Anyone else not been able to vote (BS-AC)? [Archive]

View Full Version : Anyone else not been able to vote (BS-AC)?

Antony Slegg

09-05-2005, 13:31

Being outside the UK (in the Netherlands) I sometimes receive my Dive magazine somewhat late. Reading those "interesting" election profiles it occurred to me that I hadn't had the election paperwork.

An e-mail to Mary Tetley (at HQ) resulted in the reply that it went out with April's Dive, I didn't get one, therefore I couldn't vote because they were already counting the votes.

I haven't posted on this forum before and would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar problem.

If so how many of us does there have to be to declare the election invalid?

Ant S

ann holden

09-05-2005, 19:02

ken twat

09-05-2005, 22:40

:=Being outside the UK (in the Netherlands) I sometimes receive my Dive magazine somewhat late. Reading those "interesting" election profiles it occurred to me that I hadn't had the election paperwork.
:=
:=An e-mail to Mary Tetley (at HQ) resulted in the reply that it went out with April's Dive, I didn't get one, therefore I couldn't vote because they were already counting the votes.
:=
:=I haven't posted on this forum before and would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar problem.
:=
:=If so how many of us does there have to be to declare the election invalid?
:=
:=Ant S
Don't know
Still waiting for January's Dive mag

Ann

Did these problems exist when the BSAC mag was Diver or is it a fairly new thing

09-05-2005, 22:47

Wouldn't it have been a good idea to have had some information on the website about the Elections and giving people a point of contact if they hadn't had their ballot papers? Maybee it could all have been posted on the Newsflash page!! ;-))

Regards

AC

David Walker

10-05-2005, 00:19

Wouldn't it have been a good idea to have had some information on the website about the Elections and giving people a point of contact if they hadn't had their ballot papers?

Crazy suggestion! You mean actually use the website for something useful? From my understanding of how BSAC works based on responses to queries in here before, it would appear that to get 3 words changed on the website needs someone to suggest it, find someone at HQ who understands it, them to have time to bring it to the attention of thier manager, wait 3 months to fit it into some kind of committee meeting, who will make a recommendation to another committee that only meets twice a year, who will ask someone very nicely if they would mind changing the HTML whenever they get the time, who will then print it out, post it via the royal mail to the webmaster, who will retype in the html, e-mail it to the web hosting company who will (10 months later) add two sentences saying "You should have received your ballot papers with the March issue of Dive. If not, please contact <a href="mailto:xxx@bsac.com">xxx@bsac.com</a>."

Now how likely would it be that they would go to all that trouble! :o\

Can you tell, i'm growing increasingly sceptical of HQ's ability to do anything vaguely useful without having 200 meetings and a 5 year feasibility study!?!

*BSAC, GIVE YOUR STAFF THE ABILITY TO MAKE DECISIONS!!!*

I can recommend several sources of information about "empowerment of employees" if that helps? It really does seem that BSAC is incredibly limited in its ability to do anything at the minute. A recent response to the problem about news updates was along the lines of "we're investigating the allocation of responsibility and creating systems to enable us to do this" - hardly necessary for a simple change to one page every few weeks, is it?! At least in the short term it would be very easy for one person to do this. And i've not heard any response as to why Instructor notes for an SDC that changed in 2001 still refer to the old syllabus (O2), why we haven't had any updated exam papers for OD/SD/DL/AD despite there being many many pages of recognised mistakes now (it would take someone with the originals around an hour to correct the mistakes and put them on the website / e-mail them to instructors / send out a messages saying to contact BSAC HQ to get updated versions).

Sorry to be getting a bit critical towards BSAC recently, but I really am doubting its ability to respond to the needs of its members. As a happy little Ocean Diver trainee I was oblivious to the existence of HQ, and so these problems never bothered me. Since being part of a committee, and being an instructor, I am seeing more and more of what HQ does, and the more I see the more problems appear.

