A. A. de Moira Club Elections on 26th July UNCONSTITUTIONAL

[augusto pinto]

Important

There is something decidedly dodgy about the forthcoming A. A. de Moira Club elections and I'd like to alert members regarding this.
 
Some days ago I received the Notice and Agenda of the AGM to be held on Sunday, 26th July 2015 at 10.30 a.m. I had a look at it today and realized that the elections of a new Managing Committee is to be held on the day.

Reading the Agenda, I realized that the elections, if held as procedurally flawed and as a consequence are bound to be null and void.

The Constitution of the Club provides that the schedule of the elections have to be announced beforehand and panels of those who wish to contest have to file their nominations beforehand.

Nothing of the kind has been done in the Notice and Agenda that has been sent to the members. There is also no mention about the annual membership fees that are to be collected.

From what has been given in the Agenda it seems that the election will be conducted directly on the floor of the house. It should be noted that this procedure can be followed only if and when no panel has filed nomination papers.

I am alerting the members about this because the procedures should be followed as per the Constitution. Bypassing the rules, (even if the members are willing to go along with this), will set up a very bad precedent.

If today the Constitution is violated like in this way, in future they will continue to do whatever they like. And I can assure you given the real estate that the Club is sitting on, there are lots of people who would be quite happy to do just that.

At last years' AGM the Committee had promised to present an estimate of the repairs that the Clubhouse required. It had also promised that the financial accounts would be kept open for scrutiny and copies of the financial statements and annual report would be available for members beforehand. To the best of my knowledge none of these measures have been taken by the Committee till now.

Will the members wise up and oppose these fraudulent elections and actions of the current Managing Committee?

Augusto

[Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا‎]

We face a similar problem in Saligao too (which seems to be one of the triplets with Aldona and Moira when it comes to the early 20th-century built clubs and their trajectories).

There is a lot of disinterest in running club affairs. Many members are no longer settled in the village (and have migrated abroad). There is some reluctance to expand membership, maybe in part because of a fear of the take-over of assets built up painfully over the decades (but also because these are small communities who prefer to work among themselves).

Armchair critics like us are easy to come by. It's one thing to make suggestions, theorise and pontificate, but quite another thing to actually work at the implementation level.

In some cases I've noticed, there's a lot of enthusiasm at the time of club elections (I'm talking in a Saligao context). But then delivering over the rest of the year itself is quite another matter. It's a thankless job. Let's face it.

FN

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[augusto pinto]

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 11:58:37 +0430
From: Floriano Lobo <floria...@gmail.com>
To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
        <goa...@lists.goanet.org>
Subject: Re: [Goanet] A. A. de Moira Club Elections on 26th July
        UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Message-ID:
        <CABR_hVyz5DD360QJ+vKQbcW6...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

I for one have not received the notice yet. he Church announcement just
said AGM but nothing about elections.Yes, this has to be opposed tooth and
nail.

On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 12:01 PM, augusto pinto <pint...@gmail.com> wrote:

> *Important*
>
>
> *There is something decidedly dodgy about the forthcoming A. A. de Moira
> Club elections and I'd like to alert members regarding this. *

> Some days ago I received the Notice and Agenda of the AGM to be held on
> Sunday, 26th July 2015 at 10.30 a.m. I had a look at it today and realized
> that the elections of a new Managing Committee is to be held on the day.
>
> Reading the Agenda, I realized that the elections, if held as procedurally
> flawed and as a consequence are bound to be null and void.
>
> The Constitution of the Club provides that the schedule of the elections
> have to be announced beforehand and panels of those who wish to contest
> have to file their nominations beforehand.
>
> Nothing of the kind has been done in the Notice and Agenda that has been
> sent to the members. There is also no mention about the annual membership
> fees that are to be collected.
>

> From what has been given in the Agenda* it seems that the election will be
> conducted directly on the floor of the house.* *It should be noted that

> this procedure can be followed only if and when no panel has filed

> nomination papers.*

>
> I am alerting the members about this because the procedures should be

> followed as per the Constitution. *Bypassing the rules*, (even if the
> members are willing to go along with this),* will set up a very bad
> precedent.*

>
> If today the Constitution is violated like in this way, in future they will
> continue to do whatever they like. And I can assure you given the real
> estate that the Club is sitting on, there are lots of people who would be
> quite happy to do just that.
>
> At last years' AGM the Committee had promised to present an estimate of the
> repairs that the Clubhouse required. It had also promised that the
> financial accounts would be kept open for scrutiny and copies of the
> financial statements and annual report would be available for members
> beforehand. To the best of my knowledge none of these measures have been
> taken by the Committee till now.
>
> Will the members wise up and oppose these fraudulent elections and actions
> of the current Managing Committee?
> Augusto

FN

Apart from the gratuitously pompous paragraph which goes:

"Armchair critics like us are easy to come by. It's one thing to make suggestions, theorise and pontificate, but quite another thing to actually work at the implementation level."

