On the 28th
April the National Karting Council members
who are the representatives of the State member Associations of the Australian Karting
Association Inc met with the National
Treasurer to discuss “financial” issues. The business of the meeting
was not notified to members so the meeting was not a valid meeting in constitutional terms
as everyone who remembers JMax knows.
The
meeting has also been reported to have been called without proper notice being issued and
and documented minutes have not been provided because, ‘they’ say, the
meeting was in camera. Not so, because even the AKA’s in camera policy requires
minutes of sorts. But
somehow, a regulation change and an Addendum to cover that change has emanated as a
decision of the meeting of the National Karting Council on that same day ((Addendum
#18)) the 28th April 2009.
So
what’s it all about ? We don’t know all the details, but at that gathering and unbeknown to their
masters, the State members, the 7 state representatives present, unanimously decided to
‘allocate’ $270,000.00 of members funds to private industry or an
individual and did so without the members they represent, having any knowledge.
The
representatives, in fact, were personally notified of the meeting but their masters were
not. Without direction or instruction from
their State Associations, without any of the information of any proposed allocation / gift
of these funds provided by an agenda and apparently with no supporting documentation being
supplied to the State Members by the AKA, these 7 delegates decided to vote
for their states as they saw fit. And the AKA
sought that it be done by abuse of the in camera policy when the reality is, it is a
matter of utmost public importance that spending karters funds is open and transparent.
To make
matters worse, the situation was not revealed until some 14 days after the 28th
April “gathering” .
The
Qld State Karting Council has stood down it’s delegate and called for the other
members to do likewise. It is simply
incredulous that a person who attends a meeting on your behalf has the power to make
agreements you don’t even know about and not tell you either.
It further
beggars belief that the National Secretariat would seek to convene a meeting of
state delegates when the Secretariat are elected by the members. It is
understood that the loan was to cover an alleged cash flow problem created by the
purchase of clutches by the industry source recipient and if that is the case, that’s
good news for karters because they can ask to be compensated by the AKA for the
clutches they purchased that now aren’t compulsory.
If
JMax wasn’t the end of doing business unconstitutionally, surely the CAMS saga was
when 5 delegates held a meeting without telling the other 2. When will this unconstitutional abuse of members
rights stop? When are these people going to remove themselves from the positions of trust
that they have been placed in, and expected to uphold ? When will they stand up to be
counted .
The
Queensland State Karting Council has acted swiftly and with due diligence and is seeking
redress but maybe it’s time for some official investigation; after
all, it’s barely 12 months since the same magnificent 7 decided they knew more about
the prospects of reintroducing CIK racing and cost karters $150k to be proven wrong.