I just hope that the new Council might sit down and reconsider BSACs priorities - move resources around, get someone in part-time to update documentation, a few weeks and they'd be able to get through everything and get it updated. Most of it I imagine is sitting on computers in HQ somewhere, all nicely up-to-date, but no ones bothered to update the publicly available copies for the past 4 years! Why bother with trimix and rebreathers when we can't even get reasonable materials for the CORE courses, which will be done by many many more thousands of trainees than trimix ever will be? Yes they would be nice to have, but if the resources can't be found elsewhere then priorities need to be seriously considered!

*cough* Rant over, sorry :O)

David

Edward Haynes

10-05-2005, 07:01

It has need on the BSAC Site, seee the link.

And if you didn't get a voting form there was advice on what to do:

****
Ballot Forms MUST be returned in the pre-paid envelope provided, before 10.00am Saturday 7th May 2005
All forms will be sent directly to BSAC members. If you are a full member and have not received your documents by the end of March, please contact Odette Baker at <a href="mailto:odetteb@bsac.com">odetteb@bsac.com</a>
****

Edward

Ann Holden

10-05-2005, 08:38

:=:=Being outside the UK (in the Netherlands) I sometimes receive my Dive magazine somewhat late. Reading those "interesting" election profiles it occurred to me that I hadn't had the election paperwork.
:=:=
:=:=An e-mail to Mary Tetley (at HQ) resulted in the reply that it went out with April's Dive, I didn't get one, therefore I couldn't vote because they were already counting the votes.
:=:=
:=:=I haven't posted on this forum before and would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar problem.
:=:=
:=:=If so how many of us does there have to be to declare the election invalid?
:=:=
:=:=Ant S
:=Don't know
:=Still waiting for January's Dive mag
:=
:=Ann

Did these problems exist when the BSAC mag was Diver or is it a fairly new thing

Yes the problem did exist in the days of Diver.
However if my memory is correct things were OK when the Club mag was TRITON

Ann

Khaled Alwassia

10-05-2005, 10:09

Please check these earlier posts.

<a href="http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/forums/genforum/posts/5658.html" >http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/forums/genforum/posts/5658.html</a>
<a href="http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/forums/genforum/posts/5349.html" >http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/forums/genforum/posts/5349.html</a>
<a href="http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/forums/genforum/posts/5398.html" >http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/forums/genforum/posts/5398.html</a>

Keith and present council have done a lot to facilitate Online voting. Hopefully this situation will be resolved for the next AMG.

Khaled

John Bantin

10-05-2005, 16:01

:=
:=Did these problems exist when the BSAC mag was Diver or is it a fairly new thing

Yes the problem did exist in the days of Diver.
However if my memory is correct things were OK when the Club mag was TRITON

Ann

Bring back the bloke who published Triton! Ahem, was that not...

ken twat

10-05-2005, 18:47

ken twat

10-05-2005, 18:51

:=:=:=Being outside the UK (in the Netherlands) I sometimes receive my Dive magazine somewhat late. Reading those "interesting" election profiles it occurred to me that I hadn't had the election paperwork.
:=:=:=
:=:=:=An e-mail to Mary Tetley (at HQ) resulted in the reply that it went out with April's Dive, I didn't get one, therefore I couldn't vote because they were already counting the votes.
:=:=:=
:=:=:=I haven't posted on this forum before and would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar problem.
:=:=:=
:=:=:=If so how many of us does there have to be to declare the election invalid?
:=:=:=
:=:=:=Ant S
:=:=Don't know
:=:=Still waiting for January's Dive mag
:=:=
:=:=Ann
:=
:=Did these problems exist when the BSAC mag was Diver or is it a fairly new thing

Yes the problem did exist in the days of Diver.
However if my memory is correct things were OK when the Club mag was TRITON

