The committee discussing the much-needed new constitution for the USA Cricket Association have been presented with recommendations drawn from discussions on the now defunct USCricket.com forums, until recently a relatively influential sounding board for many inside US cricket.
John Wainwright, Chairman of the new USACA Constitution Committee, expressed his thanks for the hard work that had gone into preparing the report, and promised that it would get their careful attention and review.
Here are the major recommendations for a top-to-bottom redraft of the USACA Constitution.
In line with most amateur sports organizations in the US, USACA should convert its membership from a per-club to a per-member basis. At $30 per club, memberships bring in less than $10,000pa. A per-member subscription rate as low as $10 could bring in over $50,000pa. Direct elections for USACA executives and board were advocated, meaning that individual USACA members would directly elect the president, the executive, and the board members for their regions. Mainstreaming - ie the active recruitment of US-born adults and youths into US cricket - had to be written into the USACA constitution if cricket clubs and leagues were to take these goals seriously. Affirmative action on mainstreaming was to be compulsory, and yearly targets had to be set through by-laws. Full public disclosure, by detailed postings on the USACA website, was demanded for (a) all current and proposed USACA contracts, (b) all official meetings, discussions and executive and board actions, (c) all policy statements made by or on behalf of the USACA. This would effectively end the veil of secrecy under which USACA now operates, and make its operations transparent to US cricketers. The new constitution should require USACA to host an open and independent forum on US cricket topics, with quality control over frivolous or misleading posts. As an interesting addition to forum procedures, posts directly addressed to USACA executive or board members would have to be answered by the officer in question within a week of the query or comment, and penalties would be assessed for non-compliance with this directive.Taken as a whole, these recommendations would go a long way towards ending the dystopia that has characterized USACA practices up to this point. It is even more encouraging that the newly formed USACA constitution committee has responded favourably to the report. It now remains to be seen whether a "new and improved" USACA constitution will emerge from all these exchanges.
As far as US cricketers are concerned, that would indeed be the day.
