For the annual general meeting due to be held on the 28th February 2025 I have received 111 (one hundred and eleven) propositions, all of which have been made available for members to read in the BHW and on the RPRA website. You will now have the right to vote in your club on how you would like your club delegate to vote at region, and how the region delegate will vote at the AGM, and we all accept the majority decision of each stage.
This democratic process is at the very core of the RPRA constitution, which the vast majority of those 111 propositions would dispose of under the guise of saving money, as they are designed to do away with the region and council structure and replace them with an Executive Committee of just five members. All the current duties and responsibilities of the regions such as disputes and appeals, if a club or federation wants to change the route they fly, name changes, formation of new federations, members enquiries on rules etc, would have to go through the same Executive Committee. The workload would be tremendous, and I wonder who would volunteer themselves to this unpaid role to govern all the organisations currently operating in the RPRA. Very soon most of their time would be taken up with a tremendous amount of administrative work and the obvious requirement of very lengthy meetings.
In the past I have been region secretary of the East Midlands region, with just over 160 organisations and 1800 members to administrate and I know firsthand how time consuming it is just at region level, especially when subscriptions are collected, and memberships of clubs are updated. There would be queries on 70% of the club sheets returned to me, all of which would require a telephone call to clarify something or other, and each call would be 15 minutes or more. I accept it may not be the same workload for some of the smaller regions, but to remove all the 13 region secretaries would send the administrative workload of every one of the 13,600 RPRA members and their organisations direct to head office. The extra costs incurred would not present any savings – quite the opposite because 13,600 times the £4 which the regions currently retain is £54,400, which would just about cover the costs of employing just two extra members of staff, giving due consideration to minimum wage, national insurance contributions, pensions, sick and holiday pay. Two members of staff costing a little more than the saving to do the current workload of thirteen region secretaries is not possible, does not make economic sense and is fundamentally flawed. Younger fanciers may quite rightly argue that they could administer themselves via the internet and in the future that will be a possibility, but realistically most of our current members are those who dislike new technology, especially computers, and are not able to use them with confidence.
I began this article with the heading evolution, not revolution, for a reason. I do see the merits of the proposed changes and I would argue that in just a few short years smaller regions will combine, creating far fewer regions and consequently less councillors, and in fact an Executive Committee will emerge, one that is representative of every remaining region. We should recognise the mountain we are standing on and try to evolve in a carefully controlled manner and resist an immediate revolution which can only result in a prolonged period of chaos and higher costs passed on to a declining membership.
The RPRA is now on a sound financial footing, and our council implemented rule 142 to make the decision on the subscription rate at the end of October to begin on the 1st November. Under our constitution this must be ratified at the AGM, and most of the propositions put forward by council are related to this. Under these proposed rule changes by council, each year by 31st July the Chief Executive Officer shall in conjunction with elected officials, produce a draft budget for the following financial year. This draft budget will be circulated to Region Secretaries for onward circulation to affiliated clubs for consideration. Clubs wishing to submit constructive comments may do so in writing to their Region Secretary by 30th August. The draft budget and comments received will be considered by a general meeting of the Region to be held during September, and the views of the meeting will be submitted to the CEO in time for inclusion in the agenda for the October meeting of Council. At this meeting Council will fix membership fees and other variable charges for the ensuing year, which would ensure timely subscription decisions based on a sound financial knowledge. It is a huge step forward and stage one of the evolution of the RPRA towards the vision of many.
We should also consider that if the regions are removed, the proposed new Executive Committee could be selected with a majority from just one geographical area which may dominate all others, resulting in discontent going unheard or unrecognised. The decision is “do you wish to select your councillor at local region with a workload backed by region committees to represent you, or an Executive Committee of just five, chosen at national level with all the workloads?”
The future of the RPRA and its democratic constitution depends on your careful consideration as a member. The RPRA will evolve in the right direction as we carefully manage change without the need for these sweeping changes and I implore you to read every proposition put forward and vote each one on their own merit and try to resist voting them en-bloc. Personally, I do not agree with what they are proposing but I do like the fact that they can under the current democratic regional system. I hope most of the members recognise that the RPRA is already going in the direction they wish; it will just take a little more time to do it in a controlled and democratic manner.
Chris Sutton
RPRA CEO
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