World Council
How the World Council works
[See bottom of page for list of minutes of previous Council meetings]
We get occasional questions about how the international class association operates, so here's a quick overview:
The world governing body of the class is the “World Association of International Fourteens” (the “WA”), of which each individual country is a member. The fact that it is an “association” reflects the class’s history of different countries racing differing types of 14 foot dinghies/skiffs coming together over the years to form the current International class. The WA still works on a decentralised basis, with membership, boat registration and measurement, most event organisation, etc, being managed within each country by the relevant country association.
The WA focuses on “global” issues such as the class rules, agreeing where and when to hold international events (Worlds, continentals, etc), relationships with ISAF and any other “policy” matters affecting the wellbeing of the class globally.
The WA operates through the World Council, which comprises the World President, World Secretary and World Treasurer, plus one representative of each member country. The Council meets face-to-face (and in public) at every World Championship, conducting business between these meetings by email.
The WA is governed by the class constitution. Perhaps the key part of this is the voting mechanism. This creates a “sliding scale” whereby countries get more votes the more boats they have, up to a certain limit. Thus although the “larger” countries have more votes, they cannot dominate decision-making. This has created an open democratic process for agreement between the countries which has worked well over the years.
All votes are conducted under this “sliding scale”. Votes to change the class rules or constitution require a two-thirds majority, other decisions need only a simple majority of votes cast. How each country decides how to vote is up to them, although most if not all will decide this through a ballot of their members, particularly for major decisions like rule changes. But all major decisions are made via voting at the Council; this again reflects the democratic traditions of the class; we don’t have any one individual or small group imposing their views!
As the individual country associations are the members of the WA, it is for them to put proposals to it. So if you want to change anything, you need to get your country to agree first and to put your proposal forward to the Council. Not that the intent is to be bureaucratic, but we do need to maintain some sort of structure…..
Finally, all the above sounds fairly formal. But this is a skiff class; the photo below illustrates what it looks like in practice: the World Council of the International 14 Class in session, Wakayama, Japan, 2003....
Minutes of previous World Council meetings
Last Updated (Wednesday, 31 March 2010 06:18)