Continued from ‘The New Model’ posted on 22nd October 2017
Trying to renew my annual Taekwondo Club Registration, I was recently confronted with the confusion of yet another ‘New Model’. It turns out, our national association has outsourced management.
During the transition process, the new management-platform failed to recognise my extensive ‘prior learning’ or experience, which is predominantly the intellectual property of older members. This is nothing short of ‘Age Discrimination’, ironically happening at a time when some new ‘anti-discrimination’ bill was about to be passed in parliament.
Following a three month first aid course at high school many years ago, which I passed with a straight ‘A’, I have done countless, fully accredited refresher courses. During my first 15 years of teaching Martial Arts, I was one of the very few instructors that had first aid qualifications. Now, my membership renewal was rejected, on grounds of my expired first aid certificate, which I was unable to renew during the peak of the COVID pandemic, as did many other instructors. After we were reassured this will be accommodated for, by means of an extended time frame for renewal, the ‘New Model’ refused to comply. Having now updated my first aid credentials, my other inquiries remain unanswered by the relevant authorities.
Requests for clarity on weird and confusing ‘New Model’ rules have traditionally been met with an intriguing ‘Total Silence’, rivalled only by the publishing industry.
It appears, another unrealistic, complex ‘New Model’ has infiltrated the sports. It is a rigid, uncompromising,
de-humanising system, transparently with the commercialisation of sport at its core. As it happens, sport is already over-commercialised, leaving little or no room for the needs and wellbeing of the individual, especially when it comes to ‘Mental health’.
To save myself drowning in the senseless complexity of the new model, I have now arranged for my club/school to operate independently.
The ‘expert’ creators of new models often assert simplicity as the basis of their platform. Little do they realise that it is simple only for them, within the sphere of their virtual expertise, far removed from the real world.
“Experts on the loose can be dangerous”.