What is going on at the SMA

Is anyone smelling a rat in all this SMA stuff?

Let's start at what we assume is the beginning – the two top people (Viv Lancey (director) and Bob Jones (second in command)) at Sports Performance Services (SPS), an SMA approved training provider, get nominated to become directors on the SMA board. OK well the odd person might cry conflict of interest, but it still leaves 10 other course providers surely so that should be OK...shouldn't it?

Well actually it seems not. The reality is that in fact it seems that 6 of the 11 SMA accredited courses are in fact SPS based courses – they just happen to be delivered by other training providers, who then pay a chunk of their student fees to SPS. So that means SPS based courses actually make up 55% of all SMA approved courses. Given SPS is therefore making a not insignificant amount of money, this becomes a rather more worrying conflict of interest and that's not all. As members we have to be sure that the board members of our organisation are able to make decisions that are in our best interests as members, when someone is profiting this much from our organisation, are they still able to do this and potentially act against their own interests? Well let's give SPS the benefit of the doubt and assume they could put their own interests aside, so where does that take us?

Well we then need to look at the makeup of the rest of the potential board members it would seem. So let's see, two other new board members have been proposed, however rumour has it these nominatins arrived in the same enveloped as the two SPS nominations – so that could make us a bit twitchy – but again let's assume that rumour is all it is and go from there.So who else is up for board positions, well two existing board members are up for re-election and they have no obvious ties with SPS however one board member that is currently on the board, is about to take a position as a lead tutor for none other than SPS.

OK well that doesn't necessarily mean they'll vote on the SPS side but when part of your livelihood comes from that particular employer, particularly in these testing financial times, you're not really going to look for opportunities to rock the boat if you can avoid it are you? So that suddenly lands 5 out of 8 possible board positions rather heavily in the hands of an SPS-friendly contingency which happens to run a majority of the courses accredited by the SMA. Now surely that's starting to look a bit dubious.

OK so there's a simple solution to that we say, we just get more approved course providers on board. Well that's where it gets even more intriguing, three course providers have been approved without hitch (Raworth College, Scottish School of Sports Massage and St Mary's University Roehampton). Two other schools are on the approved list under slightly more complcated reasons, both are satallite schools of the formerly SMA-accredited London School of Sports Massage. However all satallite schools are also required to go through their own independent accreditation because of course while the course material might meet standards, there is nothing to say that the delivery process as well as the tutors meet the required standards, and this needs to be assessed by course. Well both these former LSSM schools have gone through this process, in one case, while the two visiting members of the educational panel were more than happy with what they saw and voted to approve the application, one member of the education panel picked holes in the application meaning it has so far not been approved in its own right, and guess who this was, none other that Bob Jones, board director nomination and SPS employee. The second course was visited by Steven Cluney and yes, you've guessed it, Bob Jones and guess what, that course hasn't been approved in its own right either...yet.

So now we seem to have a major conflict of interest!

And it gets one step worse in this particular chapter.....apart from SPS itself as a course provider, not ONE of the other 5 SPS courses claiming SMA accredition have applied for their own independent assessment which they are obliged to do and which the other two course providers mentioned above have attempted, although continue to be blocked by objections raised by Bob Jones. Not good.....Are these courses beginnng to realise that getting SMA accreditation is likely to be hard work, laborious and take a lot of time? If so who can blame courses for choosing the path of least resistance by taking SPS's course if it gives them quick SMA accreditation, even if they lose their independence and have to pay a significant chunk of per student fees back to SPS for the privilege?

And that's not all.... Even worse it now appears that none of the board had even been made aware that these 5 courses had been added to the register. So how did that happen? Well the only people able to add courses to the register seem to be the administration office so what's going on there? Have they been told by someone to add them on without telling the board or have they done it themselves and does that therefore mean there is collusion between the administration office and SPS?

Well if that's not enough to wet your appetite, there's more....!

For the last few years, Sarah Kilroy has been in charge of the administration of the SMA and has in fact been the company secretary, but not a voting director. According to the company accounts it seems Ms Kilroy makes in excess of £45k a year from SMA member administration. A tidy little sum to administer 1,000 people in a small organisation. A bit of digging also reveals that the SMA office is run out of Ms Kilroy's parent's house and that the day to day admin is taken care of by her cousin. A cosy little cottage industry it would seem, at the cost of the SMA and its membership. On my £100 membership fee, thats £45 quid going straight into family Kilroy's pocket.

All in all it seems rather clear that both SPS and Ms Kilroy (and family) are also doing rather well out of the SMA. So now let's look back to recent events and specifically this whole AGM fiasco.

