Apologies to anyone whose Wednesday was darkened by the absence of a post – but I’ll make up for it next week as I return to Welly World for the World Dressage Masters, Challenge of the Americas and other less formal events which are sure to cross my path.
In the meantime, please indulge me as I spend just one more day pondering on the wayward behaviour of my provincial equestrian federation. Last Friday, HCBC sent an email out to a few favourites on their mailing list (shucks, how did I get missed?), and then posted their message on the HCBC site. They didn’t, however, email it to all members, nor did they include it in yesterday’s HCBC newsletter – leading me to wonder what score to give them for communication skills. I think I’ll give them a two. For all you Back Country Horsemen who aren’t familiar with dressage scoring, two out of ten is defined as ‘bad’, which is slightly better than ‘very bad’ (1), somewhat better than ‘not executed’ (0), a whole lot worse than ‘satisfactory’ (6) and impossibly distant from ‘excellent’ (10). Am I surprised at this selective dissemination? Of course not. But being the queen of irony I would like to point out the extreme contrariety of the fact that, after refusing to share their point of view with me when I attempted an interview, the HCBC Board (or those who are part of the ‘hell no’ movement, or maybe just Smitty) are now accusing me of making ‘incorrect statements’ regarding HCBC and its pending divorce from EC.
Divorce! Hyperbole you say? I don’t think so. EC has now officially shifted its position from BC being a ‘maybe not’ province to BC being a ‘hell no unless we hear otherwise’ province. As of some point in the last couple of weeks, if you are a BC resident and want to renew your EC sport licence, you can do so as if you lived in Alsaskquenovapotatoheadland. And you know what else? You don’t have to be a member of HCBC any more to get your liability insurance. As a semi-official ‘hell no’ province, BC now qualifies for the state beyond purgatory or limbo that means living and breathing mortals like me can get our insurance from EC for $25 instead of paying $50 for an HCBC membership. And you know what? I’m exercising my right to show HCBC that I don’t agree with their ‘we found a loophole to get out of an agreement we previously made in good faith’ approach to contractual relationships. I’m not renewing my membership with HCBC until they make good on the previous agreement they signed with EC. Never mind that line in the HCBC statement about having signed an agreement that was ‘overwritten by subsequent agreement.’ (their grammar, not mine; their ethics, not mine). Like good people say in the real world where morals still exist, there is what is legal and then there is what is right.
HCBC’s statement claims that they continue negotiating with EC. Really? Don’t you have to meet with each other as a Board and discuss the issues, then meet with EC and discuss the issues in order to call what you are doing negotiating? Last thing I heard, you told EC back at the convention in, oh January, that your next scheduled board meeting was in late March. And of course you couldn’t possibly drag yourselves over to the phone to meet by conference call some time before that. Because of course the issue at hand is no consequence whatsoever and doesn’t merit any extra attention from you.
Well, if HCBC can say no to EC, I can say no to HCBC. And I did. You can too.
