This is an accurate chronological account of the feud that has been waged against Mel Owen by Andrew Jackman, almost entirely behind Mel's back. There has been no retaliation, other than to expose it here for scrutiny, motivated by a desire to have it brought to an end by pressure from fellow members of the Chamois Mountaineering Club.
Very many years ago I circulated a very detailed paper describing how our Hut should be provided with kerosene-fuelled Central Heating. For years afterwards our members resolutely dismissed it as an unnecessary luxury, unwanted in a mountain hut. Finally, 11 years after my report had been published, under the Hut Wardenship of Andrew, Phase 1 was carried out, providing domestic hot water and heating to the public rooms, although not yet to the members' end. Although it was considered useful for attracting group block bookings, we members thought at that time that we were made of sterner stuff. Andrew organised a special long work meet to install it. I was free to support it and offered to do so at the time, having sound personal experience of making a complete success of installing kerosene-fuelled central heating systems in the past, overall system design as well as first-fix and second-fix installation, as I did when designing and building our own home, but for unexplained reasons it was considered necessary to keep me well out the way by firmly turning down my offer of help. Although I didn't realise it at the time, I'm sure looking back now, that this might have been the first symptom of a deep antipathy felt towards me by Andrew.
A feature of this Phase 1 was that on numerous occasions all heating stopped without warning, even though it was switched on, leaving us shivering in the main lounge of an evening. Under Mike Pinnington's Hut Wardenship I was asked to investigate the cause and discovered that a thermostat in the upstairs corridor switched off all heating throughout the Hut as soon as it determined that the upstairs corridor was warm enough for an upstairs corridor. On Mike's instructions, I modified the control system to remove this nuisance feature. This was perfectly sound, and not at all wasteful, since each radiator has its own thermostatic control valve. Behind Mike's back, and without a word to anyone, Andrew reinstated it, much to Mike's annoyance. From what Andrew was reported to have said to others, I gathered that Mike and I had seriously annoyed him.
Under Mike's Wardenship, Phase 2 was carried out, extending the heating to the members' end. I was tasked to take care of the electrical control system. On investigation, it soon became abundantly obvious that the Phase 1 control system had been designed and implemented by an incompetent amateur bungler. It was a complete dog's dinner. It was so deeply flawed that it had to be scrapped, redesigned and replaced in its entirety. Should anyone be silly enough to try and challenge this assertion, please be aware that I have a full set of photographs of the dog's dinner for those who are hungry enough.
On Mike's instructions, nothing in the replacement system was annotated, in order to make it impossible for unauthorised persons, specifically Andrew, to ever tamper with it again behind the Hut Warden's back. As a result, the full documentation was placed out of anyone's reach in the Hut Warden's bedroom rather than in the Members' Lounge with all of the other maintenance documentation. This exacerbated the ill-feelings felt by Andrew towards Mike and myself. It was probably the direct cause of Chapter 6 and 7 of the Feud, documented below.
The initial symptoms of an increasing vendetta consisted of a number of isolated instances of where someone had clearly been briefing against me behind my back, but it took quite a long investigation to establish Andrew as the source. It was never reciprocated.
At the Windgather Day Meet held in October 2013, just a month before the 2013 AGM, Andrew turned up at the start, but when he noticed that I was there he hurriedly made his excuses and promptly left. Had he stayed, I would not have missed the opportunity to question him as to how he planned to carry out the mutualisation debate. Had I discovered that he was intent on delivering a PowerPoint presentation, I would have had a month in which to prepare an equally slick PowerPoint presentation, conclusively proving that mutualisation would bring no tangible benefits at all.
My devastatingly thorough and convincing proof that the Chamois Mountaineering Club had absolutely no need whatsoever to turn itself into a Mutual Society, documented elsewhere within this website, was the final straw. Even to this day we still do not know the real reason why we needed to be hurried into mutualisation before everyone could think too hard about it. There must have been an important undisclosed reason why we were not given the complete case for mutualisation in writing before the AGM and had to put up with a slick PowerPoint presentation. That reason must surely have been to deny us the opportunity to identify the many obvious flaws in his argument. There is plenty of scope for conspiracy theorists, but at the moment we have no conclusive proof. But having said that, there are plenty of circumstantial clues elsewhere within this website.