I think I would agree with what you write.

[Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا‎]

On 21 July 2015 at 00:49, augusto pinto <pint...@gmail.com> wrote:

Apart from the gratuitously pompous paragraph which goes:
"Armchair critics like us are easy to come by. It's one thing to make suggestions, theorise and pontificate, but quite another thing to actually work at the implementation level."

I think I would agree with what you write.

Okay Gusto, prove my gratuitous pompousness wrong and unfounded. Go ahead, contest elections, run the club for a year... that's all it would take to realise how tough it can be.

Somewhere, deep down, I do realise that talk is cheap. And know that I'm guilty of it myself :-)

These institutions (the clubs set up in the early 20th century, probably on the Africa model and with Africander money, in whichever village they are located) are in crisis. Can we think of some hack that would help fix them, rather than just cribbing about how they're run? Or pointing flaws alone?

FN

[augusto pinto]

FN writes: "Can we think of some hack that would help fix them, rather than just cribbing about how they're run? Or pointing flaws alone?"

Running the club is not a great issue per se. But trying to run affairs without a close understandings of its problems is like trying to keep afloat a ship that has a big hole in its bottom by trying to bale out the water seeping in with a bucket.

The problem underlying all the problems that affect the club begins with its membership. To understand this there is a long story.

What happened to a club which was a very dynamic and socially broad based institution in the 70s with a great football team and loads of activities going on?

Well many things but I'll jump to the crisis in the 80s-90s which allowed the very wise Bamons who now control the club to do some wonderfully brilliant gerrymandering/malapportionment a couple of decades or so ago.

At that time a club committee which included Simon Nazareth among others lost the elections to a new committee where Romeo Coelho was the point man. When charge had to be handed over apparently there were some conflicts and the books including the Minutes' books; the Accounts books and the Membership Register "disappeared". It is not entirely clear who is responsible for this, but the consequences to the club were far reaching.
 

Taking advantage of this RC and co, went in for creating a new membership register wherein all those who could prove they were members were enrolled, and others who could not produce their life membership receipts had to pay Rr 375/= to re-enroll as life members.

After a point the membership list was frozen and after a lot of wrangling a new Constitution was brought in and now new members could only be enrolled by paying an extremely high fee (at that time) of Rs 5000/= and that too after stringent scrutiny by the managing committee.

As a result the membership list was reduced to just some 400 odd members consisting predominantly of  Christians and  a huge coming from a few families, some of whom were infants at the time. (And many of these people are not even residing in Moira any longer, having emigrated, which means the effective membership is even less.)

Perhaps a maximum of some 50 odd people, usually much less, will come to attend an AGM and otherwise they aren't to be seen for the rest of the year. Even the committee members after they are elected will not show their faces at the club.

Now the point is there simply aren't enough members to create the 'critical mass' required to run matters efficiently, to raise funds, to run around organizing things and so on.

I can't see things changing in a hurry until people with a more pluralistic vision come to the helm of affairs and doing what needs to be done is done: expanding the membership to make the club a socially more open, broad-based institution that reflects the demography of the village where it works as a secular meeting place for everybody. Obviously there is a chicken and egg situation here as ...

But it's either that or it will sooner rather than later perish or get gobbled up by unscrupulous scoundrels.

FN also writes: "These institutions (the clubs set up in the early 20th century, probably on the Africa model and with Africander money, in whichever village they are located) are in crisis.

While it may be true that a lot of Africander money went into the building of the club a lot of other villagers also contributed in one way or another. And the Communidade which gave the land to the club stated that it was supposed to be used for the benefit of the villagers (not the ganvkars or the Bamons or the Christians or the rich).


FN writes: "Go ahead, contest elections, run the club for a year... that's all it would take to realise how tough it can be."

At a personal level, you don't need to preach me about how to run institutions. The years of experience I have had in the Goa Chess Association which involved taking over a defunct organisation and turning it into one of the few champion creating institutions of Goa is a case in point - if I may blow my own trumpet.

