FEI takes some bold moves into unknown waters

Recently when the FEI publicly released the long awaited Eventing Risk Management Plan, I was critical of most aspects as the plan in my opinion lacked many of the key aspects of a plan. However, I was very excited by one aspect of the plan which was to prioritize the Communications within Risk Management. While I am still waiting for the phone call or email to gather my thoughts on how the FEI Eventing Team can improve aspects of communication, I am heartened by recent movement at the top of the FEI.

Oh wait, before I get to my excitement perhaps I should express my confusion first. Communication and transparency are key platforms of the reform process that is underway. How is it that the CEO of the FEI can resign on Friday and his replacement be appointed on the following Tuesday, that is less than 3 business days. There must be some amazing headhunters in Switzerland. I have NEVER seen a global search for a CEO completed with such expediency EVER. Congratulations.

Now back to my excitement. The FEI in the last few weeks has really stepped into some unchartered waters and as a ‘Social Media Freak’ I am highly excited. The FEI are now on FaceBook yes, this is a huge step. I hope they have a well resourced Social Media Team as I think this could be a very interesting experiment otherwise.

In addition, there is now a FEI twitter account. Social media is an extremely powerful tool and twitter is one that has bitten many big organizations on the bum. A great example of this is the great oil company with leakage issues in the Gulf of Mexico. Check out the spoof twitter account BPGlobalPR. This is a great example of how the twitterati can turn on an organization who get their PR wrong or even worse in the eyes of the social media, having a foray into social media without a plan and the resources to do it well.

One of the critical aspects of all social media is that you cannot control what people say about you or people within your organization. If you do try that, then the hive will turn on you. So when I say I am excited about the FEI stepping into the realm of social media it is with some expectation of things not going quite to plan.

Another interesting change that has happened in the last few weeks is the appointment of the FEI Constitutional Task Force. Getting to this point has not been without controversy but the appointment as Chair of the Task Force of Akaash Maharaj, Equine Canada’s CEO is a surprise and a brave move by the FEI. Anyone even remotely familiar with Akaash will know he is NOT afraid to speak his mind and is a clear advocate for open and public debate.

Akaash is not your average Federation CEO, has achieved many things in his personal and professional life and studied at Oxford University in Master of Arts in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. To appoint Akaash to head this Task Force was no accident, he will be thorough open and consultative. He is also not European which will bring interesting feedback I am sure.

When I heard Akaash had been appointed in this role I sent him a little note wishing him well and expressing my concern that perhaps he has been appointed in the hope he might fail. He was philosophical about the appointment and deeply touched he had been given the chance to help reform the FEI and said simply that he would much prefer to have tried and failed than not tried at all. That is a sentiment I can completely understand, it is exactly the reason that drives me in my Eventing Safety campaign.

What I do know is that the Task Force has started on the right foot by communicating with the Federations publicly. Here is a copy of the letter sent out. While I do not know the other committee members Cesar Carmargo Serrano of Columbia, nor Kim Gueho of Mauritius nor Ulf Helgstrand of Denmark, I do know Paul Cargill of Australia. If his name does sound familiar he is the current Chair of Equestrian Australia, an accomplished Lawyer and the father of Hamish, of Hamish and Dave fame or as he is known at the moment HamoNoDavo.

This whole experience is a new and exciting chapter in the future of the FEI and I for one am really looking forward to it.

ESJ

2011 FEI Risk Management Seminar Minutes and Reports

My apologies for not getting onto this earlier but I have been away in sunny Florida.

So the FEI have released the minutes, participant list, presentations and fall statistics from the meeting held in late January. We must remember that this annual meeting is primarily National Safety Officers and is called the “FEI Eventing Risk Management Seminar”.

I must say up front that I was told in no uncertain terms prior to the meeting that the meeting was not about frangible devices or moves to develop an industrial standard. Well this seems to be exactly the case. I found a total of three references, in all of the eight documents published. All of these references were passing and include NO detail at all.

Personally I see this as a glaring omission and I will explain why.

For at least the last 12 months and for longer, but perhaps more anecdotally, we have been compiling data on the types of frangible devices used, types of fences they were used in, did they deploy or did they fail to deploy.

These are important statistics, there is NO statistical information included in the FEI Statistic on falls, fences and injuries that identify frangible devices. Just so I am being clear, there is absolutely no statistical information released by the FEI on the use of frangible fences.

