I, Mary, am posting this to clarify some statements and insinuations on this thread. They relate to the fact that in the spring of 2001 the members of NAHCA apparently voted to approve changes to the NAHCA bylaws which eliminated the members’ right to vote for officers and eliminated their right to vote for changes in the bylaws. (I say “apparently,” because nobody has yet produced the mailed-in ballots and the vote tally.)

To provide background and context, I am reprinting a few relevant posts, followed by a response from Nigel Pitt, who provided me with a statement for publication in Catamaran Sailor Magazine. (Complete story will be in the March issue.)

POSTED BY MATT BOUNDS, (NAHCA Chairman 1997-2000):
Here is some NAHCA History:

The first bylaws were approved in 1993. They appeared in the Jun/Jul '93 issue of the NAHCA News along with a ballot for approval by the general membership. (I found the returned ballots in my basement - I am such a pack rat!) There were about 60 ballots returned. NAHCA Membership at the time was 1200+. A pretty poor showing.

These first bylaws gave the individual members voting rights and they were responsible for electing officers and approving bylaw changes.

The bylaws were revised in 1995, again based on a membership-wide ballot printed in the Jun/Jul '95 NAHCA News. The changes were administrative in nature and no changes to voting rights were made.

No changes were made to the NAHCA By-laws for 5 years. Officer positions were always uncontested, therefore no ballots were printed in the newsletter.

At the 2000 NAHCA AGM in Kingston, Ont., a bylaws committee was formed to update the bylaws. This was the meeting where I stepped down as NAHCA Chairman and Nigel Pitt became Chairman.

This is where things kind of fall apart. The current version of the NAHCA Bylaws (dated May 1, 2001, posted here ) are 99% the same as those approved in 1995. They still grant members the right to vote, but they don't have anything to vote on anymore. Basically, all business of the NAHCA, including officer elections and by-law revisions, is governed by the Board of Directors, which consists of the Division Chairmen and the Women's Representative. (Note that NAHCA officers do not have voting rights except as individual members).

I can't find anything in my files where the May 2001 changes to the bylaws were approved by a general membership vote as they should have been under the 1995 bylaws. (Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but I don't remember one, either.) I can understand the reasoning behind the changes - it's logistically difficult and time-consuming to conduct a membership-wide vote, although today's technology may overcome that objection. It's also very disappointing when you get less than 5% participation.

If you want to point a finger for the hiccup in procedure, you don't have far to go. This happened on Nigel's watch.


POSTED BY TRACIE:
What exactly are you insinuating, Matt?

POSTED BY MATT:
Nothing. Notice the "If" at the beginning of the sentence. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I don't have anything against Nigel.

The bylaws are what they are, however they were approved.

I just want to make sure everybody has their history straight. Lord knows, I have enough of it in my basement. You want a copy of the very first NAHCA Newsletter? How about a 1973 Hobie Hotline? Minutes of every NAHCA meeting since 1988? I've got them all, and I'm embarrassed to say that they're in filed in order.

POSTED BY MARY:
Since you have everything, do you have the February-March 2001 issue of the NAHCA News?

POSTED BY MATT:
I do! (it was misfiled …… and I see why you brought that particular issue to my attention.

For within that issue lies the Bylaws revision that I thought had not been brought before the membership. It was, there was no procedural error, and the bylaws as posted on the NAHCA website are legitimate. (I am assuming, of course that they were approved - which is highly likely.)

RESPONSE FROM NIGEL PITT (NAHCA Chairman 2000-2001):
I am very troubled by what I read from Matt Bounds, and I want to take just a minute to set the record straight. Let me start by saying I was drafted by Paul Ulibarri for the Chairmanship – I did not seek it, campaign for it, or covet it. I had been going about my business, sailing as much as I could, and promoting multihull sailing. I have never pretended to be the detail-oriented administrative type, so I have always done all I can to surround myself with good people that have that quality to make up for the fact that it doesn’t interest me very much.

I was not present at the meeting in Ontario when I was appointed Chairman. Actually, the only NAHCA meeting I ever attended was the one where I got fired. I have come to find out that at the meeting in Ontario, a committee was formed to look at the bylaws, which had not been revised for some time. That committee I believe, was Rich McVeigh (who was the class secretary at the time), Paul Ulibarri, and Mike Levesque. I didn’t have anything to do with the appointment or the mission of that committee, and I can say truthfully that I never knew what they were on about. Nothing ever was given to me to approve, vote on, reject or revise. The first I heard of any change to the by-laws was at the meeting in Tampa when it looked like I was about to be handed my hat.

In the meantime, I was doing what I thought I should to help strengthen the class. At the Spring Fever Regatta, I required membership in a class association for the first (and only, as it turned out) time. But to attract sailors and build the NAHCA, I offered membership to people who owned any kind of boat. This was specifically allowed under the “old regime.” The deal was this – come sail, but sign up for YOUR class association. When you sign up, Spring Fever will pay for your membership in the other organization. Show up with a Nacra, join Performance, and I’ll pay for your NAHCA membership or vice versa – both classes gain members and dues and the sport grows! It worked. At the end of my tenure as Chairman, there were over 1,200 members in NAHCA, and something like $40,000 in the bank, which positioned the organization to grow the support that had historically been provided to the Divisions and Fleets. This was a dramatic change from when I was asked to take over, and was the result of some simple and effective measures like simply sending renewal notices to everyone who’d ever been a member before.