Ann

Youre memory probably isn't correct then

ann holden

10-05-2005, 20:16

:=:=:=:=Being outside the UK (in the Netherlands) I sometimes receive my Dive magazine somewhat late. Reading those "interesting" election profiles it occurred to me that I hadn't had the election paperwork.
:=:=:=:=
:=:=:=:=An e-mail to Mary Tetley (at HQ) resulted in the reply that it went out with April's Dive, I didn't get one, therefore I couldn't vote because they were already counting the votes.
:=:=:=:=
:=:=:=:=I haven't posted on this forum before and would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar problem.
:=:=:=:=
:=:=:=:=If so how many of us does there have to be to declare the election invalid?
:=:=:=:=
:=:=:=:=Ant S
:=:=:=Don't know
:=:=:=Still waiting for January's Dive mag
:=:=:=
:=:=:=Ann
:=:=
:=:=Did these problems exist when the BSAC mag was Diver or is it a fairly new thing
:=
:=Yes the problem did exist in the days of Diver.
:=However if my memory is correct things were OK when the Club mag was TRITON
:=
:=
:=Ann

Youre memory probably isn't correct then

Are you saying that this problem has existed since the birth of the BSAC way back in prehistory?

Ann

alison boler

10-05-2005, 21:35

It has only really arisen in reasonably recent years as the BSAC has "professionalised" its election arrangements to some extent. Up until the late 90s there were two major differences in the way the election was organised .
1. Faxed returns were allowed from overseas clubs. This was because the returns went to HQ and the ERS were not involved. Voting forms could be faxed to overseas branches too. Now, whilst this was obviously convenient for the branch, it was open to abuse (not saying there ever was any, please don't lets discuss that!). E-voting - to be introduced next AGM I understand - will give this level of convenience without the opportunity for abuse.
2. Also in the late 90s the AGM date was moved from June back to May because it was felt that more people might attend if it wasn't in the diving season. However, audit requirements meant that the events leading up to the AGM did not also move back, therefore the notices go out at the same time as they did when the AGM was a month later. This has meant that overseas branches who might have managed to return a postal vote in the old June AGM days, could not manage to do so in time for a May AGM.
Roll on e voting I say.

Allie

David Walker

10-05-2005, 23:38

What about members without web access ???

Ah come on, there's only so much they can do. A website is a very easy change, and unfortunately didn't check that they didn't put anything on myself. That said, I didn't notice anything about elections during my normal looking around for other things on the BSAC website recently, but wasn't specifically looking.

If they haven't got web access, AND they were unlucky enough not to get the thing in the post, AND no one else they knew mentioned it then that is harder to deal with - other than send everyone 5 letters with the assumption that at least 1 in 5 will get there, or give everyone a personal phone call, there's not a lot more they could do I don't suppose.

I tend to be a little harsh on BSAC, but also realistic!

David

BSACHQ

11-05-2005, 10:12

Dear David

Many thanks for your posting. As you know I have emailed you directly about some of your queries, but I just wanted to let everyone know that the news section is updated and will be done each week. If you have any news for me please email it to <a href="mailto:maryt@bsac.com">maryt@bsac.com</a>.

Thanks

Mary

Mary Tetley
BSAC Operations Manager

BSACHQ

11-05-2005, 10:21

Dear All

Having read some of your postings we thought it would be a good idea to show you where the voting process has been announced and promoted over the last few months.

The first announcement was made in the December 2004 issue of Dive Magazine, which came out in November 2004. This invited members to stand for election and alerted everyone to the date of the AGM.

The Notice of Meeting was then sent out in the March 2005 issue of Dive, which came out in February 2005. The AGM was also again announced in the March 2005 issue of Dive, which came out in February 2005.

Voting papers were sent out in the April 2005 issue of Dive, which came out in March 2005. All overseas members were sent their voting papers slightly earlier than this date in order to give them enough time to vote.

The ?Meet the Candidates? leaflet and the announcement of the ballot were put on the website around the time the April 2005 issue of the magazine was sent out. The scroller on the home page also contained an announcement about voting papers and dates for the ballot papers to be submitted by. BSAC Talk, which is emailed to over 8,000 members, had details about the AGM, and in the May edition, which is sent in April 2005, we included the Operations Manager?s telephone number in case anyone had any queries about voting or needed papers. These editions of BSAC Talk were also updated on the website.

A message was posted on the forum as soon as we received the first query of non receipt of voting papers to ask members to contact BSAC HQ to request a further set of papers. Everyone who raised queries directly to me or via the forums has been sent their forms. Unfortunately if the queries were received after the deadline for voting, which was 7 May 2005 at 10.30am, we have been unable to send voting papers out. We are only aware of one such instance.