I believe this information is critical to our plans and future direction. Let me explain a little first. At an FEI Competition, the TDs and CD need to fill in an extremely detailed form outlining the details of every fence included in the competition. Using this information we should be able to identify if you are more likely to have a horse fall off a left or right bend, in or out of water, up or down a hill, at a portable or fixed fence and also at a frangible or non-frangible fence.

We can also identify using the report, the profile of fences that have a statistically higher chance of causing a horse fall. We should also be able to identify if a particular profile of fence has a lower chance of producing a horse fall if a frangible device is used (and perhaps even which type of frangible device has the lowest chance of a horse fall).

All of this information is important for Officials to understand when analyzing a course and for CDs when preparing a course. Failure of frangible devices to deploy is also important information, especially when the resulting fall results in serious injury or worse. I can think of four really famous examples of failure to deploy in the last 12 months.

Was the failure to deploy a case of the perfect storm of bad circumstances or simply, a less appropriate device being used?

What I do know is that this type of information need not be highly sanitised to the point the information becomes useless, but disseminated to the people who need to know, firstly the NSO’s and secondly to the Officials who are the Individuals responsible and are responsible when something goes wrong.

I really do hope that more time was spent on discussing frangible devices and that some lost report suddenly appears on the FEI website, but I do not hold out much hope. It seems we are destined for another year of sanitised, compartmentalised and fragmented information about the sport.

One other issue I see with the statistics is that they only represent the FEI competitions. I know there are issues with getting complete information from National Federations, but hey, a complete picture on the sport would be nice. For instance the report mentions that there have been seven rider fatalities in the last 7 years. Unfortunately when you add the national competitions into the mix that number goes from 7 to 27 almost four times the rate.

Statistics are important and we must continue to work on them, however we need to extract and disseminate more meaningful and practical, applicable data that a Course Designer or Technical Delegate can use in the field where it really matters.

The documents can be read and downloaded on the FEI website here.

The FEI have released a policy and action plan

Hey guys, the long awaited FEI Eventing Risk Management Policy and Action Plan has been released.

At first glance I am disappointed.  To me this is a policy statement, the words Action Plan have been tacked onto the end of the title.

My understanding of an action plan is this:

• Quantifiable goals, targets, actions and achievements
• Identify and give deadlines for all of the above
• Set review dates, and keep updating the plan.

An action plan without specific and measurable Key Performance Indicators is not a plan.

However, I do hold out hope.

“Communication plan

The FEI Eventing risk management needs also to take into account the risks for the FEI deriving from an unmanaged communication of any accident that will inevitably produce a bad image for the organization and the sport if not put in the right context of a proactive risk management policy.

Public perception of proactive risk management is as important as the risk management actions performed and an effective risk management communication plan is key for achieving the mission of the organization.

In order to ensure the above:

 A communication strategy for FEI Eventing risk management must be urgently developed. All risk management actions must be made public and actively explained .

 A clear procedure has been established in case of any serious accident to allow correct distribution of information.”

An urgent development of a communication strategy is a fantastic leap forward and I can’t wait to read it, even better be part of the team helping to develop it.  So yes we have taken a baby step in the right direction and for that I am thankful.

ESJ

 

 

 

Me on Eventing Nation – Eventing’s Honor Roll, the one list you don’t want to be on

Hi Guys I was moved to write this after reading about Jade South.

Eventing’s Honor Roll

Thanks for your interest

ESJ

Risk Management & Frangible Device meetings

Hi guys,

Just a quick post to let you all know I have not forgotten about these meetings and reporting on how they went. They were on 27, 28, & 29 of January. To date the “Cone of Silence” has been most effective and I have almost no information.

What I do know is that at least one other person tried to participate in the FEI Risk Management Meeting and despite a demonstrated track record in the area of Eventing Safety was excluded. Additionally, there are whispers of discontent amongst some present and the whole “cone of silence”. Hopefully this will lead to some change and more open and transparent discussions in the future.

I can’t even tell you if the ProLog guys were invited to the second TRL meeting after being excluded from the first despite the fact that the FEI stated the meeting included all known manufacturers of frangible devices.

As of now, I have no other information to share.

If you have more information and would like to share it anonymously with me drop me a line, your confidence will be respected 100%.

eventingsafety @ gmail.com

In the meantime, please rider safely and wear your helmet.

2011 Eventing Risk Management Seminar in Greenwich

On January 29 & 30 2011, the Annual Eventing Risk Management Seminar was held in Greenwich, the site of the 2012 London Olympic Games Equestrian Events.

