# Club Intrawest Censors Biography



## smbrannan (May 6, 2008)

As you may know I am running for the position of independent director on the board of Club Intrawest.  Members of Club Intrawest can vote here.

The printed biography that I submitted to the Club was censored to exclude a reference to a website that I have been maintaining to provide independent information to current and potential Club Intrawest members.

Here is the text of an email that I sent to the Club to ask them to correct the error in an email that they will be sending to members on another election related issue.




Extract from email follows:------

Thanks for letting me know.   The email you will send would also be a good opportunity to correct an error in printed biography material that was distributed to club members.   The biography I submitted was as follows:

Stuart Brannan believes there is significant potential in Club Intrawest that has not been tapped.  As a board member he would advocate improvements in members benefits, including true online reservations and more Club locations.  Stuart created clubintrawest.pbwiki.com to allow members to share their views about the Club.  Stuart is a Managing Director, BMO FInancial Group and lives in Oakville, Ontario with his wife and two teenage sons, all of whom are avid skiers and boarders.  

However the printed materials you distributed were edited to remove the sentence:  "Stuart created clubintrawest.pbwiki.com to allow members to share their views about the Club."

I added this sentence as it is a factual statement, that is relevant to my candidacy because it demonstrates interest in, and commitment to, advancing the interests of Club members.   

I was not notified that this sentence would be censored from the biography.   

Please advise.

Thanks,

Stuart


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## Bill4728 (May 12, 2008)

I agree that tke wiki does show your interest in the Club and it's members. It to bad that it was removed.  

http://clubintrawest.pbwiki.com/

Stuart, Are you going to make the changes to it now that the club has changed to instant online reservations?   Boy, it is nice to have that feature!!  And now that we have it, make it seem worse that we ever had to do without it.


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## smbrannan (May 12, 2008)

I modified the "Issues" page at the wiki to strike-out the issues and recommendations relevant to online availability.  That way it continues to show that it had been an issue, but that it is no longer relevant.

Also had a chat with the President of Club Intrawest about this last Friday.  Apparently the Club made a decision to prohibit any sort of dissemination of information in the biographies other than a description of who the candidate is.

I told him three things:
 That all candidates should be notified of the policy before they submit their bios.
 If anyone violates the policy, they should be notified and given the opportunity to correct it before the mailing goes out, and
 The Club should revisit this policy because it makes it exceedingly difficult for candidates to differentiate themselves, and therefore makes it hard/impossible for members to cast their votes in an intelligent manner.
He agreed to the final point.



Bill4728 said:


> I agree that tke wiki does show your interest in the Club and it's members. It to bad that it was removed.
> 
> http://clubintrawest.pbwiki.com/
> 
> Stuart, Are you going to make the changes to it now that the club has changed to instant online reservations?   Boy, it is nice to have that feature!!  And now that we have it, make it seem worse that we ever had to do without it.


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## Travelz (May 15, 2008)

Stuart, you have received all my votes.  

It is about time someone with more balanced views got on the board to represent the broad membership.  While Club Intrawest offers great resorts & experiences (I tuly enjoy them and consider them high quality), the unilateral approach taken by the manangement company in almost all their member agreements is excessive and unpalatable enough to drive members to sell.  Censorship of innocuous lines is a bio is just one more example of their heavy handed approach.

I feel that some of the decisions and approaches taken by management (who are paid and engaged to work on behalf of members!) with respect to membership rights and privileges is over the line and should be legally challengable.   For example,purchasers of CI points on the resale market are blocked from using Extraordinary Escapes (EE) for exchange, and face restrictions on using other exchange companies (if you can even get through their smoke screen to get info on how to exchange without EE rather than just be told you cannot exchange outside of the 8 CI resorts ). I have spoken to CI, RCI several times and still don't have clarity as I receive different answers each time I call on whether my points can be exchanged or not and how to go about it. 

This kind of 2-tier treatment of members is a PR fiasco to any firm which values goodwill, corporate reputation and referrals.  1 point = 1 point, and as the Extraordinary Escapes program is being funded by annual membership dues, what difference does the original purchase price of the points have - that is just the original capital investment and the developer received the same full fee for each point when it was first sold. Why restrict people who want to pay this fee from joining?  Also when we are paying the same annual maintenance fee per point how can some of us be second class citizens and receive less services?  I feel there is some conflict of interest and the line does get crossed between the 2 separate roles of Club Developer and Club Manager which needs addressing.  

Stuart, I hope you get elected to the board and will be able to address some of these concerns.


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## Bill4728 (May 15, 2008)

smbrannan said:


> I modified the "Issues" page at the wiki to strike-out the issues and recommendations relevant to online availability.  That way it continues to show that it had been an issue, but that it is no longer relevant.




Thanks for doing that.

Good Luck with the election


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