Re-posting: Open letter to GHS members: It’s one of the most contentious issues in equestrian sport today: What should happen to the GHS land, arenas and facilities, with the society about to dissolve? The owner is supposed to be the Society: the current members. Many of them believe they have a right to decide what should happen to the facilities they have built up over decades. But the GHS executive disagrees. In June, it promised members the Special General Meeting required for the current members to vote on what should happen to their assets. But despite reminders, it didn’t call the meeting in time for current members to have a say. Some GHS members are now calling for a chance to debate and vote on what happens to Kyalami Equestrian Park. They believe that their asset - the land, arena and facilities - should now become a national asset, benefitting the whole of the South African equestrian community, not just one club. The South African Equestrian Federation has received no formal approach on this, but would be unlikely to take on the responsibility if it did not believe the facility would be viable, with the potential to become a training and development hub valued by the broader equestrian community. If KEP became a national asset, the new club could lease facilities from the new owners who take over KEP, once GHS is dissolved - either SAEF or a Board of Trustees. Members of the GHS executive, however, have indicated that the body wants to own and run the facility when the club system comes in. But it’s not so simple, legally speaking. Some people argue the current Society membership - the owners of assets – is a different legal entity to the new club, Kyalami Park. (The membership will be different, it will have a different constitution, a different name, etc.) They contend it is not legally possible to just roll the assets from the Society into KP and that a formal, legal dissolution process is required. Under the GHS constitution, the executive needs a vote of 80% of members to dissolve the society and form a club – or a two thirds majority of members to change the constitution. Basically the argument comes down to this: Should current members get a say on their assets? Or should only the members who join the new club, Kyalami Park, in future decide? Legal advice to the executive committee on the transition does not address this question. Given the recent GHS levy controversy (which some members saw as poorly handled) it seems clear that the executive would have a better chance of winning a vote on the assets if most of the current membership were to be excluded from a vote, in particular the unhappy members who are not planning to join the new club. The executive committee has openly confirmed its view that only future KP members should have a vote. And some people, deeply concerned about the future of GHS, are urging disaffected members not to just walk away – but to join the new club in order to have a say on what happens to Kyalami Equestrian Park and the management of the new club. They argue that KEP is simply too important a national asset for members to give up on, even if they disagree with the direction of the current executive. Professor Ian Sanne, member of the GHS Executive Committee said in an email recently that he believed that only those who join the new Club have a right to a vote. “It is my personal view that the members who sign up in the new financial year, who plan to be members of the association into the future, should vote on the revised constitution. Members who are exiting the association are not engaged with the future maintenance of the vision, mission, objectives and assets of the organization, have chosen to pursue their equine sports with other clubs,” Professor Sanne said. GHS, in a recent bulletin about the changes stated that, “Ownership of KEP by members has never been ‘literal’, rather ‘virtual’ in that members have a vote as to what happens to the grounds. No-one who has ever left GHS has taken their ‘little piece of land’ or been reimbursed for their contribution to the property. What GHS members have paid for has been the maintenance not the purchase of the property, and they have enjoyed use of the property when competing at shows.” Professor Sanne sees GHS and KP as one continuous legal entity: “I would like to reiterate a misconception,” he said in the email. “GHS is not being dissolved, there is no intention to discontinue the existing association.” The executive committee claims the new club – which has as its slogan “Service, integrity, passion” - will continue to run in the interests of national equestrian sport, claiming to be marketing itself as an “inclusive club”. But the fee structure suggests otherwise, with very stiff levies planned for non-club members. GHS general manager, NJ Freeman, said in a June 7 email to the executive committee’s law firm that the society had to become a club to save the property. “GHS is in the unique position of being the only provincial body with its own property and we were basically advised to ‘reinvent’ the organisation to ensure the ongoing survival of the property. The logical move was to register GHS as a club.” The only problem, critics counter, is that the executive has failed to give its membership –from whom it derives its mandate - a say. The Special General Meeting was supposed to be held at the beginning of June, she said in the email, “but we had to postpone it as we don’t yet have the revised constitution.” The South African Equestrian Federation gave the executive a six month extension to draft the constitution and hold a Special General Meeting. The executive believes this move by SAEF absolves it of the need to include its current members in the vote, because those memberships expire at the end of July. Under the old system, you had to belong to your provincial body in order to compete at affiliated shows, a system repudiated by South Africa’s Olympics body, South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) because it didn’t allow freedom of association. There are many new clubs launching in Gauteng area, not just Kyalami Park. Why, critics argue, should one club get all the assets of the former provincial body – unless it’s endorsed by the current GHS membership? There’s no doubt that the executive leadership has upset some members, who plan to leave. Some are so upset, they no longer much care about what happens to their assets and are willing to just walk away from them. “We believe that the management of the club is guided by fairness, openness and honesty,” according to GHS material advertising the new club. But some members see it differently. “Twenty days to go and no SGM?” one indignant member posted on the GHS Facebook page on July 11, “which means that all current members who have not renewed by the 31st will have zero input going forward. Devious but clever,” he concluded. The bottom line – which both sides agree - is protecting this asset for the good of equestrian sport. The hotly contested question is who gets to decide. The risk of leaving the assets in the hands of a club whose management has proven adept at upsetting its members, is that the disaffected people will not come back, and alienated by the high fees, new members will not materialise. According to past executive members, it was a struggle to keep the club afloat with more than 3000 members. What if the new club finds itself in a vicious cycle: dwindling members, resulting in steep fee increases to cover costs, driving still more members away, even as staff are retrenched to cut costs and service goes down? The greatest question is what the future will be, should the new club fail? Would KEP have to be sold to pay accumulated debts – and would the hard-won grounds and facilities end up as yet another housing development? As a group of concerned members are pressing the GHS executive to do the ethical thing, and give 2012-2013 members the opportunity to vote in a Special General Meeting, as is their right. Members who care about the future of their assets - and who want a vote in what happens to KEP - are called upon to sign the above letter to the GHS executive requesting a meeting. To sign the letter and support the campaign, please email KEPfuture@gmail. Please include your name, phone number, and email. Thank You For Your Support Robyn Dixon, Anne Marie Esslinger, Kirsten Loots, Claire Webb, Paul Hart, Nicole Theron, Charles Wheeler, Sue Cook, Nick Hilterman, Kelly Noone, Yvonne Bolton, Elaine Deverneuil, Whitney Deverneuil, Gunilla Barrow, Candice Dawson, Tim Payne, Mike Bernstein , Mariatha van der Merwe, Marieta van Schalkwyk, Victoria Conlan, Yolande Conlan,Carolyn Holden, Shaneen Phillips, Graham Winn, Michelle Winn, Fiona Evans, Ann Falkov, Marion Clough.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 10:27:34 +0000
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