This meeting is an important event on the future of Safety (Risk Management) in our sport and brings together National Safety Officers and other interested parties from across the Eventing world.

What was discussed is unclear at this stage as the minutes and papers from the Seminar are yet to be released and although I have placed a number of calls and emails to people I know were present at this stage I am none the wiser.

There was a press release from the FEI that can be seen here. However at this stage we are short on detail.

For one I have been trying for a period of time now to obtain a copy of the “FEI Eventing Risk Management Action Plan” mentioned in the press release and the best answer I have obtained is that it is being updated and will be made available when the updating is complete.  To my knowledge although in the press release it states that “launched in January 2010” it has not been released publicly before now. So this will be an eagerly awaited document.

In addition as I have mentioned previously there was a meeting on the 28th of January 2011 at the offices of TRL in London to discuss the creation of an industrial standard for Frangible Devices to be used in Eventing.

Again more information has been promised at some stage, however in the meantime the only mention of this meeting having occurred from the FEI is a paragraph (below) in the FEI Monthly Review from November 2010. Here is a copy of the full document on the IEOC website.

Eventing: meeting at Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Wokingham (GBR), 10 NovemberThe meeting took place to discuss the possible creation of industrial standards for frangible / deformable Cross Country fences.Among the 18 participants were the Chairman of the FEI Eventing Committee, researchers from the universities of Bristol (GBR) and Kentucky (USA), as well as MIM Construction AB (SWE) and several top Cross Country Course Designers.Several frangible and deformable devices were presented. Discussions included possible definitions of tests to be undertaken (ie. forces to be measured) for such fences and enabled the participants to set out the principles for a first draft, which will be further reviewed at a meeting in January 2011.

That said I have seen a copy of the minutes of this meeting in November and it sounds promising.  However I will reiterate my previous comments that only a select few were present at the meeting, the team from ProLog were a notable exception despite some very promising research conducted that they have real capacity to stop rotational falls before they even begin.

I think that is enough said until I can obtain copies of the documentation.

Yours in Eventing and please wear your safety helmet, securely fastened at all times when mounted.

John

A turning point? I hope

Sebastian Steiner died on 18 September 2010

In a little over two week there will be two meetings of critical importance to the future of Eventing.

The first on 28 January is a follow up to a meeting that occurred on the 10th of November. This meeting is working on “discuss the possible creation of industrial standards for frangible/deformable Cross Country fences to be used in FEI competitions”.

This is exciting. What is not exciting is that very few people participated in the meeting, the meeting is not open to all concerned or it seems anyone outside the United Kingdom bar a select few from Europe and the USA.

In addition, the minutes from this meeting have not been published publicly for the wider Eventing community, the goals, papers and responses are locked away in a secure part of the FEI Family website.

One can only hope that they will release further information following the 28 January meeting.

The second very important meeting is the annual gathering of all National Safety Officers at Greenwich on 29-30 January.  This meeting too, does not encourage input from outside the select group of NSOs and others by invitation (mine it seems got lost in the mail).  I am confident that at the NSOs meeting they will discuss the aforementioned industrial standard for frangible/deformable cross country fences at the NSOs meeting.

What I hope is, will we turn the corner, will we move away from the situation of paranoia, closed doors, secret meetings and secure password controlled minutes?

Will we see publicly for the first time, a written simple and concise plan, that outlines in plain English (and French as well as many other languages), our goals, KPI’s and statistics for moving forward.

I am not hopeful, it only takes five minutes on Google to know that this conversation was happening, in the same tone, with big plans in the late nineties.  Have we improved? I think so, have we learnt anything, technically & scientifically YES, from a Public Relations and Management point of view, it seems not.

I recently came across a list, it is a list that will chill the bones of any Eventer or Eventing supporter.  The list contains the names and details of EVERY death of a rider, that has made it into the public domain since about 1997. Some of these names I have heard before but many I hadn’t.

For me personally, this list and the people whose lives were lost in our sport, this is why I do this, stick my neck out.  Unfortunately, every year on average just under four lives are lost in our sport.

2010 was an average year as we said goodbye to Dirk Grouwels (48) of Belgium in March, Elena Timonina (16) of Russia in May, Robin Donaldson (64) of Great Britain in September and Sebastian Steiner (22) of Austria in September.

I hope, dream and pray (I’m not very good at it) that 2011 will not be an average year.  Will we find some miracle cure in 2011 in the Industrial Standards?  I don’t think so, but I do hope that we can be more open, inclusive and forthright about the challenges our sport faces and how we will tackle this as a team.

