The Sabre Class has a proud and passionate history that stretches back to 1975. It has seen many custodians at National and State levels over the years who have tirelessly, faithfully and freely given their time skill and dedication to making the Class stronger and ensuring the legacy of the Sabre continues. The current custodians are no different; a group of genuine like-minded individuals whose collective will, intellect and integrity is intended to safeguard the class.
All current Sabre officials, be they measurers, delegates or committee members always act with one single purpose in mind: To act in the best interest of the class and for no personal gain.
With that in mind, it is with extreme disappointment that the website forum has been overwhelmed with posts from some particular individuals that do not share these values. It is a sad state of affairs that members have deemed it necessary to contact both National and State Committee members to either formally or informally express their concerns over the tone and ‘non-sabre values’ that have appeared on various parts of the forum since Nov 2013; to a point where some have questioned if they still want to be members.
Some of these posts are personalised, immature, vitriolic and, most importantly, baseless in their statements and content. The Sabre class has been very successful in recent years but with that success challenges will invariably arise.
Importantly, positive challenge is healthy; however the current activity within the group is far from that. Despite repeated statements and notices from the Sabre National and State Groups to be clear, transparent and collaborative in their implementation of processes to prevent the construction of boats that will damage the class, we continually see factual manipulation to suit personal agendas and the commercial interests of some individuals.
The Australian Sabre Website is hosted by the Sabre Association of Australia (SSAA) and is heavily subsidised by the Victorian association (SSAV). Despite an expectation that sanity would eventually prevail there appears to be no end to the immaturity and misinformation that is being posted to the forum.
The National Executive has decided that the forum requires careful moderation to ensure only factual information and non-derogatory comments are posted. Therefore we are making the following changes:
- ‘Guestmember’ access is removed meaning that people wishing to post to the forum must register as Sabre Website members (this is quite separate to being a member of your State Association). Although a pseudonym may be used, administrators reserve the right to publish names against posts considered against the ‘spirit’ of the class.
- We reserve the right to remove forum posts considered detrimental to the Class.
- We reserve the right to deny access to individuals who continue to use the forum in a negative fashion towards the intent of the class and/or association.
- Provide more regular website official communication to members.