Then the rumblings started – folks seemed to be getting the idea I was trying to convert the NAHCA into an open multihull organization. In hindsight, I realize there were a lot of people who were getting whipped up by a very few with panic tactics and misrepresentation. At the time, I was completely blind to it. I tried to assure the class that although I sail and own both Hobie and Performance boats, I was truly focused on growing the NAHCA. My statements were taken out of context and circulated as proof that I was one of the dreaded x-class “infiltrators.” It became increasingly clear that I was being railroaded, I figured that if a strong balance sheet and sharp increases in membership didn’t speak for itself, what else could I say?

By the time the class meeting in Tampa rolled around, things had come to a head. I was going to be presiding over my first meeting where emotions were running high and I was concerned that things were going to get quickly out of hand. I even had a Parliamentarian appointed to help me conduct the meeting properly, knowing that my strength doesn’t lie even in that zip code. The person I asked to take on the job showed up well prepared, and we did a pre-meeting pow-wow with Paul Ulibarri to make sure we could conduct the meeting, get through the election of officers, and get back to the regatta at hand without it dissolving into a shouting match. I had a pretty good idea at that point that I was on the way out, but it was my responsibility to see it through, and I truly disagreed with Rich McVeigh on how the class was to be run.

The Parliamentarian opened a tabbed notebook and started asking some questions I couldn’t answer. Had the ballots been sent to the members 30 days prior to the meeting? How many votes had been received? Had the Nominating Chairman tallied them? I didn’t have those answers. It should be noted that Paul was sitting right there with me, the man who made up one third of the committee that had been formed to revise the by-laws, the very committee that had eliminated that language, effectively removing any reference to the general dues-paying members of NAHCA voting for anything at all, and all he said was something like, “oops, I guess we can’t have an election tonight.”

We convened the meeting and started conducting business. When we got to the election portion of the evening, all hell broke loose. Rich, who was still secretary, had a whole different set of bylaws. The Parliamentarian was asked where he got his version, and he said he’d printed them off the NAHCA web site the night before. Nobody had any record of a vote to change the bylaws, although someone was able to dig out a copy of the NAHCA News in which they’d been printed. I was stunned. Why would the members give up their vote?

I looked at Paul and I looked at Rich and knew I’d been snookered. These were the guys who had put their arms over my shoulder and asked me to be Chairman to begin with… I left that meeting disappointed, disillusioned and disgusted. I’ve never looked back, until now. The only reason I wanted to respond was to prevent some revisionist history from going unchallenged. Maybe Matt didn’t mean anything by his public comments, but the changes to the by-laws passed completely under my radar, perhaps intentionally so. Maybe the whole open class controversy was simply a smoke screen for a power grab.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m seeking to infiltrate NAHCA again – I’m pretty happy with my good friends doing our own thing. I do still bear a bitterness at how the general membership has been disenfranchised – what is it with elections in Florida, anyway? My feeling is that the original bylaws were just fine – they didn’t compel members to vote, but anyone who took the time and effort to get their vote in was counted. I’ve heard the argument that the “old” bylaws were costing too much money – publishing a ballot once a year in the class newsletter is prohibitively expensive? I’ve heard that it was changed because so few people were voting – so what? It’s a class association, where everyone should get a voice whether they use it or not. I’ll bet there are members that wish they could vote now, eh? I have also heard the argument that, hey, the Division Chairs represent us. Conveniently, there’s nothing in the “new and improved” by-laws that says my Division Chair needs to talk to me or anyone else… there’s no requirement for polling, or building consensus or ANYTHING before he or she toddles off to the annual meeting to conduct the business of the class. That’s not really representation, is it? Yes, some of them make a real effort to reach out to the general members in their Division, but most do not, and none have to. Have you been asked anything lately?

The whole business makes me sad – membership is way down (less than 800 or so?) and looking grim for the coming year, the treasurer says they’re broke, and there are a lot of upset people on both sides of the fence. I suspect that things will smooth out in the next few months and, like the “big election” in 2001, it will all seem like less of a problem once we figure out how to keep our respective fleets going.

In the meantime, the bylaws limit the Chairman’s term to three years. Who will be taking over when Rich steps down later this year, I wonder? I wish them luck and wisdom, and hope they’ll bring back the general membership vote for elected officers and general membership approval of changes to the by-laws. Put the class tiller back in the hands of the sailors that make up the class, then maybe IHCA policy might be easier to swallow or spit out. After all, I think Hobie Sr. started this whole thing right here in America – who says we can’t steer our own course? Shouldn’t the IHCA then do what NAHCA says?

NIGEL PITT