Stormy days at AIDA?

[Kimmo]

Hi,

As I am a volunteer to be a candidate of the Aida leader (as I was asked too many times) I published some info about myself + my thoughts and ideas for us. I guess there may be pretty many people who does not know who I am and what I may represent. So feel free to check more in detail my thoughts and what kind of challenges I may see for us in the future. And feel free to give me some comments at these pages as well. This is actually similar approach what You may see in the future (transparency and open communications) if you decide to go this way.

My orginal application

About my goals for Aida NZ

Kimmo Lahtinen, Aida Finland. Known here in DB also with the name,

- kimmo

 

[cebaztian]

The assembly has been very active (awakened at last).

The general idea is that from now on its a clean slate.

"This is the way we always have done it" is not an argument any more.

Everything is up for discussion and votes if necessary.

We are doing a new board vote since the assembly realized that the vote system is open for manipulation (The persons that has the passwords to the first stage voting adress could manipulate votes).

Lots of names applying for positions - and soon more needed for the commissions.

Aida is growing into a more mature organization and no doubt the call of the members will be heard: transparency, accountability, power balance (board- assembly) and maybe even more "power" to the commissions.

As for transparency in the assembly. I think its a good Idea if every single person that has paid membership fee to an aidanational could read. But today you as single members can ask your Aida board if they can send information of what is said in the assembly.

Sebastian

 

[trux]

... But today you as single members can ask your Aida board if they can send information of what is said in the assembly.

Yes, that's right, but that's very impractical for all parties involved:
members need to write to their representatives, and wait for their response, and the leadership would need to process and answer the email, adding just more unnecessary and annoying work to them. We must not forget they are volunteers, with quite limited time they can dedicate to AIDA matters, so the time should be better invested in resolving problems, than answering unnecessary email.

And from the position of a plain member I can tell you it is often quite difficult to get an answer from the executives if you do not know them personally and cannot meet or call them. So if you want to ask a question about uncomfortable matters, you can be practically certain you won't get any answer anyway. And it is rather comprehensible.

In this way, plain members are completely cut off the decisions made on the national and global level, and staying hence passive and uninterested. If members had free, uncomplicated, and instant access to all communication, including disputes and other "negative" aspects of the decisive process, to voting results, to planning, tasks, schedules, and other information available (both on national and global level), they would see much better that the management is a hard work, and might be easier willing to get involved actively to help out with suggestions, or by accepting partial tasks.

By granting real-time read-only access to the Assembly mailing list archive, and to other information channels, you will solve the problem without any effort. Of course, a PR officer who would then encourage all members to actually use the possibility, and who would publish regular newsletters, information bulletins, public opinion polls, etc. would be very welcome too, and I am pretty sure it would get involved actively many more regular AIDA members than it is the case today, where most of us just stay in the passive roles of lurkers, who have no practical possibility to influence anything.

Of course the disadvantage of a democratic approach vs. an autocratic system, is that the decision process if often longer, and full of compromises. There are people preferring autocratic systems, and are happy with their passive roles. But since apparently the autocratic elements were the principal reason of the recent changes at AIDA, I guess there is a general wish to make it more democratic. If we wish it so, we have to accept it even with the disadvantages it represents, and really establish the decompress and transparency.

 

[Jouskari]

Could someone do a clear flowchart (in paint or smthng) of the AIDA organization structure and post it here? I found one on the AIDA site but I don´t think it´s really good.

I mean... I think that many here might not even know how AIDA functions internally and where the positions that are up for voting even exists in the hierarchy.

 

[trux]

Well, the WC is over, so I guess now the focus should be back to this topic. Could we get the read access to the Assembly mail list, so that we do not need to harass our representatives each time we want to check what's new?

The most important question - will we have new election of the entire board, or just for the freed president position? Or will the 2nd candidate automatically get the position? However, since it became apparent that some votes get lost, perhaps doing new election would be better.

And if we have new elections, who can apply for the positions, and how? I received an email from a prominent person that many freedivers respect, who may be possibly interested in taking an active part. So I'd like to know if there is still a way to apply for a position, or whether the elections are already closed, or even perhaps done.

 

[trux]

Could someone do a clear flowchart (in paint or smthng) of the AIDA organization structure and post it here? I found one on the AIDA site but I don´t think it´s really good.

