Tom Baigrie Rooiels January 2024

​A perfect Rooiels day began with an hour or more on a deserted slipway beach, sipping a coffee and swimming in a calm 13° sea, chatting briefly to Mike, walking Taffy, 2 ladies swimming, a visiting birder, Oh! and my wife Alison of course! What a place this is. And just an hour or so from the loveliest City on the continent, perhaps in the world. And then I glanced at ‘Village People’, where, amongst the ads for our local businesses and the requests for guidance and helpful responses, Rooielsers with strong opinions post them. My sense of peace and harmony evaporates, even if just for a bit.
 
For we have different and strong views in our village. Of course we have! Every human societal group has diverse views concerning what is right. That’s just the way our big brains make us. All any group of us can try to do is manage our divisions on specific topics. If that’s done with kindness and a lack of vitriol, with an eye to the long-term and a care not to abuse, then harmony will prevail despite contrary opinions.
 
In all human history there has only been one long-term way of resolving societal division without demanding obedience to one set of opinions. It’s where we all get a chance every now and again to vote for who we want to be our leaders and then live with the majority decision, because we know we will soon get another chance to vote those leaders in or out: Democracy.
 
In Rooiels we have a tiny electorate and, in overall terms, no form of village democracy. We can vote for our ward representative at OM, but that has minimal impact on our, often very local, issues. We do have several membership organisations with different ambitions. Outreach, for example, is focussed on doing good works in the wider community; REC, REBC and RESA too have specific areas of focus, reflected in their membership, which is open to all who pay their fees. RERA is the same, it’s specific focus being the management of Rooiels’ relationship with OM and thus all the key civic issues that affect us all.
 
RERA is the one that needs to become more democratic. Currently it’s a limited franchise in which membership is open to all ratepayers, but only them. Historically that was deemed fair – no representation without taxation, one might say, but nowadays all who choose to live here, should be able to be heard.
 
That’s why Achim Halpaap, currently chair of RERA, is convening a Task Team to come up with specific proposals to reform the RERA constitution, so as to make RERA as inclusive and diverse and thus representative of our village as it can be. In this he is supported by the outgoing 2023 RERA Exco and the candidates standing to serve again next year.
  
By engaging with the Rooiels Community, we seek to deliver the Resolution on Constitutional Reform voted for at the 2023 RERA AGM, by gathering up to 15 Rooielsers to represent diverse views resident in our community, be they “permanents”, “weekenders”, “swallows”, ratepayers, or tenants, and including the perspectives of local business owners and their resident staff.  An important part of the process is to poll and consult all those who want to participate, so as to deliver RERA, and Rooiels, an amended new constitution through a vote by mid-2024.
 
In the end it will be the paid up 2024 RERA members who will have the final vote on all changes proposed, and as one of those I hope we will all see that making RERA genuinely inclusive and representative is the way for the majority to define what’s best for us all. The alternative is the creation of a new body to serve that purpose. I write this piece in part to urge those thinking that way to join our efforts in building a RERA capable of being respected by those who don’t agree with its stance, in any given year.
 
We can’t expect to satisfy all on any given issue, as I say we human’s don’t work like that, but we can develop a RERA that can represent all who live in Rooiels, so that its Exco, once elected each year, consults regularly with the community, speaks for the democratic majority of us, and can thus be accepted by the rest.
 
Our Constitutional Task Team, which will take into account valuable past work done by Rooielsers on constitutional reform, is the start of that process. We should all support it, join in it, and help it lead us to a point where all of us can influence and then accept what the majority of us want each year.
 
You can start by emailing to [email protected] or messaging to any of the current Exco members to express your interest, and/or even better, joining a RERA committed to constitutional reform, so you can have a vote on that. In the end what happens to Rooiels will be up to you, so don’t be passive, be active!
 
Tom Baigrie
Jan 2024