"SPRINT SECTION
Foreword

This year, 2004, is an Olympic year - a year when our Team needs all the
help and support we can give them. I am sure everyone would join with me
in wishing them every success in their Olympic quest.

We are very grateful for the obvious benefits which Lottery funding has
provided for the Team, but for the rest of the sport there are serious
problems caused by the application of this money. In my "Foreword" for 1999,
I pointed out the constraints of the Sports Council policy of "results by
Friday" and how this, in my opinion, prevented us from using the Lottery
funding in the most beneficial way.

In 2000 I asked all of you in the sport to back our professional staff and
help them to raise standards so that we could improve the number of paddlers
qualifying for the Olympic Team from 1 woman, 2 canadians and 4 men.

From 2001-2003 I recorded my growing worry that the ever widening divide
between the Performance Department and the rest of our sport was definitely
detrimental to the overall development of canoeing.

Although this may be a premature judgement, my guess is that our team to
Athens will be 1 woman, 0 canadians and 3 men: a reduction from 7 to 4.
Having spent millions of pounds of Lottery money on administration, coaching
and athlete support we are no further forward. "Results by Friday" does not
work. The damage to the sport, (envisaged by our previous chairman) is not a
price worth paying for the results we are achieving.

At the 2003 AGM I asked the section to give me a stronger mandate with the
Performance Department. With more backing I will endeavour to get the
Performance Department to interact with, and be more supportive of, the
sport, its clubs, coaches and competition organisers. Through consultation
with slalom and the BCU let's try to make the Sports Council realise the
serious flaws in their current policy.

Without your support I cannot pursue this course. If it is not your wish that
I follow my conscience on this matter, please choose another Chairman.

Roland Lawler, Chairman Sprint Racing Committee"


-----------------------------------------

How about that, then?

Roland Lawler has now admitted he has failed to listen to those he is
supposed to represent, failed the section(s) and failed the sport - and he
now wants further support so he can do more harm.

The 'previous chairman' referred to in the above foreword is - David Train -
the person whom Roland Lawler had expelled from the BCU for daring to draw
attention to the impending destruction of our sport.

So, David Train was right all along - Roland Lawler days so!

What he has successfully achieved is the handing over of control to a few
employed lackeys of Sports Council interested only in building their empires
and preserving their jobs. He has given away our democracy, so the members
no longer have any say in the way our sport is governed.

And how does he propose to change it back? When almost all those on the
committees are BCU / Sports Council employees or are receiving funding /
related to someone receiving funding? Roland Lawler - a man with no vision,
no ideas, no leg to stand on. A dinosaur who fails to see. A one-eyed
ogre who fails to listen.

Keeping Roland Lawler in our sport 'is not a price worth paying', IMO.

And now to the next point: how is the BCU going to buy him off?



Allan Bennett
Not a fan of Lieberman's Law

--