Well, I have no internal knowledge, but would tell that the diagram on AIDA's website is rather correct. You get some better idea if you look at the page http://www.aida-international.org/aspportal1/code/page.asp?ObjectID=47&CountryID=4&actID=3 and view all listed sections. If you combine the diagram together with that information, you get this:

• AIDA International
  • AIDA Assembly Members
    • AIDA Argentina
    • A.F.A. Australia
    • ...
    • ...
    • AIDA Venezuela
  • AIDA Executive Board
    • President
    • Vice-President, EUROPE
      [*]Vice President, NORTH AMERICA
      [*]Vice-President, AFRICA
    • Vice President, SOUTH AMERICA
      [*]Vice President, ASIA
    • Vice President, OCEANIA / PACIFIC
    • Education & Training Officer
    • Secretary
    • Technical Officer
      [*]Treasurer
    • Sport Officer
    
    [*]AIDA International Judges
  • AIDA International Instructors
  • AIDA Educational Commission
  • AIDA Technical Commission
  • AIDA Disciplinary Commission
  • AIDA Staff

 

[Walrus]

Hi Trux,
there is now(as of a few days ago) a voting period to elect a new board, it finishes Wednesday the 16th of December. All candidates are already locked in, it's too late to nominate now. Bill Stromberg is not running for President. I think it was decided to do a revote for all positions as there were some doubts with the voting procedure. Some improvements have been made including voting more directly to the vote counters, and also getting more feedback/confirmations back from them to the AIDA Nationals.

The Regional AIDA VP's(ie Europe, Asia, Oceania) have been scrapped and replaced by a single AIDA VP. That was decided upon by an Assembly vote a few months ago.

Cheers,
Wal

 

[trux]

Thanks, Wal, I appreciate you spent the time to inform us. Could you please inform the Assembly, that we regular members ultimately need the read access to the discussions of the Assembly? AIDA is our association, so it is rather humiliating being treated as kids, and learning about new decisions only once they were already done (if at all), having so no chance to influence the decisions through our representatives.

AIDA is an association of volunteers, and as such it must respect principles of democracy. The free access of citizens to the Parliament, and to other information sources, is the basic pillar of all democracies, so I see absolutely no reason why our Assembly should hide from us what they are speaking about. Please make the Assembly mail list readable as soon as possible. Best immediately.

Please pass this message to the Assembly. It is important.

 

[osusim]

we regular members ... AIDA is our association

I don't think you represent any AIDA members except yourself, not all of that you write is really clever, so don't be pathetic to much and talk from yourself only.

 

[trux]

Yes, Igor, you are right that I am pathetic, and you are likely right that I do not speak for you, but frankly told I do not care. I know, though, that I speak for many others - I get enough feedback privately to be sure of that.

 

[Chrillepille]

Trux, AIDA is an assembly of AIDA nationals. So a person can't be a member of AIDA International. So your only way of getting insight is through your AIDA national. If you want to change this, you have to change the AIDA statutes, but that has to be done through your AIDA national.

Having said that, I also see no harm in making things public. In Sweden alot of different sports federations publish records of every board meeting as well as all info (including financial) for the annual meetings open on the internet and I really don't see the danger in doing so.

Cheers!

 

[trux]

Chrillepille, that's just game of words. Formally it may be correct, but it does not change anything on the fact that AIDA was built by freedivers for freedivers. It is as if you told I am not a citizen of EU, because I am citizen of the Czech Republic, and hence have no right to get informed about what's going on in the EU Parliament.

It is unnecessary wasting of time and resources if each of the national federation publishes reports separately. First of all it always necessarily gets filtered, and transformed (regardless if involuntarily or not), and then it adds unnecessary work load on the involved people, and adds delays. And then, many of us live abroad, and are not in good touch with our home federation. Not speaking about the fact, that the vast majority of national federations simply do not inform their members at all. I know, you tell me it is our problem, and that we should make pressure on them, but why does it have to be necessary, when the solution is so obvious and simple?

 

[osusim]

I get enough feedback privately to be sure of that.

So, roughly speaking, you are frustrated how Czech's AIDA deals with you. May be will be much easy to change them first than jump over theirs heads. :t

 

[trux]

Czech AIDA in fact treats me better than I deserve The people were always lovely to me, despite that they saw me for the first time only in May this year, and I was surprised by their welcome. I simply see no point in harassing them permanently with questions what's going on in the Assembly, when the Assembly discussion may be public in first hand. Besides it the old Czech board resigned due to lack of time, and the new is not in function yet, so it is unlikely to get any answer now anyway.

BTW, what's exactly your argument against opening the Assembly mail list for reading, Igor?

