Conflict of Interest on the FGNA Board of Directors?
NOT IFF Approved
IFF and FGNA: Anatomie de L’Enfer
I could write volumes about the conflict of interests, parasitic actions and cross-motivated behavior at the “official” Feldenkrais organizations. Quite frankly, there are so god damned many that I wonder if the system was designed to be dysfunctional. To whom would such dysfunctions be a benefit? Perhaps we can talk about that later.
Conflicting Roles
For now, I will just speak to one: What I see as the inappropriate dual relationships of Robert Black and Jaclyn Boone who serve on both the FGNA Board and hold positions on the International Feldenkrais Federation Distribution Center or IFF DC.
Robert Black is the President-Elect of the FGNA board of directors. Jaclyn Boone is the Vice President. Robert is also the chair of the IFF DC organization and Jaclyn is the secretary. Ostensibly, the IFF and the FGNA are separate organizations, with different bylaws, different purposes and different sources of funding. Normally, I would say that it is simply a bad idea for the organizations management to be co-mingled and blurred by having dual appointments.
But given that the IFF DC is actively limiting access to materials by filing copyright claims (See: International Feldenkrais Federation Files YouTube Complaint) Robert and Jaclyn’s positions seem to be in direct conflict with each other. The FGNA website clearly states that the organization’s purposes include:
“Educating the public, in all its diversity…” and, “increasing public awareness of the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education…”
The IFF’s actions limiting access to material is in direct contradiction to that. Looks like a pretty strong conflict of interest to me.
And that’s just one example. I do not personally know any practitioner who is happy with access to archival material. Some of the materials, such as the Alexander Yanai sessions are extremely expensive – $935 for the complete set. And it had been nearly 30 years – THIRTY YEARS – since the Amherst training began. And currently only Feldenkrais Trainers (as per the script) have full and unfettered access to them. Everyone else can only rent them – at exhorbant prices.
Except, of course, the public. They are completely shut out. They can neither buy nor rent archival video or audio. And thanks to the IFF and the actions of Rob and Jaclyn they cannot see the materials on YouTube.
As an aside – the list of ways that the IFF has limited access to the materials is truly astounding. You may have heard that the IFF is going to release the Amherst Videos as DVDs? Great idea. I applaud. I hope you will too. But you might not have known that DVDs of Amherst have been available for quite some time through the Israeli Guild. So why not just buy them through that Guild? Can’t do it. I tried. Apparently the IFF threatened them with a lawsuit and they stopped selling them.
I’ll stop for now. Detailing what the IFF has or has not done is not my purpose here. What is important to understand is that Robert Black and Jaclyn Boone are supposed to be elected representatives serving the needs of the FGNA and its members. As should be clear, the needs of the FGNA and IFF are not identical and each organization has different stakeholders.
If you are an FGNA member, you need someone working for you and your interests. Rob and Jaclyn have conflict of interests that prevent them from fully serving that role. If you – like most members – want greater access to archival materials, and at a more reasonable price, Rob, Jaclyn and the other FGNA board members should be lobbying on your behalf. In the case of Rob and Jaclyn, how can they do that? Their roles at the IFF preclude acting in your interests.
For this reason, I call on Rob Black and Jaclyn Boone to immediately resign from one or the other boards. Their roles have inherent conflicts of interests that prevent them from doing their jobs effectively.
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6 Comments
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Ryan Nagy
At his "Office" in Mexico
Moshe Feldenkrais
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Rhetorically-speaking……how did we get to this point?
I hope that the guilds of the world, the IFF, and all those in positions of “Influence” can begin to demonstrate and put forth:
1) Good political prowess
2) “Kick-Ass” (read: remarkable) legacy fostering
3) Self-reflection, growth and playing fair regardless of our past histories that will bring….
The work, OUR work, forward rather than sideways, or heaven forbid, backwards.
To comment on Ryan’s mention of materials being so darn pricey – this is something that has always stumped me:
It seems odd, actually downright disturbing at times, that all students who study Moshe Feldenkrais’ lifelong work, and choose to become practitioners aren’t required to purchase and study (in conjunction with their training) archival materials such as the Amherst Transcripts, AY, Esalen, SF notes…….and so on). As well as the multitude of FI’s of Moshe working with numerous people, in Amherst.
May I ask why there hasn’t been some consensus, and dare I say cooperation amongst our heads of training boards, trainers, guilds and the IFF to offer these materials at a decent rate for those in trainings?
Remember in school, College, University, you had to buy books and manuals to go with your labs, and classes. Even the artsy performing and fine arts people had textbooks under their arms to go with their leg warmers and sketchbooks. These books were an extra cost, but, it was a given – you had to have them.
I’ve posed this question before to a few trainers, and other practitioners and the answer that often comes out is something like this:
“But this is experiential learning, to make it just like the traditional school system and require reading, would be against ‘feldenkrais’”.
We need both baby: intellect and the experience.
Just because this hasn’t been the status quo in the past, doesn’t mean that the past was the right way to do it.
Would it be that harmful for a student to read a lecture that Moshe gave after he taught an ATM: For example, gems like the lecture he gave after he taught the lesson “Irradiating the knee”. This is more than just a really nice lesson, with it, after it, he talks about the quality in which we touch someone in FI? Shouldn’t this kind of content and knowledge be known intimately.
Why the heck can’t we do something, now, to change this and start fostering some richness and intellect building to go, in conjunction with, the richness of heightened sensory awareness that is taught in a training setting?
