At long last I have been permitted to release the new Footy Rules
Please find attached ~ they come into force with immediate effect
Best wishes
AndyT
UK Footy Class Registrar
Thanks Andy.
For US AMYA regattas, the old rules will remain in effect until AMYA skippers vote to adopt the new rules. Now that the rules are official, that ballot will take place soon.
Regardless of the result of that ballot, though, the old rules will be in effect for the NCR in Orlando this March.
Believe me folks, I wish this complication weren’t necessary…but it is what it is.
Bill H
Any possibility of a hint as to which rules we should use for the Sheboygan Footy Fest in May?
I have the NOR ready because May is not so far away. I guess if we don’t know by the end of the week I’ll go with the new rules.
Graham
Hi Bill trust you are well ~ we are just about to have a winter storm hit us so am keeping well wrapped up.
I take it that if the AMYA skippers vote not to adopt then the US will carry on using the old rules
Rgds
AndyT
Yes Andy I saw that but it doesn’t help the situation I have. If any one builds a new boat to the old rules for May it could well be different from how they would build it for the new rules which could be accepted either before or after that. So they could well put of bothering and we don’t need this to deplete the fleet.
Even the NCR is not totally following what Bill wrote back then so I thought it was worth asking. In offering an AMYA vote rather than rubber stamping the FCA rules as I believed was to be the case from the notes on the AMYA Footy page, are we not inviting the very split which we have all worked to hard to avoid?
The Sheboygan Footy Fest in May is not an AMYA event so overall I feel that we should go with the new rules which you posted for ‘immediate effect’ on 24th January above.
Graham
I wish I could be so sanguine.
First, I view the prospect of a ‘vote on the vote’ in the form of AMYA endorsement of the new rules with very great trepidation. The Footy is an international class (with a small ‘i’) that runs far beyond the remit of the AMYA and the AMYA must not be allowed to harm it.
So far as I am concerned, there is one and only one Footy rule. It is effective now. It does not have anything in it to say that it has to be obeyed in its entirety, so it is possible for a race organiser to breathe on it. This was suggested to be a problem at a late stage in the rule change process but was left in so as to allow a ‘soft’ transition, particularly for the event in Orlando in relation to which the problem had already been raised.
So, in response to Graham’s question, the answer is clearcut. The Sheboygan Footy Fest is a Footy event. It is not an AMYA event. There is no possible reason for running it under the old rule.
As regards the cavortings of the AMYA, the first point is that they are grossly undemocratic. A) Everyone - including AMYA members - has just voted on a ballot on the rule. It was a direct ballot - one man, one vote. It may or may not be that the outcome would have been different had no non-Americans taken part, but that is beside the point. The class is organised on an international basis. To put it as a ‘real’ world eqivalent, the position is exactly analogous with a US Presidential election followed imediately by a poll in California to decide whether they accepted the result.
I am further worried by the fact that the AMYA does not appear to be in any tearing hurry to endorse or not endorse the new rule. This is intolerable. We are an independent class and the unity of our rule must not be imperilled by the lassitude of an American bureaucracy. I can quite see that, unless a satisfactory outcome is arrived at quite soon, it will be necessary for the Footy Class to ‘de-sanction’ the AMYA by - for example - ceasing to recognise any registrations with the AMYA and issuing identical purely Footy Class sail numbers. I hasten to add that this last is purely my own personal view, but it is obvious that something will need to be done unless we get AMYA emdorsement of the 2009 rule in jig time.
:scared::scared::scared::devil3::zbeer:
Since there is a number of AMYA members registered for Footy, and who also took part in the last vote, why not just sort the ballots and count only those from AMYA members?
Otherwise, it seems we’ll need a second vote through AMYA channels, which would probably take months ( and are usually held in the fall) and could change or reverse the results of the FCA ballot.
Which is why the terms of the FCA’s ‘alliance’ with the AMYA need to change - pronto. Here the MYA has no rights to tell us what to do. This means that no action by the MYA in Britain can possibly flash-back on owners in the USA. The same should apply in reverse.
:zbeer::zbeer::zbeer:
Graham ~ this puts you in a real quandry ~ if there is not one rule, what rule do you as a manufactuer build to.
There cannot be one rule for one country and one for someone else when it is an international rule ~ thats just crazy!
Rgds
AndyT
Congratulations Angus, you’ve injected high drama into a relatively boring bit of administration. Bill has a simple proposal to sync the AMYA class which will be submitted before the deadline and then appear on the fall ballot issue of the magazine. It was a simple clerical error that we will fix.
Tomo, nope, we can’t just recount the FCA ballot and apply it to the AMYA.
Graham, it’s your regatta. Run whatever rules you like. Even the NCR has room for the new rules as the premier AMYA event. A non AMYA event can easily use the FCA rules (unless Bill talks you into making it the R4 Championship).
John
I’m sorry ~John, I don’t think that this is a boring bit of administration. It is everey bit as important as taking on the MYA over the legality of Andrew Halstead’s ZBF. Whether or not ZBF was legal didn’t matter a fig. What did mater was that the ONLY body capable of ultimate interpretation of the Footy rule.
