The hostility of the last few weeks made all board members very thoughtful and now motivated them to take a public position.

The board and the regional group leaders are of the opinion that we will no longer tolerate or accept this form of communication in our club. Action has consequences and public statements made - as here on Facebook - were sometimes illegal or even have criminal relevance.

Of course, holding a general assembly in attendance at times like these should be questioned, of course we share this opinion! The general outrage at not deviating from it was very great - and many were loudly angry about the decision of the board of directors. It was very interesting, however, that in fact no one had the idea to ask directly why we were confronted with the fact that we couldn't postpone it. Due to the fact that it cannot be postponed, we have carefully clarified all legal framework conditions and made all preparations for a responsible process.

What happens if members instead believe self-proclaimed Corona experts, the authorities can sing a song about that. Ministries, district administrative authorities, police, etc. were formally bombarded with inquiries. However, after the authorities established the regularity of the general assembly, the next strategy seemed to be to harm the club through the media. Thanks to the excellent research carried out by the ORF editors from the Carinthian regional studio, these untruths were refuted and corrected. The actual legal framework conditions were also very well summarized in one article. This can be found at: https://kaernten.orf.at/stories/3100080.

The question remains open at this point: Why was the General Assembly now not postponable?

Motions were submitted by one member in due time, which ultimately made the General Assembly un postponable. These requests cast doubt on the legality of the association's conduct and thus imply that the board of directors has acted in breach of criminal law - in particular breach of trust. The clarification of such allegations (in the form of motions) does not tolerate delay and requires immediate clarification in the context of the general assembly. These allegations were of course completely refuted by the board! It is also significant that applicants did not find it worth the effort to personally raise their concerns at the General Assembly. The journey was apparently too difficult even from neighboring federal states.

In addition, the ÖRC statutes were questioned by a club member at the association authority. It emerged that neither the statutes of 2013, by the previous board, nor the statutes of 2019 had been approved by the association authority. Thereupon the association authority declared in writing that the statutory period of office of authoritative body representatives has already expired and that the association would therefore lose its ability to act. For this reason, we were asked to submit the missing documents, especially those relating to re-election, by the end of April.

If, due to these circumstances, individual members feel called to exceed the limits of legality and are guided by the deliberate intention to damage the reputation of the Austrian Retriever Club, we will no longer tolerate this.

In the last three years we have tried very hard to keep the club calm. Perhaps we can be rightly accused of not having made public many (unsightly) backgrounds for the decisions we made. But if a small group of members persistently work against the club, against the board of directors, and even against our members, we will no longer take it! After all, it is absolutely no trivial offense to accuse board members or the board in general of inciting to break the law.

It is important for us to emphasize: Everyone is still invited to express their opinion and to enter into a discussion with us, because we look forward to constructive cooperation! However, we expect our members to know the difference between free expression of opinion and destructive behavior that is harmful to the club, or we will point this out much more clearly in the future.

The board stands together and strives to continue to do professional work. Of course, every member is free to leave our club at any time. Because in the last few weeks it has been shown very clearly by some that our dogs are not at stake here! At the same time, it is still our love for our retrievers that drives us to continue doing voluntary work in the ÖRC!

For all interested ÖRC members, an “ÖRC Talk” will be set up via Zoom in the future. This should give our club members the opportunity to ask questions directly and in a very uncomplicated way, to have discussions and thus to contribute to improving communication. Details will follow.

The board of directors:

Kurt Becksteiner, Ernst Kogl, Kerstin Harm, Christine Grabmayr, Elke Ackerl, Julia Großauer, Herbert Steinschaden, Susanne Prager, Wolfgang Mandl, Philipp Birchbauer, Michael Gschladt, Franz Buchgraber, Burgi Mlinar, Barbara Stadlhuber, Wolfgang Ragitsch, Sonja Pircher, Robert Kaserer , Bernhard Schöpf, Wolfram Klaushofer (all 3 interim for Tyrol) and Sandra Gubesch.