Friday, May 20, 2011

What is going on in Argentina?

I just received this news from a reader regarding events at the World Congress in Argentina of the International Stuttering Association (ISA). Can anyone confirm this or deny this? If no-one confirms, I will delete the post again. I blacked out the names until I get more confirmation.
Are you at the World Congress in Argentina? [....]

I have been back to my sources but only have somewhat sketchy details. I am not at this event but I understand that the International Stuttering Association is on some type of an implode. An ex-director XXX has been having some ongoing dispute with XXX and other Board members over non adoption of a strategic report that he prepared. He has been threatening to take legal action against XXX. The harassment issue must be a rehash of what you wrote [...]

I understand that the Argentinians gave XXX a 1 hour time slot to stand up in front of who ever wanted to listen and then then voice his unwarranted grievances. This was quiet embarrassing for many people and a lot chose to leave the room. I understand the ISA was very unhappy with the Argentinians for doing this.

7 comments:

Satyendra said...

Happy that I am not there at any rate..My stutter would have become worse :-))

Satyendra said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tal said...

Someone on the stutt-L google groups list who is at the conference says:

"Yesterday was the ISA meeting, unfortunately completely dominated by one guy who has issues with some people, but the members stuck together and the guy was on his own. But it took a lot of energy and time."

Seems consistent with what you write.

(from http://groups.google.com/group/stutt-l/browse_thread/thread/383faa083a6908f9)

Pam said...

Yes, I read the same comment on the stutt-l group. The writer is a frequesnt attendee of the world conferences, so it seems that the description is a fair representation of what is going on.
This writer also made a post on facebook, commenting that "finally there were some presentations about stuttering by people who stutter".
I will be intersted in hearring more about it from attendees. I had really thought long and hard about trying to get there, but I guess in the end, it was meant for me not to be there.
Maybe sometime in the next 5-10 years, it will be in North America again. It has been announced that it will be in The Netherlands in 2013.

Norbert said...

My understanding is that whle thee was some kind of ruckus at the AGM, this has been resolved democratically, members have voted in a new board and that ISA is moving on.
Re the next venue - I guess it's a numbers game. There's 2 ISA member organisations in North America but about twenty or so in Europe....

Dave Rowley said...

Yes, I'd say this was quite accurate. One ex-director just can't move on. Unfortunately, the organisers gave him far too much time, but probably bitterly regret it now. The new chair of ISA needs to be very firm and to move ISA forward. Badly needs some vision, in my opinion.

Difficult to know what to say about the Congress itself...

Anonymous said...

It was interesting meeting. Thomas was kind a funny with his ways...