What is at stake here is the realisation that the AMYA cannot presume to say that the Footy class can or cannot change its rule. It can decide whether or not it wishes to continue to associate itself with the Footy Class. It can decide to ‘sanction’ (whatever that means) the ‘Small Footware’ Class, the ‘Large Bureaucratic Boot Class’ or whatever. What it cannot do is interfere with rule changes decided on - very painstakingly - by Footy Class owners as a whole.
As a non-FOOTY owner, I can only stand back and applaud your comments and views, Angus - and of course anger the current AMYA board at the same time.
:rolleyes: Oh gee !
Stay your course and don’t allow individual country bureaucrats to take over what hard work all of you have put in to make this a viable and growing class. It is you - the members - who need to decide how you will race and under what conditions.
I shall now slink off to my “Cave of Banishment” :devil3: 
It’s time to tae a look into the AMYA bylaws to see if it allows a class to independently administer itself. Maybe there is a precedence that the international FCA, having first formed independently, then being adopted by the AMYA, can do that.
TOH, do you really need to have an NCR this year?
The AMYA class page for the Footy contains the following
AMYA Footy Class Rules
The AMYA Footy Class adopts the current International Footy class rules, together with all applicable rules referenced by it.
That sounds to me like the AMYA Footy class echos the International class rules as they evolve. There should be no need for a vote to ‘adopt’ the rules.
That was at the beginning. Will the AMYA adopt new rules if the FCA has any, or do you have to go through the lengthy AMYA procedure?
John’s reference to the “adoption” would indicate, by face value, that the class will “follow” rule changes/adds/deletes as the international rules are modified.
Otherwise, wouldn’t it say something to the effect (in red) ?
The AMYA Footy Class adopts the current International Footy class rules, together with all applicable rules referenced by it, once the rules have been ratified by the AMYA members.
I ask because the US RG-65 COA has recently adopted similar language as it’s class rules, whereby the international class rules for the RG-65 have been adopted for the US COA. Since we are in the “thick” of writing our own bylaws and constitution, it would be nice to know if we must put in other language to allow international rules to simply take place when they are supposed to - without need for additional voting on the vote.
I am touched and elated by the response to my rant. I had been hanging back on the matter, basically hoping it would go away, until Graham’s request that somebody do something. So poor old Mutley got chivied into action.
I am very well aware of national susceptibilities and the need for the class internationally not to tread on the toes of local organisations unless it is absolutely necessary. I was very much afraid that my thoughts would be about as welcome as a company of Taliban paratrops dropping in to the White House lawn for tea.
So far we have universal support for the Footy Class as an independent body beholden to no-one except its own members - and hence for the international nature of the class that I have done my utmost to promote ever since I have been involved in the management of this class.
Thank you gentlemen.
Please do not take what follows as a cheap plug. It is unlikely that my health will ever again allow me to visit the United States. My follow Footyists in Britain are faced with a recession as savage as that in America - plus a shift of 30% in the relative values of the pound and US dollar. This makes a visit to the USA prohibitvely expensive for us at present. I would very much like to put faces - and glasses of (non-warm!) beer to some of the names on this forum. If you can, use the shift in exchange rates that makes Britain a bargain vacation destination and come to Footy Euro GP 2009. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are a super race winner: we’ve got some pretty awful people as well! It will be a blast anyway.
Thanks again.
:zbeer::zbeer::zbeer::zbeer:
Angus and others ‘in the know’. Would I be correct in saying that the International Footy Class owns the rights to the name, the rule, and the class insignia etc?
If yes, then there is no such thing as an “AMYA Footy”, unless the International Footy class granted them some rights to use the above.
If not, then the AMYA should only be providing administrative services to its members, such as registration and number assignment etc. similar to what happens in the 4 ISAF recognised international classes (IOM, RM, 10R and RA).
All yacht classes that are in the AMYA were incorporated, and not invented by the AMYA, and the COAs do the governing of the class. IMO, the AMYA is just the umbrella that provides the administration of the members, insurance, correspondence, etc.
AFAICT, all the documents you’d want to read (constitution, bylaws) are available on the www.modelyacht.org website ( click on About US on the left, then the document)
That is a very good question John. The Footy Class Association currently has no (or at most a very shadowy) legal existnce. It is what is called in English (and I suspect Canadian) law, an unicorporated association. This basically means a bunch of guys who get together and do their own thing. As such it is incapable of owning property.
However, all the things you mention are indeed the property of individuals - Roger Stollery, Brett McCormack, Bill Hagerup, John Amoroso, myself … On that basis the AMYA has no right per se to use them. It may be that the time is ripe for a degree of formalisation of that elationship - perhaps that the rights be assigned (as I am sure all their owners would be prepared to do without question) to a trustee working under the law of a country to be agreed.
Your point is very well taken - thank you.
But look guys. DO NOT LET THIS TURN INTO AN AMYA WITCH HUNT. WE WANT TO MAINTAIN OR OWN RIGHTS, DEMOCRACY AND PROCESSES. WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR A WAR.
:graduate::graduate::devil3::zbeer::zbeer: