F18 & A-Class: Official Communications

In the instant information Era brings lots of benefits and new responsibilities. Past years or decades, decisions were made by a selected group, on being those putting the hours or on the lack of a practical medium to spread the news, make remote decisions , require proper timely feedback or provide good communications.

Now we can have instant live access to event broadcasts and the possibility to provide feedback to Class key matters through the entire Planet in minutes by mail, Skype , FB or many other social media tools.
So it is important, beyond any opinion (including mine, forums and others),  to have  a correlative official position as a source on x matters.
Class organizations must duly inform the sailors on every key aspect that can affect them directly, being rules modifications, major events and so on.

So I’m glad that the F18 is launching a series of Newsletters. Number 3 can be found here.
The A-Class is also using their website to place all official communications and important matters to be available as the docs to consult official source. Here latest President’s letter of latest official Submissions.
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When I was member of the F18 WC, I asked why an internal comm that should have been
distributed first to local Assoc Chairs (as defined by the Class) was filtered online by one WC member present at the council meeting when Assocs reps not able to participate where still waiting for the draft minutes.

The response was a ridiculous lobby accusation (to cover their own lobbies..)  and that I wanted to restrict or hide info regarding a series of SI bans.  Then I was lectured on free speech, free press etc , etc…  and I said to myself: these guys have no idea what free press and communications means and in return and to show them my point, I went full bore exposing several incredible facts hidden to the class members World Wide. Needless to repeat how some of these futile poor tech discussions ended.

But of course after I went online they felt exposed and the free speech, free press lecture was overturned to “you should not publish ‘private’ wc affairs” !!!!!  When they were the first to do it..
The big problem of course was, like some low class dictatorships, they wanted to select what was the right info to be available to the public, and they were the sole responsibles to define what was free speech/press material.

The moral of the story?
– Keep all important and key Class matters duly informed.
– Define an official internal and public communication strategy
– Publish expert technical reports in due time
– and  finally expose Pros & Cons by key referents of any rule change or modification for all sailors to be able to decide for themselves.

Let people , blogs, website, magazines & forums to speak their minds to the wide open and in parallel maintain your Class website filled with timely official docs & technical reports.

The F18 and the A-Class are following this path, and the first beneficiaries are the sailors themselves. Keep it up.

A-Class Official Website www.a-cat.org
Formula 18 Website www.f18-international.org