It would be far too optimistic for a cynic like me to say ‘the people have spoken’, but at least SOME people have spoken – in response to my post regarding the latest ignoble activities in DQ Canada Land. Please, please please everyone. Keep asking questions. Send emails to DC. Send emails to EC. Post comments on this blog. But I’m begging you. Please don’t lose interest, not until something changes (and I won’t even bother saying ‘changes for the better’ because I can’t honestly imagine it getting any worse). I don’t know why EC isn’t preparing to storm the barracks – but I have neither heard a whisper nor smelled a whiff of anything of that sort from the national federation to which DC is directly accountable.
While you make your way through the comments from last week’s post and read quite a few good ideas about what the future ought to hold for Dressage in Canada, you can skip all those posts from ”Sorry Can’t Leave My Name’, aka Doubting Thomas. Well, actually don’t skip them because they are a fascinating study in reverse psychology operating like a finely tuned steam engine.
See, Thomas posted anonymously, claiming potential personal damages if his identity were known. The trouble is, he betrayed just enough about his grudge against Lorraine that a few people knew exactly who ‘Sorry’ was, and they called him out in their comments. I would not have dared to say I was at all certain that it was a disgruntled ex-scribe named Thomas Lloyd from Richmond Hill, ON – were it not for the fact that he turned his Tommy guns on himself in his reply to the other commenters and left no doubt whatsoever that they had the right man. So, Mr. Sorry. I would like to extend an invitation for you to join the wonderful world of anonymous bitching that exists in the land of on line chats, such as CotH. I think you will feel much more at home there than here on Straight-Up. You see, I’m not a fan of the kind of cowardly behaviour exhibited by individuals such as yourself on my blog. I sign my name to everything I write and I appreciate the same from people who choose to interact on the pages of this blog. So just take your na@na.com bogus email address and catch another train. Boo to you.
In my continued pursuit of any kind of truthlike substance in the current affairs of DC, I have uncovered yet another shred of unshared information. I emailed Vicki Winter – who is currently listed as the chair of the DC Athletes Council - to ask if that group cared to make a comment about the conditions under which Lorraine was ‘disappeared’. It turns out Vicki (who is an excellent and prompt communicator, BTW) is no longer the chair of the Athletes Council and hasn’t been for at least a couple of months. Now sharing the chair are Chris von Martels and Karen Pavicic. I wonder if their chair sharing looks anything like this (just kidding). DC has exhibited extraordinary web skills by whipping Lorraine’s name off the site as HP chair almost before the phone head set had cooled – and yet they have not managed to pull themselves over to the AC page to update the information about who the chair of that VERY IMPORTANT committee is, two months after the fact. Hell, Chris isn’t even listed as a member of the AC. I want to point out here that Vicki’s relinquishment of her post was voluntary and came at the end of a long and fruitful tenure – a rarity these days in the nation known as DQ Canada.
Can you identify the activity portrayed in the photo above? Yes, it’s a game of Musical Chairs at a fifth birthday party. Do you believe that the discipline division of a National Sport Organization should be playing this game? If the answer is no, please make a little tiny effort and voice your concern. Because DC resembles this image far more than it should. Let’s go already. Giddy up and let’s straighten this shit out. Grab your poo fork and join the front line. For the sake of every owner, rider, coach and horse in this beautiful sport in Canada.
It will be very difficult to fix this now old and broken down machine however to start, some basic administrative principles need attention.
The first is the Chair of DCB. This position requires a skilled individual with a proven track record. Significant experience in both human and financial resources are essential.
Secondly, the EC Manager of Dressage needs to have a job description that has input from DCB as well as a reporting relationship with same.
And last, job descriptions which include qualifications for the Chairs of each Committee need to be articulated so that any issues arising due to poor performance can be properly evaluated against a written Position Description.
To have this basic organizational structure and documentation in place will go a long way to preventing the fiasco that has not only recently happened, but has been happening for years. I tried to initiate this while I was on the board but there was no interest.
I would like to thank you for digging into this. The inner workings of DCB are obviously labyrinthine and rather vicious, and it is just about impossible to tell the players without a program. I clicked on your article of last week, which referred to the brou-ha-ha of a year ago, and it is still not clear to me what the issues are and which side of what fence people fall on. Does it have to do with funding? With judging? With funding allocation? What other issues could possibly be at stake? I would love a backgrounder! At the moment, I am interested but way confused!
I was confused too, so I decided to run for the DC board to see if I could help. My assessment is as follows:
1. there are basic organizational/administrative problems and a lack of policies and procedures;
2. there are issues concerning the competence of volunteers in positions of leadership, power and authority;
3. Every person now currently on DCB has an income from somewhere in the sport of Dressage;
4. there is inadequate funding/fundraising to get the job done.
#’s 1 – 3 have to be solved before there is any possibility that #4 can be usefully developed.
Of note, there are a host of experienced and well qualified volunteers who are in the trenches supporting Dressage.
If the membership keeps demanding leadership, maybe one day you’ll get it.
There are always two sides to a story. I don’t like how Lorraine Stubbs was asked to leave as she deserved better treatment than that but the issues may have been more than we have been told. I do believe it must be bigger than some complaints made against her at a show by a scribe. It is unfortunate that DC has not given a statement. Keep digging , Karen , as there must be more to this story.
DC never seems to want to give a statement when there is a bigger issue at play. By not airing their dirty laundry in public, they ARE in fact airing their dirty laundry in public. It leaves them open to criticism and speculation, as these comments demonstrate. Individually, they are likely all full of good intentions. Together, not so much.
This had something to do with Pan Am trials. Maybe someone didn’t want a certain someone on the team?
Keep up the great work! When organizations try to police themselves it’s a lovely game of ring-around-do-nothing. So let’s keep shining the light and let the cockroaches scatter…