As you are all aware the BSAC is hoping to be able to run electronic voting in the future and this will ensure a smoother, more efficient voting process for all members.

If you have any further queries on this process, please do email directly to Mary Tetley at <a href="mailto:maryt@bsac.com">maryt@bsac.com</a> or telephone on 0151 350 6220.

Kind regards

Mary Tetley
Operations Manager

bsachq

11-05-2005, 14:23

:=Wouldn't it have been a good idea to have had some information on the website about the Elections and giving people a point of contact if they hadn't had their ballot papers?

Crazy suggestion! You mean actually use the website for something useful? From my understanding of how BSAC works based on responses to queries in here before, it would appear that to get 3 words changed on the website needs someone to suggest it, find someone at HQ who understands it, them to have time to bring it to the attention of thier manager, wait 3 months to fit it into some kind of committee meeting, who will make a recommendation to another committee that only meets twice a year, who will ask someone very nicely if they would mind changing the HTML whenever they get the time, who will then print it out, post it via the royal mail to the webmaster, who will retype in the html, e-mail it to the web hosting company who will (10 months later) add two sentences saying "You should have received your ballot papers with the March issue of Dive. If not, please contact <a href="mailto:xxx@bsac.com">xxx@bsac.com</a>."

Now how likely would it be that they would go to all that trouble! :o\

Can you tell, i'm growing increasingly sceptical of HQ's ability to do anything vaguely useful without having 200 meetings and a 5 year feasibility study!?!

*BSAC, GIVE YOUR STAFF THE ABILITY TO MAKE DECISIONS!!!*

I can recommend several sources of information about "empowerment of employees" if that helps? It really does seem that BSAC is incredibly limited in its ability to do anything at the minute. A recent response to the problem about news updates was along the lines of "we're investigating the allocation of responsibility and creating systems to enable us to do this" - hardly necessary for a simple change to one page every few weeks, is it?! At least in the short term it would be very easy for one person to do this. And i've not heard any response as to why Instructor notes for an SDC that changed in 2001 still refer to the old syllabus (O2), why we haven't had any updated exam papers for OD/SD/DL/AD despite there being many many pages of recognised mistakes now (it would take someone with the originals around an hour to correct the mistakes and put them on the website / e-mail them to instructors / send out a messages saying to contact BSAC HQ to get updated versions).

Sorry to be getting a bit critical towards BSAC recently, but I really am doubting its ability to respond to the needs of its members. As a happy little Ocean Diver trainee I was oblivious to the existence of HQ, and so these problems never bothered me. Since being part of a committee, and being an instructor, I am seeing more and more of what HQ does, and the more I see the more problems appear.

I just hope that the new Council might sit down and reconsider BSACs priorities - move resources around, get someone in part-time to update documentation, a few weeks and they'd be able to get through everything and get it updated. Most of it I imagine is sitting on computers in HQ somewhere, all nicely up-to-date, but no ones bothered to update the publicly available copies for the past 4 years! Why bother with trimix and rebreathers when we can't even get reasonable materials for the CORE courses, which will be done by many many more thousands of trainees than trimix ever will be? Yes they would be nice to have, but if the resources can't be found elsewhere then priorities need to be seriously considered!

*cough* Rant over, sorry :O)

David

Dear David
Your mail to Mary Tetley has been passed through to me for a reply concerning the updates to O2 instructor notes and exam papers for the various grades.

First of all can I apologise for the apparent lack of response to your request for this information previously. If you could let me know who it was that you sent the request through to I can possibly identify a reason for this omission. It is unusual that my department does not respond to member's requests within a reasonable time. If we are unable to provide the answers immediately we would always send a reply to that effect and return when that answer was available to us.

The Oxygen Admin SDC notes have not been updated recently as there have been no significant amendments since they were amended in 2001. The same information is now contained in the current Instructor Manual (2002) under the Dive Leader section. Ocean Diver receive these student notes as part of our endeavour to improve safety by making this training available to all BSAC divers.

