[IHPVA-board-formal] Response from Al Krause

[Richard Ballantine]

To: IHPVA Board
From: Richard Ballantine
25 June 2008

You will all hopefully recall that, some time ago, Al and Alice Krause 
of the US HPVA wrote a letter claiming that the HPVA had taken back the 
name IHPVA, and the IHPVA as an association of HPV organisations was 
ended. The present IHPVA Board discussed the issue, and decided to 
retain the name IHPVA. I communicated this to Al and Alice, and also to 
founder Chester Kyle. We have now had a response from Al Krause and 
'the board of directors of the IHPVA'. It is as follows:
 

> Dear Richard,
>
>         There seems to be some confusion on your part concerning our 
> last communication, we have already legally changed our name back to 
> IHPVA. We did not ask for your permission to use the name IHPVA 
> because you have no legal authority over it. The name was made 
> available to the first board of the International association of 
> associations in 1996 by a vote of the then IHPVA membership.
>
>  During the 1st appointed board and subsequent following 
> administrations, yours being the last, the directive of the original 
> reorganization committee has never been attained and has in fact 
> failed. In October of 2006 the current membership voted to rescind the 
> reorganization of the IHPVA. The membership felt that 10 years was 
> sufficient time for the reorganization plan to have been accomplished, 
> which it wasn't. The membership unanimously agrees that the original 
> system of an international association of members, which was in place 
> prior to 1996, was demonstrably superior in serving the needs of our 
> unique community. This organizational form is now legally in place in 
> North America, the UK and Internationally.
>
> We hope this has cleared up the misunderstanding. As the current Board 
> of the IHPVA, we offer our congratulations and support for the 
> upcoming event at Blackwater. We absolutely understand the task of 
> hosting an International hpv event, and our hats are off to you for 
> taking on the task.
>
>         Your call for All-comers records is a good way to include as 
> many participants as possible, but we feel that there is a semantics 
> issue with the "all comers records" name. The IHPVA has always 
> encouraged event organizers to keep "event" or "course" records. We 
> maintain an archive of these achievements. We encourage events to be 
> held on the same course so the data can be compared to past results. 
> While these are records and give the winner bragging rights, they are 
> not considered World Records. We are currently designing a web page to 
> record these achievements. It has always been the responsibility of 
> the event organizer to submit the results and "Course Records" to the 
> IHPVA.
>
>         We understand you also plan to hold events that qualify for 
> IHPVA sanctioned World Records. The IHPVA also applauds this and 
> wishes to remind you that to avoid controversy and possible 
> disappointment among your participants you should be sure to conduct 
> the events by the protocol specified in the IHPVA Observers Guide.
>
>         Please communicate directly with the IHPVA Rules and Records 
> Committee Chairman William Gaines well in advance of your event 
> concerning course surveys, official observers, membership 
> requirements, approved timing equipment, helmets, ect.
>
>         If you feel the Blackwater event does not need to maintain the 
> continuity of the process that has provided the system of 
> scientifically comparable World Record setting achievements, then we 
> insist that the IHPVA name not be used in any way.
>
>         The board of directors is at this time discussing the design 
> and structure of a new "Board of Representatives from affiliated HPV 
> organizations" as well as an Honorary Board consisting of past 
> executives and other equally revered members. We would prefer you to 
> join in, rather than working at cross -purposes. We can all agree that 
> our interests have more in common than not and by working 
> co-operatively we can move forward together.
>
>  
>
>         Sincerely,
>
>  
>
>         IHPVA Board of Directors
>
> Al Krause
> Tom Nowak
> Alice Krause
> Chris Broome
> Charlie Ollinger
> Sean Costin
> Steve Delaire
> Matjaz Leskovar
> Scott Wilson
>
>

At this stage I will make only a few comments.

The IHPVA as created in 1998 as a voluntary association of HPV 
organisations can only be rescinded or ended by the HPV organisations 
themselves. The HPVA, which left the IHPVA in 2005 because they were 
angry about the publication of the HUMAN POWER Archive, does not have 
the authority to tell other HPV organisations what they can and cannot 
do.

The HPV movement outside of North America is very much alive and 
thriving! However, we do have a problem with record-keeping for HPV 
performances. As many of you know from experience, trying to arrange 
observation and verification of record-performance attempts with an 
IHPVA Record Committee based in the USA is difficult and often does not 
work. A number of performance categories voted by the IHPVA Board have 
not been recognised by the Record Committee.

I suggested to the HPVA and IHPVA Record Committee that national 
organisations should do their own observation and verification, and 
that an independent group such as WRRA be responsible for maintaining 
records. This suggestion was ignored.

I believe that observation and verification of HPV record performances 
should be performed by national organisations. National organisations 
have plenty of experience and technical expertise. What we lack is a 
mechanism for assessing reports of HPV record performances, and of 
publishing records. This function could be performed by a group of 
three officials, persons respected in the HPV community through 
previous service as chair person, competition secretary, etc. The 
posting of results could be done by the editor of the IHPVA web site.

We everything to gain by doing for ourselves! Arguments and discussions 
with the HPVA have been going on since 1995. It's not the fault of any 
particular person or persons. The problem is structural; a US-based 
organisation cannot keep pace with developments in many different 
countries at once.

If this IHPVA Board elects to move forward with a new system and method 
for observing, verifying, and publishing records, then we will have to 
deal with the name issue. The previous vote to retain the name IHPVA 
and not change to World Human Power Vehicle Association or other name 
was close (by a thin margin). We might want to think about this again.

I look forward to your comments!

Best wishes,



Richard Ballantine

IHPVA World Championships 2008
Bentwaters Parks, England 16-17 August
http://www.wc2008.org.uk/