By David,
Swimming New Zealand has made much of the constitutional changes adopted by Surf Lifesaving New Zealand. A couple of years ago Surf decided to accept a structure very similar to the one being pushed by the Coulter gang at Swimming New Zealand. I coach quite a few surf swimmers. Most of them compete for Auckland’s Piha Surf Club. A couple of weeks ago I was at the beach in Mt. Manganui and had the opportunity to discuss Swimming New Zealand’s Project Vanguard with the parent of one of the surf swimmers. There was no misunderstanding her advice to the New Zealand pool swimming community – avoid Project Vanguard at all costs.
I’d be the first to accept that her opinion is largely anecdotal. However she is an intelligent observer and has been a member of the surf world for the best part of forty years. She reckons the change to so called “professionalism” is causing increasing problems. It has taken time for the failings of the change to appear, but after two or three years serious cracks are beginning to show. Most certainly, she says, the problems created by the new Services Delivery Model are far greater than the old shortcomings that the change was expected to solve.
“So what are some of these new difficulties,” I asked? “Money, membership and events,” she replied.
1 Timothy 6:10 tells us “For the love of money is the root of all evil” It appears that problem is not only biblical. My Piha friend tells me the introduction of “professionalism” has changed the volunteer base of the sport. Parents once automatically volunteered their time to raise money, maintain accounts, transport lifeguards, clean and tidy the Club rooms and maintain boats and quad bikes. But now that the sport employs paid Regional services delivery staff, the number of volunteers is in decline. Unpaid workers are now quite happy to leave this work to those paid to care for the sport. Worse than that, parent and others who once cheerfully volunteered their time are now mightily annoyed at requests for volunteer help. Their natural reaction is to ask, “Why should we help? What’s the matter with those buggers we pay to do that stuff? Why should we work and pay them as well?” Work that was once well taken care of by a huge volunteer base is now being neglected. The future of “professional” Surf Lifesaving looks like it will be characterized by a declining number of volunteers and mistreated assets. And that’s where the Coulter gang wants to take swimming.
Closely related to the arrival of “professionalism” and a decline in the number of volunteers is a small but steady fall in membership. One thing amateur volunteers are best at is recruiting other amateur volunteers. It’s pretty obvious when you think about it. Students involved in surf talk to their mates at school. Parents talk to other parents at work, at the pub, at the pool, in the supermarket, wherever they meet. And the things they talk about are the comradeship, the esprit de corps, and the fun. I’ve never heard of anyone recruited to anything because it’s really, really professional. The appeal of surf lifesaving, as a warm and welcoming sport, has declined. It is no longer the fun place it once was. They may be paying the hired help, but in the process the sport is losing its heart. And that’s where the Coulter gang wants to take swimming.
The Head Office of both Surf Lifesaving and Swimming constantly spread the message that they are ‘professional”. They know about business. That is really ironic when 60% of their funding comes in the form of SPARC government welfare checks. They can’t even generate enough real business to cover half their expenses; nothing much private enterprise capitalism in that. In the sport of swimming, however, the sixteen Regions still stand on their own two commercial feet. These “amateurs” are not on the sporting dole. They manage successful commercial operations. They run swim meets, apply for commercial grants, run sausage sizzles and car washes and sell caps and t-shirts. Their commercially generated income has to meet 100% of their expenses; and it does.
The problem in eliminating the Regions, like Surf has done, is that the one section of the sport that pays its way disappears. The whole sport goes on the dole. It becomes government welfare dependant. The number of raffles, sausage sizzles, meets and grant applications gradually declines as the membership decides to just leave it to the professionals. A whole section of self supporting income disappears. Financially the sport is in a very much poorer place. And that’s where the Coulter gang wants to take swimming.
Coulter and Byrne have made much of the fact that Surf and the Girl Guides have adopted a professional services delivery constitution. Both organizations have centralized power in their Wellington Head Office. However the adulation of the Coulter gang is premature. In both organizations there has not been time for the negatives to appear – until now. Gradually the cracks are beginning to show. Volunteers, membership and fund raising are all in decline.
The constitutional change ordered by Coulter and Byrne would see these two mercenaries asset strip the Regions of $1 million in cash and another $1 million in fixed assets. For 110 years those assets have been accumulated by the Regions. Honest stewards of the sport have provided swimming with $2 million of real wealth. Those people gifted that money to us in trust; to be managed with integrity and then passed on to the next generation. Those assets are not ours to give away. Certainly the Coulter gang has no title over the Region’s wealth and no mandate to assume its ownership.
The “Professional Services Delivery” structure proposed by the Coulter gang asset strips our past. It puts in place a structure that will not stand the test of time. It will not protect our future. The constitutional safeguards that provided swimming with a century of security will disappear and, as Surf Lifesaving is showing us now, the new ones are not up to the job. No wonder Coulter was kicked out of the Olympic movement after only one season. His decision making is deeply flawed.