As we've said, prior to the AGM, the board received four board nominations all apparently grouped together. Viv Lancey, Bob Jones and two other individuals. At the same time two current directors are up for re-election, Bob Bramah and Roger Davis. Well it seems the board's first concerns are understandably about the conflict of interest and the reputation of the SMA should the two top SPS employees be represented on the board and according to inside sources, they weren't even aware of the extent of the SPS influence and particularly these 5 extra courses on the register. Word has it that they therefore ask the adminstrator to delay sending out ballot papers until they had time to discuss this in more detail with Viv Lancey and Bob Jones.

However it seems that Ms Kilroy had other ideas, and proceeded to send out the ballot papers anyway, without board approval. Not only that but she enters one of the directors seeking reelection, as their nomination having been received outside the prescribed process which actually transpires to be incorrect based on the Memorandum of Articles. Apparently her reason for this was that the nomination paperwork was not received by 12pm which was in fact a time imposed by her and not mentioned in any way in the Memorandum of Articles. In addition the board had unanimously agreed that this nomination should stand and this nomination should therefore have been listed in the same way as everyone else's but instead was specifically separated out. Was this the first in a series of events to try and rid the board of people who had begun to thing there was something else going on? The fact that the ballot paper went out before the board had approved it and while Ms Kilroy knew there was some question about Viv Lancey and Bob Jones' nominations, also seems to suggest there might be some agenda informing these actions.

But it gets even better....apparently when the board requested Ms Kilroy send out an email saying the ballot paper had been sent in error, Ms Kilroy refused to comply. Now bearing in mind that Ms Kilroy is simply an administrator being paid by the board to carry out its requirements, this would seem rather inappropriate. Then ensued a whole host what could be interpreted as revenge attacks which involved taking down the SMA website and generally doing as much as possible to disrupt proceedings. In fact it seems that Ms Kilroy actually attempted to deny returning the member data quoting rights as data controller which on further investigation revealed were not in fact correct. She even went so far as to contact the Information Commission and with alleged misuse of member data. As she was the only one with the power to distribute member data, this is a bit weird unless she was trying to now accuse Sportex of a misuse of data? But we've been getting magazines from Sportex for ages so that's hardly likely.It is understood that the board at first suspended her and it seemed were prepared for her to prove that she was in fact acting in the best interests of the organisation. But word has it that apparently even after being suspended Ms Kilroy still transferred some money to herself directly out of the SMA bank account without authorisation. A pretty serious action and which if true is almost certainly worthy of a criminal investigation. At this point the board it seems terminated her with immediate effect and requested the return of all SMA material. However it is understood that this material returning exercise in fact took several weeks and the SMA board were then provided with a pile of CD ROMs with no clear direction of what was contained on what. It seems Ms Kilroy really was intent on causing as much disruption as possible. Not exactly the honourable or professional actions one would hope for from someone who was apparently committed to the growth and development of our organisation and to acting in its best interests. Scarily she apparently runs the UK Strength and Conditioning Association too so they'd better look out if this is what she does!

During this time it is believed that the board has had to rely on communicating wth members through the use of databases supplied to third party supplier Sportex as part of its contract to deliver magazines. So who's to tell what damage this has done to our professional reputation.So then we get to the AGM. Well first of all apparently the board had decided that Viv and Bob's nominations should not be accepted, mainly based on the overwhelming conflict of interest that being a majority provider of accredited training and on concerns that all but one of the courses had never been assessed. That left the two other nominations standing but apparently then those individuals withdrew their nominations.

One could argue in light of all the above, that the fact that Viv and Bob's nominations were refused, and that therefore there wasn't going to be the intended or hoped for majority, these other two's motivations for being members of the board, were no longer there. But surely if you put yourself forward to be a director on a board its because you feel you can bring something worthwhile and because your motivations are to act on behalf of members? Why should it matter who else is on that board? That shouldn't surely be a motivation? It would seem it might have been here?So did they withdraw their nominations because they couldn't win their majority vote, or did they withdraw because they wanted to destablise the board? Or did they just decide they didn't want to do it? If it was the latter case and their minds could be changed so easily, it's a good job they haven't had to face all the trouble the current board has been having to work through. They might well have run when the shit started to hit the fan! If nothing else, the current board of four have hung int here through all this and for nobody's sake but us as members. Which makes the next set of proceedings odd..Somehow it seems that Bob Bramah and Roger Davis weren't reelected although it seems there are a whole host of inconsistencies in the process that seems to have resulted n this which I believe the board are seeking legal clarification on. But why would those present wish these directors ill?

