It really is about time you asked questions and held your “leaders” accountable for the decisions they make (or in many cases don’t make). It is time you looked into the budget of the USPA, it is time you examined the decisions that are being made regarding the investment of USPA monies into flawed or failed philosophies.
What you also need to be made aware of are some of the programs that find their way into mainstream USPA policy, and one of those examples is the AIPF.
What is the AIPF? You might ask, and I’m sure most of the membership is unaware that this “charitable organization created to help fund American teams going to international competitions” is not much more than a slush fund to send a US team into FIP competition-at your expense.
Understand that this “nonprofit” isn’t anything that the USPA could come up with on its own. I believe it was the brainchild of self-appointed FIP big-wig Pat Nesbitt, the Chairman of the International Committee, the man who has had no contact with either group staging either the Westchester Cup (being organized by the Museum of Polo-nothing to do with the USPA) or the Camacho Cup (being staged by The Villages Polo Club in Central Florida).
In case you don’t remember, our last FIP team didn’t even make it to the competition, being eliminated in zone competition by Canada. Don’t even begin to ask about the method of team selection.
What interests me, however, is the fact that the USPA has committed some $90,000 to the AIPF over the course of three years with no public hearings or accounting of where this money goes or how it is spent. Although if you read carefully it appears to rest all of the power in the hands of the “sitting Chairman of the USPA”, that would be Tom Biddle.
Any word from you Tom? I didn’t think so. Let’s continue to keep this information to “ourselves”. Business as usual.
As I understand it, when the “good ol’ boys get together for their spring meetings in Florida the issue of funding the AIPF is put off until the morning after a late night cocktail party where it is slipped under the noses of some very hung-over delegates and board members.
What I didn’t notice right away was its appearance on the menu of the USPA website. If you click the AIPF name you will be greeted with by-laws of this Illinois not for profit organization and little else. There is no accountability for the funds collected or spent, and no tracking of the success of the program (although we are all well aware of the fact that the USPA doesn’t appear to track the success or failures of any of its programs).
You just think about that $90,000 that is being withdrawn without your knowledge when you are finding it hard to get through these lean times and ask yourself why so much emphasis is being put on FIP activities and not on the storied international tournaments that are a part of the history of the USPA.
