“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you”
(Extract from the poem “IF” by Rudyard Kipling)
We refer to it as ‘the Alliance.’
The Alliance is a registered Australian company with provision for 50 shareholders, 48 of which have already been taken up.
The official logo is registered, all regulatory requirements are completed and it is a formally registered trademark (™).
What is its objective?
The Alliance was formed to provide a national organisation that delivers, for the first time, administrative and policy stability to the ITF membership in Australia. It is about students, not power bases.
Who controls it?
Firstly I will explain who does not control it:
No … it is not controlled by one person
No … it is not controlled by one senior rank
No … it is not controlled by someone because of his or her international position
Yes … it is controlled by its membership
Yes … all shareholders have a say in who is the CEO
Yes … all shareholders have a say who is to be their executive committee
Yes … anyone can hold any of these positions, regardless of rank
Yes … administrative and other skills are recognised and utilised
Who will ‘OWN’ and CONTROL my organisation?
The ASIC approved constitution of the Alliance is very clear.
Under this constitution the Alliance does not do any of the following:
- It does not interfere in how an organisation runs itself. The organisations that have already joined the Alliance have invested their own money, time and caring to grow to what they have now (long before the Alliance had even been formed). We give these organisations a national umbrella organisation to support them, to which they can belong without fear of being taken over or told they have to join a particular school.
- Does not tell any organisation who they can or cannot associate with. We live in a free world. If an Alliance member organisation already belongs to other associations or organisations, that is their business. The Alliance seeks to help its members, not dictate to them. If the Alliance does a good job in future years, its members will recognise this and make their decisions accordingly.
- Does not spend money without proper checks and controls. At the last AGM of the Alliance, a formal auditors report was presented and approved by the membership. This is in stark contrast to what I discovered when I took over the Presidency of the Australian International Taekwon-Do Federation some years ago.
- Does not demand a share of revenue from member organisations. Anyone joining the Alliance knows at the outset that current annual membership costs are only $200.
- Does not take all the proceeds from events.
Where to now?
I went to Benidorm, Spain and Quebec and was really pleased with what I saw. That World body has good reason to be proud of what they have brought together. Likewise, ITF NZ should be really proud of what they have achieved.
These successes were not achieved by one person, but rather by genuine teamwork.
I sat down with then Master Pablo Trajtenberg (now Grand Master) in Nambour, Australia and came away from the conversation thinking ‘with him at the helm, ITF is going to be a winner’.
My hope is that one day they will look at the Alliance and see an organisation that wants to be supportive. The only thing preventing this at the moment is the communication conduit currently being used by the ITF.
Master Charles Birch
USTF-AUS-7-1
CEO, Australian Taekwon-Do Alliance