HEY EA DIRECTORS, REMEMBER THE MEMBERS

So, the voting is over and theoretically we have an EA board which may or may not be the same as we had before the elections.

When will we know the results? It is my understanding that the EA does not have to announce the results until the Annual General Meeting on 15 November 2024.

I personally voted for Ron Fleming and Nicholas Ballard as I felt they would bring a little more balance to the board and also encourage financial modelling of just how this transition to a discipline model was going to work.

It doesn’t matter who got in and who did not now. We all just have to go forward. I have historical worries about the two things that the EA seems to be committed to at the moment.

UPDATE: Ned Coten, Chair of the Nominations Committee for Equestrian Australia (a volunteer role), reached out to Equestrian Life on 10 November to clarify the role of the Committee:

“The Nominations Committee follows the Constitution of Equestrian Australia and operates under a rigorous Nominations Committee Charter. Our process is thorough, impartial, and based on a detailed skills matrix to evaluate each candidate, provided they meet all timelines and submission criteria. We report objectively, respecting all individuals who generously volunteer their time and expertise.

“In contested elections, our role is not to “eliminate” candidates but rather to ensure that anyone on the ballot is legally eligible and meets a basic standard to contribute meaningfully. We encourage diverse views and value varied perspectives on the Board to support comprehensive decision-making. The Board, importantly, has no input or influence on this process. The criteria and guiding documents we follow were established as part of the restructuring approved by members during the Voluntary Administration process for Equestrian Australia.”

Also, the board is made up of nine members. Board members are due for re-election after two to three years in office. Only four of the nine board members are elected by us the ordinary members and that is, of course, if our nominations get through the review committee. This being the case, the EA board can never be challenged by us the ordinary members.  

“We don’t see how an organisation can be member focussed when it is totally undemocratic. EA’s constitution provides that only four of its nine directors are elected by its members. The remaining five directors are all appointed by the board itself. This structure guarantees that only those who share the views of the board, will ever form a majority of the board. It is self-evident that a majority of the board would only appoint a new member who shares that majority’s view on major issues.” – David Permezal, Facebook post, 19 October 2024

So, you can see that George Sanna enthusiastically embracing the positive outcome of the VA process that lets all 20,000 EA members vote for who they would like on the EA board is not as straightforward as it might sound. Let me be very clear on this: in my view, the VA and the ASC’s effort to restructure EA did not do one positive thing for us, the EA members.

So, bearing this in mind, you have to ask: is this restructure possible? And the next question is: will this restructure deliver the answers that George seems so confident that it will? George did point out that the only High Performance (HP) disciplines to receive HP money were Para-Dressage and Eventing. At the 2024 Paris Olympics our highest placed team was the Dressage team coming 10th who George pointed out got no HP money. Our next placed team was Para-Dressage who were funded by HP. They came 12th. Then Eventing and Show Jumping as teams both came 15th. Eventing being HP-funded and Show Jumping not.

So, George seemed to think that getting more money for the disciplines would make a big difference to the standards. Realistically, I think not.

I think the standard of administration impacts directly on the standards of the Australian riders. Money or no money. The Eventers did win gold medals long before they received any HP money. The Para-Dressage team won gold medals before they received any HP money.

Is this restructure really going to deliver the answers that the current EA is hoping for?

2. IMPLEMENTING A NEW IT PLATFORM FOR ME IS A WORRY.

Again, this is not the first time that EA has embarked on this project.

“Historically the EA has launched enormous efforts and funds into developing its own IT platform. It was called the Equinect effort in 2010 and the CEO was Grant Baldock. Again, this initiative lasted for two years and cost EA members something like $1.3 million. It was catastrophic and it finished in 2012 with the software being taken to the dump and thrown out. In that effort, we were trying to develop software called SharePoint.” – Ryan’s Rave, October 2024

The majority of the EA board is from the Show Jumping discipline, which is part of the Riders for Reform movement dating back to the VA days. The Show Jumping discipline has a distinct dislike for the Nominate platform and will use Global Entries and Equipe for competitions. The board of nine directors are currently representative of six Show Jumpers and three board members from other interests as far as I can see it. So the majority of the EA board is not comfortable with Nominate and seem to be hell-bent on replacing it.

The Dressage discipline and Para-Dressage and organising committees have a very different viewpoint on Nominate, and I quote Stasi Grovenor from the Organising Committee of the Young Dressage Club which is quite a leader in the country.

Stasi enthuses that scoring on a tablet in Australia is possibly more advanced than anywhere in the world. Under the direction of EA, Nominate has developed technology as a result of feedback from organising committees that the live scoring function now has the ability to be disabled. This technology ensures that scores are not published until the new Stewarding Gear Check Clearance has been completed. There is a new app called Live Scores Steward which enables gear check stewards to communicate with judges in live time. The Live Scores Steward app allows stewards to send photos and explanations to the C judge on what has occurred at gear check when a situation demands the attention of the judges. The Live Scores Steward app and the Nominate scoring app are connected to each other. Scores will not be published until the C judge has reviewed the information received by the gear check stewards immediately after the last test has been completed. Until now, this process could take hours to complete.  

So, these two disciplines of Dressage and Eventing together have 10,386 licences which is nearly double the Show Jumping number. The board is supposed to be democratic and looking after the majority. That does not mean I think the Show Jumpers should be disadvantaged, but it certainly makes me think that talking to Nominate and trying to improve the system so that the Show Jumpers become more comfortable could be the most sensible initial step forward. This would also be hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper.

Switching to a discipline model and introducing a new IT platform does come back to a single common denominator – which is saving money. I feel cruel to point this out, but the EA did make a loss of $645,878 in this last financial year (2023-24). That is over half a million dollars. Most of the states, if not all, actually managed to finish in the black. EA as of this moment clearly does not have its house in order and a board should have been on top of a pending financial disaster long before it appeared at the end of the financial year. I am sure there are mitigating circumstances and I am sure I am being cruel here, but this is still a very valid point. How is the EA going to run Australia and all of the states if it cannot look after itself?

WHAT ABOUT TERRITORIANS & SOUTH AUSSIES?

Just before I go, I have two other thoughts which I am struggling to come to terms with. There are 163 EA members in the Northern Territory. They are not allowed to vote even though they pay a full EA membership. EA has scheduled a Special General Meeting to deal with this issue immediately after the AGM on 15 November. The trouble with a Special General Meeting is that you need 5 per cent of the membership to form a quorum. That is just over 1000 people. EA is advertising that we have 22,000 members. Anyway, there is no chance that we can register 1000 people, in my opinion, at this Special General Meeting. This is crazy. Since I last looked, the Northern Territory people look just like every other EA member in every other state. The last time I thought about this I definitely came to the conclusion that we are all Australian. This is just crazy. For goodness sake. We only have 163 people up there in the Northern Territory who pay full membership money to the EA and they are not recognised as members. That is a disgrace.

Secondly, the taking over by EA of South Australia has been done badly in my opinion. EA has moved the Equestrian South Australia (ESA) AGM to Mount Gambier, which is 400km from Adelaide where most ESA members live. Talking to South Australians, no one can ever remember the AGM being held anywhere but in Adelaide. Of course, the AGM this year is where EA is going to take over the running of the state. For me, this is disgraceful. I think implementing the restructure is going to be very, very difficult. That, in my opinion, does not mean we should stoop to tactics which are less than fair.

Anyway, just who got in and who didn’t will be very interesting. If Christie and Lucy have been re-elected, I think they are real intellectual athletes and I think they are much tougher than anyone out there really realises. I think they can achieve things that the ASC couldn’t and the administrators couldn’t, but I’m not sure they know exactly how they are going to do it yet. They are backing themselves and if ever we have had war-time leaders appear on the EA front, I think both Lucy and Christie are magnificent and have a chance. Good luck to them and good luck to us. I would just ask that they take a quiet moment and reconsider what they are hell-bent on achieving and whether it is really in the best interests of EA – and whether really, really, this restructure is going to deliver what George Sanna and the Riders for Reform people are promoting. EQ

Cheers,
Heath

UPDATE, 9 November: Lucy Galovicova has responded to this article on her Facebook page (8 November) page. I have subsequently changed the time in office for Lucy and Christie from three years to two years. Sorry for that inaccuracy. The rest of the column stands as it is. Lucy will have to get used to robust questioning from the floor. That is democracy. What’s more I think if the restructure project and the IT program are to keep going, I think the scrutinising by the ordinary EA members will become much more intense. That does not mean that the members will not end up agreeing, however right this moment there are lots of gaps. Having said that at no time do I mean to be disrespectful to the honorary EA board members and the massive amount of work that has been done and still is going to need to be done.