According to someone at the AGM, by the end of the meeting which got dragged on with lots of arguing, several people had left before the vote and so that left mostly just the SPS gang to vote. Well we know now why they might not want these twoboard directors back on!!!!You know the most interesting thing is that apparently lots of the votes were proxy votes. The only thing is that I've been through my emails several times and I never received a proxy vote??? Did anyone else? I certainly didn't get anything through the post either. So where did those proxy forms come from? And how can you use proxy forms in a meeting when only some people seem to have received them? Well you can't I'd wager!So who and how did everyone get these proxy forms I want to know when I, a fully legit member didn't get any? Interestingly rumour has it that the person everyone nominated on these forms was.....yes the one and same Bob Jones. God the bloke is busy!!!

But more importantly for us, we've got to worry about this stuff. This is our organisation. In the run up to and delivery of 2012, we won't have a place at that table without a fully functioning respected Sports massage Association. It is our key to becoming part of that historical event. And yet it seems that certain people are trying to ruin it or destabilise it for their own gains? Without any of the background above, one couldn't imagine why they might want to do this, the SMA afterall has been very profitable for them. However if it appears, as it does now, that they have lost control through the loss of Sarah Kilroy and their failure to take up board director places, their only option is to try and take it apart completely until it rises from the ashes, no doubt with a re-elected Sarah Kilroy and a board that isn't aware of what's happened, so they can pick up where they left off.Why else would anyone oppose the reelection of two members of the board who clearly over the last few weeks have had to work very hard completely on a voluntary basis, on behalf of the members and were within a hairs breadth of establishing a much more professional, organisation that couldn't be destabilised by what seems to be the self-interests of the powers of SPS and Ms Kilroy?

And just in case there were doubters to this consipiracy theory, there is now a rumour that Bob Jones has reported the SMA to Companies House and no doubt will go on being a thorn in the SMA's side until they've got control or been kicked out. Interestingly the things he's accused the SMA of were apparently the responsbility of a certain Ms Kilroy but who's going to have to take the fall for her misdemeanours, yup you've got it, none other than the board !Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against SPS's course – I have no doubt it is of sound quality and fully deserves SMA accreditation, it is the cosy untransparent profiteering that I object to and to the immorality of trying to destroy a board which over the last few months has worked extremely hard for all of us. And what have they done? Just tried to undo everything. Their plot to assume control of the board has temporarily failed but they all have a lot of money riding on a successful outcome and will no doubt be prepared to throw significant money at lawyers to protect this status quo. The board on the other hand are undoubtedly loathe to spend a penny of our member subs on fighting this fight and it seems are being hounded out as a result.Their best chance now is our support. Do we want to see this happen? Do we want the reputation of our association to be destroyed and for us to be spending valuable time rebuildng this, while we should be focusing our interests on staking our claim to the sports massage provision at 2012? Who's to say that anyone will take us seriously if there's a full on coup with the sort of self interest that anyone reading the above will see? I also wonder how many of SPS's satalite courses would choose to stay with SPS if there was another option?

Anyone want to comment?The SMA has always suffered from being a victim to the interests and in-fighting of personalities. It's traditionally been a political beast. But this rarely serves our profession's interests. We will never escape this until we have a transaparent organisation.

This is our organisation and this is our chance to speak up now. I for one want people like Bob Bramah and Roger Davis back on the board – they along with David Edge and Amy Wolstenhomes to work tirelessly on our behalf in trying to sort this mess out, inbetween their own range of jobs and need to earn an income. I'd be very uncomfortable knowing what SPS is making out of the SMA, for Viv Lancey and Bob Jones to be on the board, not to mention what it looks like to the outside world!We need to be heard now.

Those directors are singlehandedly holding together our association and our hopes for 2012 not to mention the professionalism of our trade, while under seige from people with what appears to be very clear self-interests.With enough member buy in, and this has to be many members, they won't need to spend money on lawyers to defend themselves or our association from this onslaught. By hurling allegations at the board, this hostile contingent are forcing them to spend our money defending themselves against these allegations? How is that fair? No wonder the board is so reticent to do it and have soldiered on all this time with very little legal advice. If they'd spent out they would never be in the situation they are now in, but they've done that on our behalf. None of this is right.

If any of the above makes sense to you, we need to show our support. We need to do this in two ways:1) Forward the link to this blog to every SMA member you know both current and past2) Pledge your support to the board - in order that you can do it confidentially it might be best to email the chair, davidjedge@btinternet.comsaying something along the lines of 'As a valid paying member of the SMA, I, [full name], give David Edge, the chair of the board of directors, my support to act in the best interests of our organisation by electing new board members or reelecting the two allegedly deposed board members, for the next 12 months, after which a fresh election will take place following the rules set out in our Memorandum of Articles' If you are able to include your SMA member number this would be even better.This is our organisation and our future lies in our hands.