‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through EC,
Not a creature was stirring, not even Mike G.
The CEO’s office was laid out with care,
In hopes that St. Nick would leave someone in the chair.
The staff were at home all snug in their beds,
As visions of leadership danced in their heads.
COO Craig and CFO Mike,
Were dreaming the new boss would be someone they’d like.
Of course it’s not yet Christmas so we’ll just have to wait and see if Santa (aka the ERRR Committee) delivers a brand new CEO to EC’s offices after the holidays.
Please don’t forget or neglect to cast your vote for the EC Director At Large positions. Your vote is needed, though perhaps not actually desired. EC did a couple of things to throw people off the voting path: they started by dating the call-for-vote press release December 14, 2013 and followed up by setting the voting period over the Christmas holidays – the time of year when people are least likely to be at their computers, never mind spending time pondering EC’s leadership. Not that there’s much to vote on, since there are four candidates (I could have sworn there were five last week) for three positions. Whoever doesn’t get elected can rightfully feel like the kid who is last to be chosen for a team in PE class.
If the candidates’ names leave you scratching your head because you’ve never heard of most of them, you are not alone. While I would never discourage anyone from volunteering (and I do believe there are two candidates on the list who have the potential to contribute meaningfully to EC as Board members), I do get the feeling these past few years that the real movers and shakers in Canada’s equestrian industry – the ones with the sort of creds you’d be looking for in a board member – have thought better of giving their time for this particular cause. But here’s the problem: EC is answerable pretty much only to its members, and to no higher earthly authority – at least not directly. The average member is not interested in holding EC’s fanny to the fire when something goes sideways, so the burden sits squarely on the shoulders of the Board.
And therein lies the rub. If the EC Board is populated by people who either don’t care enough or don’t know enough to do their part in keeping EC honest, we will see recurrences of the situation that took place last winter (yes, I know you are tired of this dead horse, but I promise this is the last flogging), when the previous CEO believed the Board had asked for his resignation while in fact most of the Board were completely unaware of his impending departure until the weekend that preceded his Monday resignation. Not only that, the Board made not one peep about having been kept in the dark. Anyone who thinks that EC doesn’t need a competent and (insofar as it’s possible) impartial Board to keep it on the straight and narrow has his or her head in the sand. Or in a less polite place.
Merry Christmas.