Can we continue to add names to this horrific list and look at ourselves in the mirror and honestly say with hand on heart, I did everything in my power to stop adding to this list.

Believe me I haven’t forgotten about our horses and those that have given there lives for the sport.  Personally I have been around to see three of these, three too many and I know how tragic it is.  But, if we can’t get motivated enough to stem the list of human deaths, how can we even start on the list of horse deaths.

One final thing I ask, I want to ensure that this plea is read by every single person who will be in those meetings.  Please share the list as far and wide as possible, post it to your Facebook, email it to your Eventing contacts or Tweet it, whatever you can do to help spread the word will be truly appreciated.

Hopefully in late January, we can move past the excuses for not doing something, focus on the list of the past and prepare a plan for the future.

If you can bear it, there is a fairly comprehensive list on Horsetalk of both horses and riders.

2010 Radio Show Episode 116 by SUCCEED

Daily radio coverage of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games continues with a wrap up of the days events. We recap Eventing Dressage Day Two and Dressage Grand Prix Freestyle today as we record at the International Equestrian Festival in front of a live audience. Listen in…

2010 Radio Show Episode 116 by SUCCEED – Show Notes and Links:

• Hosts: Samantha Clark and Glenn the Geek
• Location: The International Equestrian Festival in downtown Lexington. Recording at 7:00 PM every night. Stop down and join us.
• Guest: Guy McLean
• Guest:Kristine Oakhurst of Citizenhorse.com
• Guest: Jill Byrne of HRTV
• Coverage: Follow all the coverage of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games on the Horse Radio Network.

Please support our sponsors because we would not be here without them:

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The IEOC and a new Board

Are you an FEI Eventing Official? If so you should have received a Ballot paper on the email today from Jean Mitchell. I have nominated for the Board of the International Eventing Officials Club. The IEOC is now recognised by the FEI as a member of the FEI Family.

The IEOC continues to be influential in bringing about appropriate changes for the sport to ensure its relevance today and in the future. I believe I can contribute more to the future of our sport by being a member of the IEOC board and would appreciate your support.

My agenda is very simple: –

• Eventing is a tough and demanding sport that is the pinnacle of the relationship between horse and man (& women).
• It is tough and dangerous, however, if our sport is to continue to be relevant today and in the future, especially at an elite level, we need to do everything in our power to avoid tragedies for both horse and human.
• I sincerely believe that change can be implemented successfully, sensibly and without turning the sport into glorified showjumping.

I would appreciate your vote today. Please nominate John Lechner (me) on your ballot and return it ASAP.

I thank you in advance for your support.

John Lechner

FEI Eventing Committee – look at Air Vests

I am glad to see the FEI Eventing Committee have released a position on the Air Vests. The FEI have released this press statement late last week:

8 Sep 2010
Following a meeting of the FEI Eventing Committee evaluating the potential of air vests in overall rider safety on the Cross-Country phase, the Committee has recommended National Federations and riders to keep themselves informed of all the latest developments and to consider the potential benefits of their use.

The Eventing Committee will continue to monitor the evolution of this equipment, for which there are currently no internationally recognised industry standards. As part of its FEI Eventing Risk Management Policy and Action Plan, the Eventing Committee is fully committed to continuing the collection of data on all aspects of safety in the sport. Specific data on air vests will need to be evaluated in detail before any further advice on their use is issued.

“There is no doubt that air vests represent an important development in rider protection, but protective clothing is not the magic solution to rider safety. It needs to be considered in combination with active measures such as correct training, responsible riding, course design and fence construction”, Giuseppe Della Chiesa, Chair of the FEI Eventing Committee, said.

The one issue I have with this statement is that they have not come out with a clear position on the use of the vests with or without a traditional vest.  The USEA rulebook states;

2. PROTECTIVE VESTS.

a. A body protecting vest must be worn warming-up for and in the cross-country test.Stable, team or club colors are permitted. The Federation recommends that the vestshould pass or surpass the current ASTM standard F1937 or be certified by the Safety Equipment Institute. Inflatable vests are permitted only when worn over a body protectingvest. EC 3/15/10 Effective immediately

This is a clear and instructive rule that has been in place since March 2010.  I think most people are in agreement that there are some circumstances that an air vest will not deploy and thus it is not recommended as a replacement to a normal vest but is to be worn in addition to a normal vest.