DEMA Listening Session

[The Chairman]

The question flummoxed Bob. He restated clearly that he signed the petition and stated his position.

Tom asked him twice which clearly confused Bob since he had no intention of doing so.

Later today, about 2:30, Tom Ingram released a press release indicating that they will be initiating a vote on each point on the petition.

 

[mdb]

Pete:

Thank You for your DEMA reports.

Tom Ingram certainly cannot intimidate Bob Hollis.

Bob is a true dive legend. Bob Hollis has been there and done that long before most of us even started learning to dive. I have always admired his courage and commitment to diving. I am fortunate to know him personally.

Thank you Bob for still supporting our industry and taking your time to attend the meeting.

 

[The Chairman]

I will be sure that Bob gets to read this.

 

[Thalassamania]

I second that. I've know Bob since the days when he had the Anchor Shack on Jackson Blvd and Oceanic was my favorite camera and housing manufacturer a few block away. This industry needs more BH and less BS.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

During my career I have been on Boards of much powerful organizations where way more money was at stake and we NEVER let attorneys dictate us how to run our meetings. To me this is another sign of weak management.

I agree. Responsive management that is committed to organizational growth and change will focus on communication and building relationships. Hunkering down behind legal counsel will not get the job done.

But to be fair the BOD may not recognize that. I see it in my own organization as well as in those I evaluate and organizations get in a rut where they do the same thing they have always done becuase they feel that either it works for them, or even if it does not that it is safe as they will not be judged badly or blamed if things go down hill. It is a very conservative attitude and one shared by many attornies who will give equally conservative legal counse designed to advise the client to do nothing in the belief that this is the best way to do no harm and to ensure that they are better ael to defend in any legal action that follows.

The problem is that those conservative approaches do nothing to promote communcation, relationship building or organizational growth and improvement.

The irony is of course that the transparency, communication and relationship building that is avoided by an organization in order to defend themselves from citicism or legal action is exactly the thing that leads to those things. Even if an organization makes a mistake, if it has solid relationships with its stakeholders, communicates well and is transparent in why it did what it did (with presumably good intentions), the response is usually one of support and committment to learn from it and move forward with the result that legal action and career ending consequences are avoided as the stakeholders have no reason to pursue those options as they simply aren't needed in sytems with open and effective communication.

But BOD's have to stop listening to their legal counsel and start actually leading to ever see that.

 

[Leadking]

My comments about the meeting:

• The meeting was to be about what DEMA accomplished in the last year. That should have been pulled from the agenda as that is not what the room wanted to discuss
• There was not a way for me to speak as you had to be a current DEMA member to address a question
• Al Hornsby's statement that the problem could be have been handled with a phone conversation does not ring true. People have been talking, DEMA just doesn't listen
• Tom Ingram made a serious mistake by taking sides and trying to push Hollis into a corner. He is an administrator, he should not take sides.
• Cerich did a great job pointing out that even though Scubapro wished to have their name removed from the petition it still left hundreds on it

I like one company/one vote. I do not agree with Hollis on voting outside your group and discussed it with him after the meeting and then Nestor Palmero came up and reinterated it to Bob.

I don't know how will turn out in the long run as the dissidents need to develop a firmer direction.

 

[cerich]

:The meeting was to be about what DEMA accomplished in the last year. That should have been pulled from the agenda as that is not what the room wanted to discuss
.

it reinforced among many I spoke with after that indeed DEMA has in fact "accomplished" very little and remains committed to a failed agenda.

 

[mdb]

Delete_double post

 

[mdb]

The current BOD's elected the "old boy", as good a guy as he is, they then refused to resign to reset the agenda. Just more of the same. Sad.

The attempt at a Unified Dive Industry was certainly worth a try.

 

[cerich]

The current BOD's elected the "old boy", as good a guy as he is, they then refused to resign to reset the agenda. Just more of the same. Sad.

The attempt at a Unified Dive Industry was certainly worth a try.

I'm finally home, after 8 days away I just got to kiss my little girl goodnight and am looking forward to soon being out like a light myself.

I have MANY comments I want to make and will be posting as soon as I catch up. It was a solid show for EDGE, not so much for everyone however.

There are a thousands things to discuss and some serious lifting that needs to get done if we are going to avoid a near complete collapse of the industry. Yeah I REALLY think it is that serious. IMHO We have a choice of bad (at least 3 more years like 2009 "IF" the econmy doesn't in fact get worse)and horrible where we have a decade or more of this in the dive industty EVEN if the economy is in recovery. There is ZERO question that the current path of the industry as a whole and our marketing associations will make the second a certainty if not changed. (however DEMA won't make it to enjoy the full fruits of their labours)

I'm pretty sure we can salvage at least part of the industry and get that part firmly in the 3 year camp...but it won't be easy, then again what is?

My last words to Jim, the new DEMA president is I would prefere to put six times the effort into helping DEMA than another minute spent on a f & * % ^ ing petition... however I won't wait for his call. I like him (qite a bit actually) but suspect they (DEMA) will be tied up in polics as usual to show some indications of sucess while lacking any concrete manifestations of actual sucesss.

THE UDF petition may end up as not getting everything asked for, thats OK because it showed me and others that there is at least a good percentage of us that are quite willing to fight for the industry. So we will.

Everybody have a great couple days. I plan on doing some serious work this week with EDGE and getting a couple days of diving in as well After that I have some ideas and quite frankly I will be looking to have others join me.