The original versions of the exam papers provided with the Instructor Manual did contain some errors but they have been identified and posted on the errata section of the website at <a href="http://www.bsac.org/techserv/irc/dtpcor.shtml" >http://www.bsac.org/techserv/irc/dtpcor.shtml</a> which I am sure you are referring to.

The Manual was last reprinted in June 2003 and at that time all the identified errors were corrected, along with amendments to the CD-ROM supplied with the Manual. If you bought your manual before that date it will contain errors that are listed on the above section. No further errors have been identified since that last reprint.

Our advice to instructors is that the exam papers supplied are sample exam papers and that DOs or TOs are quite at liberty to create alternative papers using these questions or similar questions, if they wish. The Diver Training Group of NDC are currently looking at creating further question papers but it will be some time before these will be available for sale due to the extensive checking of question suitability and clarity of wording that needs to take place.

Putting corrected exam papers on the website as you suggested has been rejected as a solution since that would expose students about to take the exams to the very papers they may be sitting. Posting corrected CD-ROMs out to those that have purchased the original discs would cost far too much in view of the number of manual owners. Despite the low initial cost of the manual, compared to other agency manuals, members are reluctant to pay for updates.

If you would like to discuss the matter with me in more detail then please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Best wishes

Alistair Reynolds
BSAC Technical Manager

Antony Slegg

13-05-2005, 09:18

Having read all the replies it seems clear that:
1) I wasn't sent a form with the magazine (as an overseas member it went out earlier although other members of my branch did seem to get a magazine copy so maybe the magazine went out early?)
2) I still didn't get a form and I wasn't the only one
3) The solution BS-AC had to the problem of non-delivery was to post on a forum THAT NOT EVERYONE READS (even those with internet/e-mail access) - if electronic means are used then posting an e-mail to as many as possible would have helped
4) The fact that there was an issue (of then unknown size - see above) did not stop HQ from continuing with the elections
5) The voting process will be revised by the time of the next AGM and ("BS-AC is hoping...") electronic voting will be possible.
6) Although the web-site has it's uses it can't be said to be perfect (often I find that a search produces references that are quite old, sometimes out of date and sometimes contradictory).

If HQ does want to make the web-site more useful can I suggest that:
a) It is made slimmer (there is too much stuff and in some cases the terminology is not completely up to date)
b) That elected officers are made responsible for the review of the content of pages that are marked as being theirs - if this is not already the case
c) that for each page the language should be kept simple. It's meant to be an exercise in communication.
d) That changes to a few key pages (training, safety standards etc) should be notified to all members (especially those that impact the status of the Instructor Manual). In fact if such pages followed the IM format then it would be possible to update the manual far more easily

Ant S

Peter Greenfield

18-05-2005, 15:48

I live in Spain, didn?t receive any election papers either...although I did receive several copies of the mag that hadn?t been sent from August last year, after an e-mail to HQ.

cgsac

18-05-2005, 19:59

I did not vote, I was overseas (it was my fault I did not inform BSAC of my address change). I knew that elections were taking place from all the info that BSAC provided on its website, and the magazine and also elsewhere.

I personally feel that people are taking umbrance over an issue that is not necessary. I want to say that the staff at BSAC HQ do a great job, they work on a finite budget and with a diverse membership that has a wide range of needs. Some of the above comments have irritated me as people seem to want the world, and yet whinge about costs and overheads when something is done to help.

We need to be realistic about we want from the BSAC and perhaps be more contstructive in our "pots" at HQ. I think they have had unfair criticism over this issue. We knew elections were coming from getting on for a year now.

Sometimes it seems that not enough is done to appreciate the efforts of Mary and the Team at HQ. Why dont some of the posters here, say a few words of thanks.

Cris

Adrian Kelland

19-05-2005, 09:23

We need to be realistic about we want from the BSAC and perhaps be more contstructive in our "pots" at HQ. I think they have had unfair criticism over this issue. We knew elections were coming from getting on for a year now.

Indeed, I do believe that the AGM and some associated votes happen every year. No one except perhaps recent members can claim to be surprised.

Adrian