Reply: I created an online archive of HKF documents shortly after becoming HKF Secretary in February, 2016. The idea was that every member of the HKF should have open, unrestricted access to information relating to what the HKF is, what it’s doing, and how - both in the present and in the past. Within a few months the archive held over 250 documents, including current and past versions of important administrative documents (Bylaws, Standard Operating Procedures, etc.), records of Board of Directors meetings, historical documents, educational materials from the previous HKF website, and so on. Records of each new meeting, tournament, shinsa, etc. were added to the archive upon their completion.

In July 2017 the Board of Directors voted to restrict access to “sensitive” information, replacing the online archive with a ‘system’ in which an HKF member would be able to request whatever document they wanted to see from their dojo head, dojo representative, or the HKF Secretary. However, no criteria for what constitutes “sensitive” was created, and no aspect of the so-called ‘system’ for requesting documents was ever defined. The entire archive was removed from the internet.

The intention of this action was to return the HKF to its previous state of operational opacity. A follow-up session to form recommendations for how to make the documents (as well as sufficiently redacted versions of “sensitive” documents) available to everyone in the HKF was proposed at the same meeting, but was never held.

If you would like to have unrestricted access to HKF-related information, please speak to your dojo representative (“Director”) to take a position in support of transparency and accountability. The Board of Directors is required to make its decisions via majority vote. (HKF Bylaws section 3.12 - “…the acts of a majority of the directors present at any meeting at which a quorum is present shall be the acts of the Board of Directors.”)

J.K. Shishido
December 2017