What a perfect way to open discussion amongst future practitioners that are in the depths of student experience with wide eyes and keenness.
What a perfect way to foster that kick ass legacy fostering that I mentioned above.
What a perfect way to set up some really good habits of self-study and inquiry.
I would LOVE to hear comments from any trainers, members or ex-members of the TAB, BOD, anyone really, who has perhaps thought of such futuristic ideals for our little profession that could.
Irene Gutteridge
GCFP, Whistler, BC.
http://www.thenext25years.com
http://www.scientuitive.com
Ryan, thanks for this enlightening information. With respect for both Robert Black and Jaclyn Boone, I do agree that having different individuals serve on FGNA board and IFF DC would increase the potency of each role. They could all work together to bring forth the most benefit to members and the public, using Irene’s eloquently described guidelines. Increased and updated access to material seems essential, especially with today’s available technology and channels of distribution. Let’s utilize the internet and more of the easiest pathways for the most people to benefit. I agree with Irene that we most definitely do benefit from both the intellect and the experience. There’s much creativity to be learned within the constraint of some requirements. Especially when the requirements are pretty darn brilliant! Why are the videos and materials so costly and difficult to acquire?
Hi Irene and Joanna – Thanks for your comments and feedback.
I will write more later, but one quick comment about a major constraint: sales policy. The IFF only sells the materials to practitioners. I couldn’t tell from the huge licensing agreement whether one has to be an active member in a guild or just have graduated from an “accredited” program, but regardless the pool of people who can purchase the materials is tiny. How many practitioners are there? 5000? 6000? Whatever the number, it’s not enough. Not enough to keep the costs reasonable and not enough to invest in new projects.
A related factor – each Guild pays the IFF 8% of the dues that it collects from members each year (to a maximum of 25,000 Euros). In return, the Guilds get….??? What exactly? Is it a licensing fee? No. Is it for the service marks? No. For training accreditation? No.
The FGNA has had monetary difficulties for how many years? Over a 10 year period it has paid the IFF a quarter of a million dollars. That’s a lot of cash. I’m wondering if writing a check to the IFF is the best use of that money. If FGNA wants to support the IFF perhaps they can agree to purchase $25,000 per year in materials and find a way to distribute those materials to members.
That’s my 2-cents.
- R
Hi Ryan – about the conflict of interest bit: the IFF is “the coordinating organization of most Feldenkrais Guilds and Associations and other key Feldenkrais professional organisations worldwide” (IFF website). So, each Guild, including the FGNA, sends representatives to sit on the IFF. Then the IFF selects, from all the people who sit on it, the IFF Distribution Centre Board. Thus, the co-mingling is intentional. It is an inherent feature of how the IFF is constructed. It is not the “fault” of the individuals who have agreed to be the FGNA reps on the IFF.
This structure does not prevent the FGNA from speaking its interests clearly as it participates in the IFF – I expect it was designed to make sure that each Guild CAN state its interests at the IFF.
As to what decisions are being made (and why) by the IFF and by the IFF Distribution Centre around making IFF materials available – or unavailable – in affordable and more widespread ways, I think these are worthwhile and significant questions to raise because the issue of access to and cost of IFF materials is on a lot of people’s minds. There are lots of factors at play in this from the little that I know (I think including legal ones beyond the direct control of the IFF), and it would be useful to have some clear info provided by the IFF explaining these kinds of things.
I think Irene’s post, above, is EXCELLENT in relation to this (and so much more!).
Thanks Violet. I believe what you are speaking to is the process of FGNA electing representatives to serve on the IFF i.e. The FGNA’s representative at the IFF. That’s not what Rob and Jaclyn are doing. They are serving the IFF and in different roles serving FGNA. They are separate duties with separate roles and responsibilities.
As far as the cost – there is no way to make them cheaper under the current guidelines. To be perfectly blunt – The IFF is a co-dependent organization. It has no funding of its own, it’s not required to turn a profit, and in fact does not need to turn a profit. Why bother to create an intelligent marketing strategy and sell products at a reasonable price, when they can just sponge off the Guilds?
If the FGNA is going to give the IFF $30,000 + U.S. dollars per year, they need to get something in return. And if they are going to deal effectively with the IFF they need a President and Vice President who can adequately represent the FGNA’s interests. Rob Black and Jaclyn Boone are currently not in a position to do that. They need to step down.
– Ryan
Irene
In the original book Awareness through movement, and I mean the Hebrew version Improving the ability theory and practice, Dr Feldenkrais wrote some informative lines to the reader. These lines are not usually part of the translations to other languages. It explains why there are different kind of trainings, those where the theoretical aspect of the scientific method, the Feldenkrais method, plays an active part and those where it does not. In Bateson language that would be the difference that makes the difference.
This is a my translation of the text from Hebrew,
“Part 2 of the book is written in such a way that it is possible to begin with the practical work before the reading of part one. But it is better to read the book in the order that it is written, This gives the reader a wider horizon and a deeper understanding of the practical lessons and the practice will in this way be more effective.”
There are many reasons why many trainers do not encourage a deeper understanding of the theoretical aspect of the work. If you read and listen to Dr F, both in SF & Amherst you would not get the impression that this is his vision for the future pedagogues. Since I “saw” the intro to the ATM book, which btw is a book for self studies, I more and more use a mixture of theory and practice in my teachings at Feldenkrais Skolan and I find it beneficial for my students. It is elusive and it is obvious this we call the Feldenkrais system