The 2006 Annual Bullshit

18-11.-2006, 04:17 AM	#1
Fausto Coppied Registered User Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 612	The 2006 Annual Bullshit CCA: the sad annual report The Canadian Cycling Association (CCA) has released its 2006 Annual Report in preparation for this weekend’s Annual General Meeting in Ottawa. What a work of fiction, talk about spinning! The numbers are sad, the reality, if you set aside the glossy fiction, bleak. Apparently revenue increased by only $424, 584 to just break the $3,000,000 mark. Remember in comparison Ski Canada gets about $13,000,000. The annual report states that increase was “largely attributed to Sport Canada funding, Tim Horton’s and the Evening of Champions Gala. So that’s $400,000 divide at least three ways, probably most if it came from the government and not private corporations but the CCA doesn’t make it clear. The CCA touts signing HR Block as a “Gold Level Partner”. If you read the Annual Report, nowhere does Marketing Director Kim Sebrango quote one figure other than the cumulative total for Louis Garneau over two decades of about $750,000 in clothes. This is typical of the CCA. It never releases dollar values because they are so pathetic. It appears a Gold Level sponsor is worth $100,000 or less. What a DISGRACE! A small Canadian domestic pro club sponsor should be giving at least $100,000. A national sponsor should be giving at least $500,000, but $1,000,000 would make more sense. The CCA is selling away the sport like it’s a cheap whore. Then they try to tell us this is a good thing. Read between the lies, people. The Annual Report even goes as far to cite press coverage in Pedal Magazine and Canadian Cyclist as a bonus!!! Good God, if Canadian cycling doesn’t get covered there, will it get covered? The Annual Report mentions awards to Coach Eric Van Eynde but it doesn’t mention he quit! It tells us of Gord Fraser’s retirement like it is a good thing. With Gord gone we lose out best rider and there is nobody even close to taking his place. What a whitewash the whole thing is. Maybe Ms. Sebrango would like to place an actual dollar value on HR Block and Tim Horton’s sponsorships? The PDF audited financial documents posted on the new and unnecessary CCA website are completely illegible, no doubt by design. http://www.canadian-cycling.com/cca/documents/english_fnl_web.pdf How long before people wake up see the damage being done in Ottawa to our sport? And now, to ice the unrisen cake, when former Chief Operating Officer Steve Lacelle resigned he said, “The sport needs a ‘Ken Read-like’ figure at its helm”. Instead get a PR woman, Lorraine Lafrenière, with apparently no sports competition experience herself and no cycling experience at all. Once again we have somebody leading the sport for this country and knowing NOTHING about it. COO of the CAA is great place for on the job training! We get a professional bullshit artist who makes a living spinning stories without one concrete accomplishment to her credit. She has never organized a race. She has never run a club. She has never trained an athlete herself. She has never raced. We cannot even be sure she has ever attended a bike race Her sole apparent attribute, she talks a good game. And she is supposed to tell us how to run the sport?????? I’ll give her less than the 18 months Lacelle lasted before she resigns. That’s about one year to figure out what’s going on and about six months to realize she can’t handle the job. What we have in this new person is a talking head with nothing to point at expect press releases. Meanwhile, we can expect more experienced cycling professionals to quit. Brett Stewart was passed over the job again. Will he stick around to teach somebody else to tell him what to do? I doubt it. I wouldn’t. Will Lister Farrar of BC still toe the party line and be a yes-man for the CCA? He was probably passed over again as well. What will it take for cyclist to take back their sport? How many times will the CCA make the same mistake? I’ll be around for as long as it takes to set things right. PS Ms. Lafrenière first act should be to fire Sebrango, we certainly do not need two women with the same skill set and same lack of them, to be attempting to do the same marketing job and failing.

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