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At the Special General Meeting held immediately before the Annual General Meeting of ACU&S on March 25th it was agreed that General Council could conduct a postal ballot amongst the Members to determine the future course of the Association: the actual wording of the motion to be decided by General Council.

True to form, weeks have passed and there has been little or no movement - perhaps the owl on our logo should be replaced by a sloth rampant. We were advised that a payment of £3,500 was to be sought from both ECB and ICUS to cover the cost of asking the question (whatever it might be). Beyond that there appears to be no sign of life.

We are now informed in a General Council 'briefing document' (by way of the Acumen Newsletter) that the representatives of ICUS balked immediately at the idea of paying out £3,500 - hardly surprising really when one considers that Barrie Stuart-King remains their main source of sponsorship revenue, as per Tony Bastable's Renaissance document.

In the absence of any guidance from GC, and since many people now appear to be looking to our website as a principal source of information in all of this, we thought it might be of use to Members if we attempted to shed some light on the possible scenarios.

ACU&S

The future of the Association is still very much up in the air. Nobody has been allowed to look at the books - especially not the ECB and their professionally qualified accountants - and the figures we have been told simply do not stack up without supporting evidence. Until they are granted access to the books it is inconceivable that ECB will agree to give any funding and, with their own infant body now in the playground, why would they wish to?

Although the subscription rates have been significantly raised for next year this does not get the Association through this one. Many of the current membership will not renew their subscription for next year because they are intent on joining ECB OA and many more, who did not vote on the subscription increase, will vote with their feet when they realise that the ECB OA subscription is now considerably lower than that of the ACU&S. It is not unreasonable to assume that perhaps 2,000 members will leave the Association at the end of October.

Whilst it was always our fervent desire to see the Association survive and flourish, reality kicks in and we have to face it. Unless the GC can prove conclusively that the organisation can survive financially, its presence as a fully independent organisation on any ballot paper cannot be forward-looking. The majority of the membership, blinded by well-intentioned loyalty, will inevitably vote for the continuation of the body even when it is plain it cannot survive unless there is an outbreak of realism within General Council.

ECB OA

As outlined above, why would ECB wish to put money into a failing organisation - except on their own terms? The opportunity to get them to do so was lost last summer when a group within General Council with their own star to follow rebuffed them and the democratically elected Chairman David Burden. Obviously they would want some of what the Association has to offer, particularly in the field of training and examinations.

On the other hand, they will also be aware that, once the Association dies an inevitable death, many - if not most - of the qualified trainers and examiners will consider moving to them anyway. Mr. Bastable, closeted in his ivory tower, seems to believe that everybody's allegiance is to the Association: we prefer to believe that allegiance is to the game as a whole but, then, he has to cling to that piece of wreckage or all the ICUS' hopes and dreams come to nought.

ECB has no need to take part in a ballot. Thanks to the actions of some within General Council and the inactions of the rest, ECB are now in the position of not having to do anything they do not wish. The Association cannot survive much longer in its current parlous state and, should ECB choose to, they can sit back and wait for the inevitable. Why should they expend valuable time and money trying to prop up an organisation which refuses all their offers of help? They have continuously stressed that they have no desire to do this but General Council's masterful inactivity leaves them little room for manoeuvre.

They also know that many ACU&S members have already joined them and that many more will do so as soon as this financial year comes to a close.

ICUS

Since many of the senior 'executives' of ICUS also sit on the General Council of ACU&S and, by their own admission, are merely a fallback position, the first and most glaring question is: Should the ICUS even be on the ballot paper? It will surprise no one that our view is that it should not.

As has been said elsewhere on this website, they are a cuckoo in our nest, invented furtively and living a lie until exposed. It is our contention that they have never been a fallback but have always intended to take over the Association for their own ends. They are the very people who have deceived the membership, thwarted the democratically elected Chairman in his every move and sought to keep the facts from ever seeing the light of day - indeed, had Barrie Stuart-King been more attentive to the contents of his re-cycle bin, they would have succeeded.

They have no money - witness their immediate repudiation of the very idea that they, the cause of our problems, should pay out £3,500 to find out what the membership might want. They have no principles - witness the end of the first paragraph of page 30 in the Renaissance document where Tony Bastable says that the idea of separate manifestos before the ballot is a good idea (until they were told to pay for it). They have no honour - witness their disgraceful failure to attend the AGM of the Association to answer questions about their conduct. They have no future - witness the pathetic statement by Tony Bastable that Barrie Stuart-King has unrivalled experience in fund-raising (sadly, in their case, that is probably true!!).

Some 4,700 hits have now been recorded on our website since February 19th. Many of you must have wondered why the various officers of the ICUS have never repudiated a single document or statement on it. The answer is simple - the truth is an absolute defence and all we have ever done is tell the truth and backed it up with their own documents. For many months Barrie Stuart-King continued to cow the bovine General Council with bombastic threats of legal action against us in much the same way as he had cowed them during the five years of his Chairmanship. Throughout all that time we continually invited him to commence proceedings and were met with a deafening silence. Again the reason is simple: we were, and still are, telling the truth.

Summary

At the moment we are still in the dark while General Council continue to debate whether to have a debate about a debate so this document has, by definition, to be general. Once General Council have made a decision and popped the question we will update it.