Basel - the future of the WCF?

When the International Curling Federation was formed in 1966 its 7 member associations were from countries where curling was a well-established mature sport, played competitively and recreationally. The 7 were Canada, Scotland, USA, France, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway. Germany joined in 1967 and then Denmark and England in 1971 and Italy in 1972. The Dutch followed in 1975, Luxembourg in 1976, Finland in 1979 and Wales and Austria in 1982. The first non European / North American member was Japan in 1985 with Australia following shortly after in 1986.

When the drive to get Olympic recognition was at its height, led by Gunther Hummelt, a number of other member associations were signed up as members to ensure that the WCF, as it had then become, was fully compliant with International Olympic Committee rules. Countries like the US Virgin Islands (1991) or Liechtenstein (1991) have played little or no part in WCF affairs since they were admitted although others have developed into World curling power, such as Korea (1994), Czech Republic (1990) and Russia (1992).

By the end of the last century the total number of Member Associations had risen to 32 and since curling has become a recognised Olympic sport there have been a further 16 Member Associations added to the list. Some have been and gone (e.g. Mexico), while others have been, gone and come back again (Romania, Kazakhstan). It is my understanding that we may see Mongolia added to the list this week or very shortly.

All of this makes the WCF and its Member Associations a totally different animal to that which started life 46 years ago - it is reaching maturity you could say. The recent confrontation between the WCF and the European Curling Federation when led by Andrew Ferguson-Smith saw many begin to question how curling was being governed and a Governance Commission was set up by the WCF, chaired by Board Member Graham Prouse from Canada with members John Anderson (AUS), Laura Lochanski (CAN), Willie Nicoll (SCO), Bent Ramsfjell (NOR), Olli Rissanen (FIN), Gerrit-Jan Scholten (NED) and Colin Grahamslaw (WCF).

Their first comprehensive report on their findings was made to Member Associations at the Open Meeting yesterday with a further follow-up session during today's Open Meeting.

Their Mission Statement for the Commission was / is : "To create and maintain a robust organisation which maximises the potential of curling". They have set out what the requirements are for an enhanced Governance structure and also the goals for that Improved Governance Structure as follows:

Requirements:

• be efficient and effective
• ensure accountability
•  respect tradition while embracing progress
• take account of volunteer Board capacity
• ensure Member engagement and sustainability
• minimise risks on the organisation and its people
• describe clear lines of authorities and responsibilities
• empower those delivering the operational outcomes
• encompass today's best business practices
• avoid non-conformance with the constitution

Goals:

• a democratic organisation
• strong foundations in place which can grow with the sport
• solid and transparent finances
• good succession planning
• a dynamic election process which attracts quality people
• influence from the athletes
• the right person in the right job
• a professional and efficient staff empowered by the Board
• Board remains responsible for sound operation of the organisation

 So once you get around the management-speak, just what are its recommendations and how did it get to them?

Two benchmarking exercises were carried out comparing the WCF constitution, firstly to other International Federation constitutions and secondly to other related organisations including a number of Member Association constitutions. Best practice in other sport organisations and non profit making bodies was investigated, IOC policy had to be considered and there are also issues around Swiss Law since the WCF Head Office is based in Switzerland for tax purposes (note the operational HQ are of course in Perth).

The main recommendations are as follows (though note that this is still very much work in progress and a new constitution is not going to be approved until the WCF Congress in 2013).

Recommended that the WCF should be structured on a continental zone basis, initially Europe / the Americas / Pacific Asia with the provision to increase the number of continental zones or to amalgamate where appropriate as determined by the General Assembly.

The Board structure would be President, 3 Continental Vice Presidents and 4-6 directors (initially 4). The President would be elected for a 4 year term at the General Assembly (GA) after the Olympics, one of the three VPs would be elected at the 2nd, 3rd and 4th GAs following the Olympics so that they would not all go off the Board at the same time. An important proposal is that the Continental VPs would be elected "at large", that is not just by the MAs from that Continent - so even if the members of a continent favoured one particular person it would be possible for the other continents to vote a different person as the VP.

