A message from your Commodore

Hello dear members,

I took a step back before writing to you to share my feelings regarding the majority vote, but not enough, since a 2/3 ratio was required for the adoption of the resolution on the update of our by-laws.

Am I disappointed that this resolution was not accepted? Of course, I would have preferred that we had the few missing votes to reach the two-thirds threshold. However, what truly disappointed me were the tactics used by the opponents of these changes.

Let me explain.  For reasons of their own, some members are against the proposed changes. In order to achieve their goal, they have solicited members in person and by telephone to vote against the proposed resolution. It is not this solicitation that bothers me, but the reasons given to convince them are spurious. Here are some examples of the facts that were reported to me as arguments to get members to vote against the proposal.

1- The document must be rejected because it does not respect the letters patent of the Club.
False, the letters patent that were filed on April 20, 1966 with the Quebec government for the creation of our organization and bears the name Le Club Nautique de L’Île Perrot Inc. as described in our by-laws.

2- The Executive Committee has no mandate to propose changes to the Club’s rules. Their responsibility is limited to ensuring the normal day-to-day running of our operations. This is the responsibility of the Advisory Board.
False, according to our by-laws, the purpose of the advisory board is to ensure continuity and to provide assistance to the executive committee. For those who believe that in our Club, the right of management is shared between these two entities, I refer you to article 335 of the Civil Code of Quebec. The Board of Directors manages the affairs of the legal person (our Club) and exercises all the powers necessary for this purpose….It adopts and puts into force the management regulations and sees to it that they are ratified by the members at the next meeting.

3- The Advisory Board should have reviewed the proposed new bylaws before they were presented to the membership for adoption.
In fact, the Advisory Board did a complete review of our bylaws in 2018 and 2019 and submitted their recommendations to the executive committee. These recommendations were accepted almost in full by the Executive Committee and represent the bulk of the proposed changes.

4- The members of the Executive Committee do not have the experience and seniority to propose changes to our rules. This experience and seniority is found in the Advisory Board.
Unlike the people who made this statement, I do not want to pass judgment on the expertise of the Advisory Board. But as a Commodore and a member of the sub-committee that worked on the review of our by-laws, I find this remark derogatory to say the least. No one on the Advisory Board has more years of experience than I do and no one in the Club has been a member of the Executive Committee longer than I have. You can’t criticize the members of the executive committee without me feeling targeted.

Other unacceptable remarks have also been reported to me like the ones I have just mentioned without ever having been raised in our information sessions. I know that some topics such as the modification of our by-laws is not a point of interest for many members. In fact, our two information sessions attracted only 10% of the voting members.

However, what I would ask the 90% of the voting members who have not attended the sessions to do is to take the time to make up their own minds about the relevance of the resolutions presented to them and in this way avoid being swayed by people who put forward unfounded arguments.

Finally, I would like to remind you that the members of the Executive Committee are volunteers who offer their time, energy and all the expenses that this implies for the service of our Club. At no time are they compensated or offered any benefits. Their only salary is your respect, your recognition and your thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Guy Legault
Commodore, Ile Perrot Yacht Club