because he and his hangers-on feel superior to folk from the regions.

Remember that the eight regions and the coaches association said to SNZ they reject the board’s decision-making in face of the Ineson report. Okay then, they reject the bullshit hp governance committee that I have talked about before on your site.

That committee is led by SNZ Vice President, Ross Butler – the very board member who was in charge of governance in SNZ for years before the SPARC review. Why did Nelson Cull and Kerry McDonald, as the two SPARC policemen, see fit to let the SNZ Vice President into what is supposed to be a clean up? How could Ross Butler chair the group that is looking down the barrel of that damming report? He couldn’t. As has been said, it is a rear-guard operation; to save face and to save jobs.

At the very least the hp governance committee had to be independent and objective (since the SNZ CEO is retained during this committee’s activities.) It is not independent and objective – it has two SNZ board members on it as well as Nelson Cull who was advising the SNZ before the time that the SPARC review came out. (So two of the five on the committee seriously conflicted and one questionable – an advisor with previous links to the board.)

Unfortunately the Ineson report has in it material that made room for a follow up group. That avenue has been fully exploited by the board. They say they are fixing the problems – but on any objective assessment they have created a mechanism to mess around with the Ineson issues. Their own material shows this. The new hp governance committee is supposed to \identify and remove barriers\ in high performance regarding London 2012. OMG – that was Chris Ineson’s brief – the problems were identified fully in June and the clock is ticking.

Who in their right mind would want SNZ to rework the issues, which is what hp governance has been trying to do? At the heart of Ineson’s report was the message that some people had to go – instantly – to give the swimmers a fighting chance at improving in time.

The eight regions who have requisitioned change – and been faced with this sidewind meeting being Coulter’s attempt to diffuse the bomb – have said (publicly now its on the Swimwatch site) that two months have passed without proper action and they will not let the SNZ board simply re-arrange the deck chairs… for themselves and their staff.

Unfortunately the advisors to SNZ – Nelson Cull and Kerry McDonald – appear to have sided with the incumbents since June 2011. Did they protest the flawed scheme to set up the Ross Butler sideshow that is called \hp governance committee\ ? No!

Therefore given that the letter by the eight regions and coaches association is critical of the SNZ handling of the Ineson report, the so-called faciliators are implicated in the subject matter of the letter.

No; those going to the meeting ought not be \guided\ by so called INDEPENDENT facilitators.

Jane, different IP address, eh? Different computer.
I’ve moved to HK and lost some very important email address – can you please let me have David’s? I know its something to do with d and kiwi or nz or something but I can’t remember it and it doesn’t auto-fill on my google account.
Thanks.
Swimwatch is fun at the moment, isn’t it?

Clive

OK, so apparently Tania Black (General Manager of Everything) has re-emerged from nowhere and emailed everyone with the great news that we all needed to watch Coulter on TV3 News tonight. Problem is, I don’t think anybody told her what it was about!

http://www.3news.co.nz/Swimming-NZ-faces-troubled-waters/tabid/317/articleID/221869/Default.aspx

Dipstick!!

Bronwen Radford for President

Well done Mrs Radford. You are a true gem. And too, the regions that have fronted up in support, but no surprises which regions have taken the lead.

I thought your letter was generous but firm, conciliatory but resolute, and demonstrated the type of integrity that has been so lacking in our governing body.

But oh dear, Murray, you really need to learn to put a sock in it.

This is what he had to say on the TV: “At the end of the day some of us may have to go rather than all of us , that may be an option.”

Actually Murray, you no longer hold the cards, and in case you haven’t figured it out already, you are in no position to negotiate. And if you are still “struggling to put your finger on it”, I would suggest this letter has well and truly done it for you. The message is simple: step down with effect from the AGM, unless you wish to continue, in which case, go through the election process like everyone else and let the stakeholders decide who deserves their confidence. a new mandate of confidence.

But to the Magnificent Nine (Bay of Plenty, Southland, Auckland, Canterbury, Taranaki, Manawatu, Nelson Marlborough, Hawkes Bay/Poverty Bay, NZSTCA) –
DON’T BE FOOLED on Sunday. SNZ’s job will be to divide and rule, as it has always been. Their weaselly letter in reply has already set out their agenda of setting clubs up against regions, regions against regions. They are twisting this around by effectively saying, we’ll just put you all in a room and you can fight it out amongst yourselves. DON’T BE FOOLED. Mrs Radford is right. It will be nothing other than a bitch session if SNZ have their way. You cannot allow this to happen, nor be bullied by their “independents”. Frankly, it should be the shortest meeting you all attend.

There is nothing to discuss, nothing to negotiate, nothing to vote on. It is simple and contained in a little 2-page document. DON’T BE FOOLED and do not allow them to turn the tables. Remember, you have the cards!

Mustapha – excellent. I must say, that it didn’t occur to me to check the membership numbers, and yes, I think you are right. Some of the regions have been very busy indeed. Hahahahaha

So if memory serves me right, a region can’t have more than 25% of the vote, so that means that Auckland have 25%. Is that right? Well done! So they have finally woken up to what every other region has been doing for years to boost their numbers by putting in their non-competitives. But just imagine how many they would have if ALL their club/swim-schools put their numbers in. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT.

So basically SNZ are buggered.

Tom, I agree. Leaving things to the AGM is too late. That is what SNZ wants.

We already know that the sport has failed and it has been a failure of leadership. What more are we going to learn about that by waiting for the AGM. What other excuses are we going to discover next month?

The solution, surely, is in the quality of the people. My reading of this letter is that it is all about TRUST and CONFIDENCE in the leadership, and I cannot imagine for a minute that those regions who have signed have not already discussed amongst themselves candidates to put forward for election. They clearly have their cards very much close to their chest. But I most certainly know who I would prefer to back at the moment, and it isn’t the incumbents.

No, things are not going to be solved overnight, but the issue is one of having a mandate to govern, and this Board does not have that, irrespective of whether there may be individuals who have contributions still to make. In my view, to not have done the right thing months ago shows there is a collective paralysis that pre-determines failure.

At the moment, my money is on Mrs Radford, a solid, grass-roots, straight-shooter, who has being around a very long time in this sport and without exception is held in very high regard. As another blogger has posted: Bronwen Radford for President.

You’re right Chris. It is important to manage expectations of what Bronwen and the co-signed regions can achieve. There is no silver bullet here. SNZ requires a large-scale cultural change. That will take time, and it will not be easy. However, I do believe that she, and the many competent people from the regions, have the potential to point SNZ on the right course.

Further to the comments made by Maryann Corrigan, while it is true that SNZ requires an alternative course of action, surely sticking with the current leadership in no course of action at all.