A very important change would be that no MA would have a guaranteed place on the Board. At the moment Scotland, USA and Canada are guaranteed a place and this would mark a big shift of power from the founding members to others. There would be a minimum of 2 from each gender - currently there has to be one female member of the Board. Candidates for the Board would have to be nominated by their MA but perhaps controversially they would not be required to have attended a WCF GA as an International Representative, opening the door for candidates from outside curling being brought into the Board.

Two other recommendations requiring a bit more thought are that successful candidates for the WCF Board should not be simultaneously sitting on their MA Board - to avoid a conflict of interest but not really workable in smaller countries, and whether or not there should be a maximum age for appointment to the Board. Directors or VPs would be able to sit for a total of 3 x 4 year terms with an additional 3 x 4 years if they became President - so in theory a Board member could be there for 24 years!!

Another big issue still being discussed is how to allocate votes to MAs - currently the system is weighted such that the bigger MAs get more votes. Perhaps uniquely among sport, the MA with the largest number of curlers (Canada) has 90% of the reported curlers in the World while the 5 MAs with the largest number of curlers have a combined 96% of the reported curlers.

Alternative options which could be considered are one MA,one vote (which gives 43 out of 48 votes to the MAs with an aggregate of 4% of the curlers), or the number of votes directly proportional to number of reported curlers (which gives Canada a whole lot of voting power!!). I think the current system will survive but with more refined recording of the number of curlers in each country. This will probably mean changing the current thresholds for the different weighting of votes to recognise the changes in the growth of curling, a way being devised of verifying the number of curlers reported and a standard definition of what a reported curler is.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the proposals and one which could change the whole scene of European curling is the idea that there would be 3 Continental Commissions set up. These bodies would be chaired by the respective continental VP and would be structured as follows: each Continental Commission would be made up of one representative of each MA in that zone, and within each Continental Commission the Members could decide to set up smaller groups to organise the work of the commission, look after specific projects or to carry out specific roles identified by the commission as needing additional attention.

The Continental Commissions would have the following roles: hold an annual meeting of MAs to discuss matters of interest / relevance to that zone; provide a channel of feedback to the Board through the VP; develop specific projects which can be promoted to the WCF Board for funding and staff support - e.g. other competitions, regional courses etc, and at the request of the WCF Board set up sub groups for specific projects. Also the Commissions would take decisions on matters allocated to it by the WCF Board or GA; support projects being delivered in that zone, and the VP would have a leading role in ceremonies at any Championships within that zone.

And then comes the paragraph which should make tomorrow's European Curling Federation meeting fairly exciting:

THE ROLES OF THE CONTINENTAL COMMISSIONS COULD ESSENTIALLY BECOME WHAT HAS TYPICALLY TAKEN PLACE WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CURLING FEDERATION AND THE PACIFIC ASIA CURLING FEDERATION, SHOULD THE MEMBERS OF THOSE ORGANISATIONS DETERMINE THAT THERE IS NO LONGER A NEED FOR THE FEDERATIONS TO CONTINUE !!! SHOULD THESE ORGANISATIONS CHOOSE TO CONTINUE THE CONTINENTAL COMMISSIONS WOULD STILL EXIST BUT WOULD AVOID DUPLICATED EFFORT.

The WCF has already started discussions with the ECF about the organisation of future European Championships and when the question was asked at today's meeting about who held the rights to those Championships there was a difference of opinion between the WCF and the ECF!!

So tomorrow the members of the ECF will be asked to give their views on the future of the Federation if the WCF takes over running the Championships and if the Continental Commission system is approved when the new WCF constitution becomes adopted.It could mean that the AGM of the ECF in Karlstad in December could be its last, either for ever or until a new ECF is resurrected in the future.

Personally I find it difficult to see where the ECF can go from here. If the European Championships are organised by the WCF I can see no real reason for the ECF to exist unless it can change its direction, but for a federation covering 38 countries and with a budget of tens of thousands of Euros only, it is difficult to see what it can do without bankrupting its own member associations.

Sorry this has been so long but there was a lot to tell - look out for more tomorrow from the ECF meeting.