 

[Kars]

Hi Trux,

People all are different, have their sensitive points, have different histories, customs, programming, character. Organisations are not much different.

In general emotional people need time to accept and embrace new ideas. In a way they are emotionally wedded to their current convictions. Divorce is painful, just like accepting that a previous convictions no longer holds true.

Than like you righteously state is the added problem of communication. Not only people write and read not exactly and clearly English, but often unnecessary raise reader's emotional barriers. By adding degenerative and condemning words one increases resistance for understanding and acceptance.

Let's refocus on the topic at hand.

I think on the top of my list is transparency.
First we need to have a complete overview. Otherwise we cannot choose and set a course.

 

[laminar]

The call for a transparent assembly is a fine idea. Likely it won't sit well with everyone.

Definitely the idea of AIDA nationals forwarding on assembly communication to its members is impractical. Our national president has his hands full keeping us all up to date as the Assembly isn't accessible to all of us board members and comes to us through the archaic medium of....email.

So an open forum of discussion would be best. Read only forum thread, for example.

Again, if you want this to happen, it helps to lobby both your AIDA National and anyone else who will listen, including future board members. Especially the new board when it comes into existence and that seems to be the priority right now above all.

One interesting point however is whether it is constructive to have every conversation, idea exchange, discussion, disagreement, and back and forth argument visible for public consumption. That is rarely done as far as I know. Rather, most organizations operate behind closed doors in terms of process until they come to milestones, official consultations, reports, board minutes, votes, etc....

Would be interested to hear the pros and cons of making such exchanges public from you all out of curiosity.

 

[Jouskari]

Would be interested to hear the pros and cons of making such exchanges public from you all out of curiosity.

I don´t think we need to be reinventing the wheel here. A fully open system (with every line of discussion public) is not perhaps the best one. But an more open system is indeed in place.

eg:

Goverments and public work organizations usually have a secretary documenting the decissions made regarding the topics on the agenda. Then they make the memo public. This works very well in our diving club with over 200 members. I think there is no need to document or make public the whole discussion that has led up to a decission. At most, the memo should include who opposed and who was for a certain decission. The memo however should be released with strict regular intervalls (eg once a month).

Edit: And ofcourse the Agenda should always also be visible so that members can ask for topics to be raised onto the agenda.

 

[DivingDane]

i agree that improved transparency is required but i DO NOT believe that EVERYTHING discussed by AIDA board members should be released to the public. many conversations are ment to be private and having public discussions will not help in these matters.

often discussions will enable peole to vent their issues in a closed forum, however if these people believe they are being listened to by the entire community they may not be aas willing to partake.

i believe that if a Member is SOOO driven to know everything about the organisation they would be a perfect candidate for there AIDA national board.

i do agree that major discussions should be released to the public for viewing with the ability for the public to forward their opinion to their AIDA national.

but some conversations are best left behind closed doors and many small ideas which can potentially become great ideas will not be voiced during a public member forum.

DD

 

[trux]

I really see absolutely no reason why the Assembly discussion ought to be hidden, regardless if partially or fully. Letting some secretary or PR officer doing reports of what is being discussed, is obviously plain nonsense - nobody will spend their time on doing it continuously, and properly. In the best case we'll get a press release up and then, perhaps twice a year, where we will be presented with all the glorious successes of AIDA. That's not at all the purpose of an opened democratic system. In such system, all actions of representatives have to be transparent, controllable, and accountable. This is the exact reason why Parliaments are open in all democracies, and why every citizen can not only listen what his representatives are discussing, but also can check how they are voting.

If the discussions are not open without exceptions, how can you guarantee that the national representatives really represent their members? They can tell us whatever they wish, but they can in fact vote and act in the exact opposite than we wish. If we cannot verify it, we have no chance to discover it, and to replace them with people who will respect our opinions better.

So why trying to reinvent the wheel, trying to create some kind of pseudo-democratic system, while letting the democracy out of it, when the solution is known, and easier than anything else. Opening the communication and the vote results costs nothing, requires no additional time from anyone, and requires no additional resources used for it.

I see only positives on it. The only negatives are that the representatives will now really be more careful about what they are telling, and how they are voting, and watch up that they do not piss off their people. And perhaps that we will see more people trying to participate actively and to influence their Assembly member. However, although these "negative" effects are naturally inconvenient for the Assembly members, I don't consider them in fact negative at all. Those are the exact purposes of the measures!

 

[apneaboy]

Trux, join your AIDA National on the board, see how the whole thing operates and then consider taking a role at AIDA International.

Simples