..... continued from above
Update 15 February
A letter has been sent to the ACTCCC suggesting that. in the interests of the runners and maintaining the integrity of the Canberra Marathon, differences be put aside to allow the oldest city marathon in Australia to continue, pending the outcome of any legal issues. Read letter here.
This follows our open offer to the club in December, which you can read here.
Current Situation
On 4 February, the ACT Chief Minister announced "with enormous regret" that the ACT Government is unable to provide the necessary approvals to allow the Canberra Marathon to proceed this year. CSM deeply regrets the decision also.
In the interests of ensuring that a highly successful event for the national capital continue, CSM believes that it ought to be granted the permit as the incumbent organiser of the event, until such time as the Federal Court makes their decision. Whilst the Chief Minister's decision certainly presents challenges for CSM at this time, we are not going to stand by and see one of Canberra’s great running and family events fall over because of the actions of others.
To that end we are seriously exploring all options for 11 April 2010. We will be doing all we can to honour the faith of all existing entrants, and hope to do so.
The Kids Marathon remains an integral part of our 2010 plans and will be conducted, irrespective of the outcome of the Canberra Marathon issue.
Thank you to the hundreds of runners and supporters who have contacted us. We are buoyed and encouraged by the many messages of support. We consider we have made progress in the past few days and will post an update as soon as we are able to do so.
You can send messages in support of CSM and the continuation of the Canberra Marathon to the Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, the Leader of the Opposition Zed Seselja and The Canberra Times.
Since the Chief Minister’s announcement there has been further commentary to the effect that the Canberra Marathon has been cancelled. This is not true.
It has never been our intention to spar publicly with the ACTCCC regarding the legal issues surrounding the marathon. Our position has been that the appropriate forum for resolving these issues was in court, or by confidential settlement negotiations with the ACTCCC, not through a trial by media. We have never sought to make public details of the court case, both out of respect for the confidentiality of the court process as well as in order to preserve the goodwill of the Canberra Marathon.
Sadly, the ACTCCC has pursued the media to forward its own position and in doing so has not only breached the confidentiality of the court and waived privilege in our settlement discussions, but has also created a most misleading impression as to the true position.
The events of last week do now put at risk the future of the Canberra Marathon, an event that has been conducted for 33 years, under my race directorship for 29 years, and which has been hailed as the best organised marathon in Australia and has risen to take a place on the international marathon calendar. We therefore now are compelled to place on the public record certain facts.
The ACTCCC President Doug Limbrick has repeatedly referred to the ACTCCC having made numerous settlement offers, all of which have been unreasonably rejected. However, he has omitted to say that these offers required that we walk away from the Canberra Marathon after the 2010 event.
In 2002 CSM and the ACTCCC signed a document that stipulated that the only condition for the event returning to the ACTCCC was “If CSM, for whatever reason, is unable to conduct the CM." ( CM being Canberra Marathon).
The intention of this agreement was discussed and clear to all parties before it was signed, and we felt confident that we could rely on an email we received from Doug Limbrick, (then Secretary of the ACTCC and now ACTCCC President) before signing the agreement. The email read (in full):
“In order for you to have full control we need some form of agreement that spells this out (need only be short) so that you can have confidence that you control the event and of course reap any gains without having the CCC or some future committee changing their mind. The word "ownership" will cause some problems (we believe) for many members. We are of the view that we cannot hand "ownership" to you without going to our members. Hence its best to avoid talking in those terms. We are talking in terms of full operational control (without interference and allowing CSM to reap any gains that result from effort). I would think that you would want this spelt out in some document, so that you would have a guarantee that for the life of any agreement we could not change our minds about the arrangement.”
The case CSM reluctantly took to court last September was forced by the ACTCCC President writing letters to our sponsors, and the Chief Minister, “informing” them that CSM no longer had the right to conduct the Canberra Marathon, that the ACTCCC had this right and would in future conduct the Canberra Marathon and that, in future, these stakeholders should deal with the ACTCCC."
The actions of the ACTCCC have not been confined to an attempt to force CSM out. The ACTCCC has also made personal attacks on my credibility locally by sending communications to the highest level of athletics administration or encouraging its members to do so. This has been most hurtful, and potentially damaging to my reputation. But more than this, it is behaviour that is personal and vitriolic, and threatens to bring to an end one of the iconic events on the ACT Events Calendar as well as on the national/international marathon calendar. It is not consistent with an intention to act in the best interests of the event, or Canberra or the running community.
While the organisation and management of the Canberra Marathon are in dispute, we will endeavour to ensure that runners are not disadvantaged. We are part of the running community, both in Australia and internationally. We know you are trying to qualify for other marathons, eg Boston, we know that you have to qualify for Comrades and Canberra is your last chance, we know the personal sacrifice you’ve gone through and the goals you want to achieve, we know you have made travel and accommodation plans to be in Canberra on the weekend of 10/11 April.
We will post further updates on the website as we can, bearing in mind the constraints given the current legal situation. We will not give up on you.
Dave Cundy
Race Director
Canberra Marathon