However as in that case what is needed is dedicated team-work and not a single individual dictating things.

Also, and in any case, if I wanted to contest elections there is no way I could do this in the current scheme of things without the blessing and support of the few Bamons who can control affairs, and this is something that I refuse to do, as it is patently stupid.

Personally I will stand outside and help where I can, praise what others do that is praiseworthy and blow my whistle (no pun intended :) when I see some mischief being committed.

Augusto

[augusto pinto]

I had posted this same mail on Goanet. Given below are some responses:

https://www.mail-archive.com/goa...@lists.goanet.org/msg111536.html
https://www.mail-archive.com/goa...@lists.goanet.org/msg111565.html
https://www.mail-archive.com/goa...@lists.goanet.org/msg111576.html

Augusto

[Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا‎]

Just a few comments:

AUGUSTO (AP) SAYS: Running the club is not a great issue per

se.  But trying to run affairs without a close understandings
of its problems is like trying to keep afloat a ship that has
a big hole in its bottom by trying to bale out the water
seeping in with a bucket

[1] Well, since you feel running the club is "not a great
issue per se" and also believe you have an understanding of
its problems, why not contest for the elections yourself?
I'm assuming your view will gain the support deserved and
you'll get elected; if not, you'll need to ask why. It's easy
to sit outside, throw stones and raise suspicions.

[2] More importantly, even as someone who has always been
ready to acknowledge the damage caused by casteism and
caste-oppression, I'm beginning to tire of AP's "Bamons" and
"Christians" arguments. I get the feeling that AP believes he
can win just about any argument, slur any opponent, just by
shouting "Bamon, Bamon, Christian, Christian."

In the first place, let's admit: we don't choose the families
we are born in, we don't choose our DNA, and we don't choose
our castes. If I trace my roots to some or the other caste,
don't hang me for it; I have to be affiliated to one or the
other origin groups simply to exist. If I am casteist or
discriminate against others, now that's something you can
talk of.

Should we be settling our personal scores just by pointing to
caste of other people? This attitude reminds me of issues
like the Tehelka-Tejpal case. Two powerful sets of males
fighting each other, and using women's rights as the excuse!

If I'm not mistaken, most of the people reading this are
among the least casteist and communal in our country at this
point of time. Yet, Augusto uses this as an excuse to score
points. Maybe we have our biases in terms of class, ethnicity
or whatever... that's another point. We can discuss it, but
please don't make use of these labels just to score arguments.

If AP talks about the composition of the club membership,
etc, this is true in a number of areas of Goan life. Given
the way Goa's history and chronology has divided its people,
is this something we need to be perennially embarassed about?
For a long time, the participation of Goanet has been largely
Catholic; but that has more to do with the fact that Goanet
started in the diaspora (which is perhaps 95% Catholic,
rather than any deliberate attempt to be exclusionary). If
you check the employment figures of the Marathi newspapers,
the Government of Goa in current times and the government
staff in the pre-1961 era, you will come up with very
differing and unrepresentative figures. Would AP make use of
such figures to score his own goals?

In a word, such arguments don't make much sense, and though
I'm no Moidekkar, I feel the need to challenge my good friend
AP on this, because nobody else seems to be doing this. Khuda
bhi nanga se darta hai?

In fact, some of the problems that the Moira club is facing
seem to be very similar to the struggling-to-be-revived
Saligao Institute. I see this less due to some conspiracy
(there isn't any, afaik!) and more to the changing times and
the difficulties of these institutions to cope with a
situation they were not created for. Let's be honest in
accepting the situation for what it is, rather than
personalising the whole debate among people we like and those
we don't.

[3] What happened to the Goa Chess Association, which you and
others built up? Did you stop taking an active interest in
it? If so, why?

FN

[augusto pinto]

Just recently, guess who sent in the following suggestions (among others) regarding what Moira Net should be like:
* Being able to disagree without being disagreeable.
* Minimising one-on-one continuing of old rivalries.
* Avoiding flame-baits.
* Discussing issues, rather than persons.
* A network that can do something positive for the village and its people.

Yes none other than FN himself.

This preacher who he has no personal knowledge of the issues pertaining to Moira,  has now gone and personalized the issue, using language which he knows will provoke me to retaliate.

But I am going to refrain from doing so because in substance he merely repeats charges which were already answered in a long post, the fifth on this thread. The rest is empty rhetoric aimed as he says so colorfully says: "just to score arguments" (sic)

Cheers

Augusto