STATEMENT ON THE ADOPTION OF A NEW RULE BOOK BY THE IABA
The IABA can confirm that a new Rule Book was adopted at a meeting of the Board of Directors tonight, Wednesday June 14th, a copy of which is now available.
The new Rule Book incorporates:
- All the Rio recommendations around High Performance from the report conducted by Kotinos Partners following the Olympic Games in Rio;
- Amendments to the Disciplinary Rules to bring them in line with best practice; and
- Updates to several provisions in the Rule Book that do not relate to the structure of the organisation for example, the establishment of new committees to be put in place although further detail on the composition of those committees is likely to be required
There are no proposed changes to the overall structure of the IABA included in the new Rule Book. The Board had originally intended that any new Rule Book would include a full review of the 2006 rulebook including but not limited to areas such as, Terms of Office, Elections, Postal Voting & the AGM.
Recommendations on these issues had been included in the draft Rule Book prepared by Sarah O’Shea and provided to the IABA on March 20th 2017. As previously communicated, the draft was to be followed up by further meetings and discussions between the Board and representatives of Central Council. A delegation from Central Council have not however made themselves available to meet since receiving the draft in March.
The Board acknowledge that changes would also be required to the Memorandum & Articles of Association (“M&A”) to give effect to these structural changes and to ensure consistency with any Rule Book that is updated in this regard. The amended M&A have not yet been prepared as the Board had agreed that to save time and cost that this should be done once the draft Rule Book had been agreed between the Board and the Rule Book Committee of the Central Council.
The changes to the Rule Book were required not just to protect Sport Ireland funding but also Sport Northern Ireland funding as well as the Sports Capital Grants, OSCAR funding and other local authority support most of which goes directly to our 379 clubs nationwide.
The Board of Directors will therefore begin before the end of June, a series of explanatory and consultation meetings with clubs around the country on the changes made to the Rule Book to comply with the Sport Ireland requirements as adopted this evening and the further changes it must make to bring the overall governance of the IABA in line with best practice for a modern sporting organisation. The Board will simultaneously make every effort to reach agreement with Central Council on the changes that need to be made.
It is hoped that further changes to the Rule Book will be adopted by the membership at a National Convention later this year and the changes to the M&A made as is legally required at an AGM.