[MCFA Int] How the MCFA is governed by the Adimistrative Board

[Meinhard Ober <m.ober@DROPMEic.ac.uk>]

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How the MCFA is governed by the Adimistrative Board

I want to prove that:
1. The administration board (AB)of the MCFA does pretend to involve other
members in its decision.
2. The AB does really not want any involvement of the other members of the
MCFA in its decision.
3. The AB does really not intent in the future to involve the members of the
MCFA in its major decisions.

Introduction
On Friday 13 March, 98, there was a meeting of the Administrative Board in
Bruxelles. On point on the agenda was the statutes and therefore also some
others were invited which have contributed to the international discussion
substantially. According to the agenda 30 minutes should last it.

Fact 1:
Our MCFA president distributed a paper version of his own proposal.

Remark 1: Nobody saw it before, neither it was discussed in any national or
international list.
Remark 2: He did not even give anyone, who already made a proposal, a chance
to present his idea during the whole meeting.
Remark 3: The proposal does change only the type of the membership to some
extent, because it does not even remove the difference between associate
members and full members. It just gives more rights to the associate members.

Fact 2:
He went quickly through it and asked for remarks, in the way: Do you want to
change this word, OK. It is changed.

Remark 1: 30 minutes to understand a proposal with all its implications is,
according to my experience not possible.
Remark 2: By giving a real chance to everybody at the meeting to change
something, even if this change could be only of minor importance, our
president pretended to have acted as a real democratic minded person.

Fact 3:
Questions, if we could not change the statutes in a more profound way, the
answer was in the sense that 
A)  this is not possible to maintain the statutes flexibility and 
B)  to ensure that a change is more likely to go through the way of
jurisdiction.

-Remark:
The proposed statutes are less flexible, e.g. there is no possibility to fit
another director in the AB to react on new necessities in an other way than
through an election by the General Assembly.

Fact 4:
The opinion was mentioned that it is possible to change the statutes again
after this first change. Luc reacted annoyed and said something in the
sense: No, we do not want to change them again.

Remark:
The reaction of our president shows clearly the background. They do not want
any involvement. If this is not the case it just shows that he did not read
the statutes or did not say the truth, because in Article 2 it says:
"The Association may create one or more regional groups or local branches
both in Belgium and abroad by decision of the General Assembly published in
the annexes to the Moniteur belge, pursuant to Article 14 of these articles
of association."
This states that in future after each General Assembly the new local groups
has to be officially published by an amendment to the statutes, which of
course is a change of the statutes.

Fact 5:
A workgroup was formed to set up the internal rules, which should give the
national groups more influence. It was explicitely mentioned that if and
only if there are severe reasons for a change of the statutes, this will
then be discussed and decided by the AB.

Remark 1: Our president was not even anymore there to discuss it further.
But this proposal for the decision above was given by a member of the AB.

Remark 2: This decision was made even against the strongest resistance of
the representatives of the UK group. The UK group decided in former general
meetings among other things on a termination of the differentiation between
associate members and full members.

Conclusion:
There is enough evidence to show that the administration board is rather
governing than administrating the association. From many discussions it is
obvious that this new proposal does not satisfy the needs of the MCFA and
according to the will of the board it never will be.

What can everyone of us do?
1.  Try to formulate new statutes and forward them to the General Assembly
and hope that we win it.
2.  Split the UK group from the European group and try to build up a new
European association in the sense of a real democratic and European association.
3.  Leave the association and forget it.
 
4.  Go further do nothing at all and hope for the best.

Option 1 is my way. If anybody else wants to work for better statutes for a
real democratic, European association, in it is really appreciated to work
together, let me know.


Meinhard Ober

P.s. I want to apologise for all trouble this causes and the damage to the
reputation of the MCFA, but I think the damage the AB does is much bigger.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meinhard Ober
Imperial College
Department of Mechanical Engineering    Tel.:   +44 171 5947098
Exhibition Road                         Fax:    +44 171 8238845
London SW7 2BX                          E-mail: m.ober@DROPMEic.ac.uk
United Kingdom                                  or ober@DROPMEmpa.uni-stuttgart.de
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