Every year, one third of the terms of the NAFA Board of Directors expire. Every three years, the Executive Director's term expires. The North American Flyball Association fills these positions by holding annual elections in the late Fall. The people who earn NAFA ballots and vote those ballots are known as the NAFA delegates. They are intended to represent every club who participates in NAFA sanctioned events.
The unintentional side effect of this arrangement is the injection of "politics" into this sport. This is both good and bad. "Good" because everyone who uses their ballot and votes is heard. NAFA decides as a whole group the direction that the organization is going. "Bad" because the nature of politics can be divisive. Some people just cannot gracefully accept defeat.
This system evolved from very humble beginnings. NAFA was created by the joint efforts of 8 dog obedience clubs in the Michigan/Ontario area. After one person sat down and wrote a small rulebook spelling out the basics of the game, each of the remaining clubs signed on as "endorsing" the Rules of Flyball as embodied in the North American Flyball Association. Since they saw themselves as "equals", they chose the democratic model as the means for making decisions. But, they also recognized that those with the most participation had the most at stake in the sport so they created a tiered system which awarded ballots based on the level of participation. The more teams your club entered in events, the more delegate ballots your club could vote.
There were no "Regions" and everybody knew everybody else. The goal was simple. A Rulebook standardized flyball wherever it was played under NAFA sanctioning. Certainly, events could be planned without sanctioning by NAFA and probably some were. But, once this fledgling Rulebook was featured in a Canadian dog magazine, NAFA was inundated with requests for event sanctioning. Flyball has experienced phenomenal growth ever since.
Growth and Politics
I can't decide which came first. "Growth" because everybody has an ownership stake in NAFA or, the political process and "elections" because of unbridled growth. Certainly, elections determine the direction NAFA follows and since it is NAFA's owners (delegates) who possess the power of the ballot, it is the delegates themselves who are "NAFA", not the NAFA Board. The individual members of the NAFA Board are, in essence, "public servants" of the NAFA delegates.
Think about that for a minute. If the NAFA delegates are the owners of NAFA, how can they be "wrong" in any decision they reach by a democratic election?
If I am the owner of a property, I can decide whether or not I build on that property. I decide the size of the building. I decide whether to use brick or a frame house. One story or two or more. I choose how many windows to put in and where they go. I even choose the color each room will be painted and the fabric of my drapes. I decide what furniture I will put in that house and arrange it as I wish. I can even change my mind and rearrange that furniture, etc.
NAFA is the NAFA delegate's "house of flyball". Since it is more efficient to make the "small" day to day decisions that run the organization by choosing representatives, that is how the NAFA delegates run NAFA. They choose representatives. They choose the NAFA Board and they choose the Executive Director.
Now, I can hear the voices of protest out there. How much of a "choice" do we have when there are only 5 candidates running for 3 seats on the Board? How much choice do we have when the Executive Director is running unopposed? My answer is that we need to look at our history of recent elections and that may help us to understand the choices we are presented with today.
I have already outlined that NAFA Board members serve three year terms and, may serve two terms in a row (6 years). If we look at NAFA elections from 6 years ago, we see there were several candidates and very clear differences of opinions on the issues of that era. Those issues and opposing views were debated over the next 3 election cycles. (2001, 2002, 2003 & 2004). A predominant view emerged from these election cycles. The delegates consistently chose Board candidates with this predominant view.
This election cycle has fewer candidates than in the past and the candidates themselves are more alike in their opinions about NAFA than they are opposed. This is a reflection of the choices that the delegates have voted upon over the course of the last 6 years. What has been the result? In terms of growth, NAFA continues to sanction more events in the current year than in the previous year.
The Numbers
In terms of events alone, NAFA sanctioned 340 tournaments in fiscal year 2007, up 15 events from 325 tournaments in FY 2006. Percentage wise, this is a 4.6% rise from the previous year. But, one year's growth doesn't tell us much. Looking at a bigger picture, annualized growth between FY 2003-2007, NAFAs events rose 5.5 % annually. If we go back 5 years (FY 2002) NAFA sanctioned 231 events. 2007 with 340 represents a 47% hike from just 5 years ago and annualized over 5 years represents 9.4% growth every year!
Conclusions
In spite of dire predictons by people who hold a minority view, NAFA's record of growth proves that NAFA is a thriving organization. The delegates are clear in their choice of the direction NAFA needs to go. It is the responsibilty of the NAFA BoD candidates to present their ideas for the future of NAFA in an honest way so that the delegates may cast their votes with the expectation that the NAFA Board will do what they said they would do when they were candidates.
In other words, let's all of us be as honest and transparent about our opinions concerning specific issues as we are about who we are, where do we come from and where do we see NAFA going in the future. That way, the delegates can be assured that the organization is going in the direction they voted for.
Good Luck and Good Racing!
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