Rule One: If you cannot destroy the evidence itself, destroy the reputation and credibility of anyone exposing the evidence.
Rule Two: If you wish to destroy the credibility of someone who has made a sound and effective case for something specific, such as our remaining an Unincorporated Club, it provides an excellent incentive to urge the exact opposite, just to score a personal point. This couldn't be the real reason why we were hurried into mutualisation, could it, just to give Andrew a victory in his long-running feud?
If you want to argue the point, the only argument that would work is your quoting a concrete example of just one set of circumstances where a members could face a relevant Civil Liability Claim that would not be covered by our BMC Civil Liability Insurance, or where a member could face a realistic personal financial loss when acting on the Club's behalf. This is not a lot to ask, but I have been asking in vain for over 2 years, without receiving even an attempt at an answer. There was most certainly no answer in the 2013 AGM Papers, nor in the PowerPoint presentation at the AGM itself. If you like a challenge, you've got one. Good luck!
Here is the text of an email sent by Andrew Jackman to Peter Rushton, copied to the entire club committee:
Peter
I think we need to get ALL the hut wiring re-tested at the earliest convenience to you or we might find we have no insurance for the hut if an incident should unfortunately occur. Mel has not produced the necessary certificates that would reasonably be asked for by a loss adjuster should an electrical fire occur to show how he is both competent and qualified within current legislation.
If anyone on Committee has a contrary opinion please let me know.
Best regards
Andrew
The key parts of this need analysing in detail:
A member writes: "One day completely out of the blue, Andrew sent me a very strange email trying to get me to denounce Mel and some of his electrical work. Given that I too have spent many hours on many work-meets over the years on the complex job of rewiring of the hut with Mel and others, I was not at all pleased to receive such a vindictive email. Far worse, it had a whole chain of other vile and vindictive emails attached, possibly sent to me by mistake. I refused to answer the email. It was tempting to send the chain of emails all around the Club, but I thought better of it!"
Out of the blue, the Chairman released for publication to all members behind my back and without any warning whatsoever, the following lying tirade of abuse in the published minutes of the Committee's March 2014 Committee Meeting:
"Considerable anguish has been caused by Mel Owen's emails, both to committee and other members over a prolonged period. Efforts have been made to try to make him modify his behaviour but to no avail. A direct consequence of his behaviour over time has been the various resignations and unwillingness to serve on committee or sub-committees. Committee considered that action needed to be taken to moderate this behaviour to avoid the need for him being suspended as a member. Committee resolved that in future, Mel is to be instructed not to send emails or to write to committee members & club functionaries, but to communicate verbally with them instead, either face to face or by telephone. All articles produced by Mel for the newsletter shall now initially be sent to the Chairman, who will then forward them to Bob Finnegan, if considered suitable."
It is difficult to know where to start with this tirade of lying abuse, but I will tackle them head on in the order they appear in these minutes.
Footnote. If in a body of work such as that analysed above, there is just one statement that is obviously a lie, the whole of it loses all credibility and its author's word can no longer be trusted.
The Committee cannot possibly get away with claiming that they were not fully complicit in Andrew's feud against me, in the light of this considerable weight of clear evidence. They then compounded these lies by claiming in the minutes of their September meeting that the minutes of their March meeting were a true and accurate record.
Well before the 2014 AGM, I web-published these details of Andrew's vendetta. In a brilliant stroke of genius, Andrew persuaded his committee acolytes to punish me for daring to stand up to his bullying. He stood no chance of defeating the many truths themselves, so in desperation and as a last resort he has forced me out of the Club. Since he has been allowed to get away with it, I seriously wonder whether the Club is worth saving.
It would obviously not have looked good if the suspension proposal at the AGM had been made and seconded by committee members. A member has mentioned to me in an email that Roger Brearley and Bob Arnott had done so, information I had definitely not sought. Neither Roger nor Bob could have had any first-hand knowledge of what had been going on, since neither of them had been on committee in the run-up to the 2014 AGM. They would have had to rely on one or other of the following:
Of the members at the 2014 AGM:
In the fortnight between the 2014 AGM and receiving a letter from Eddie dated 2nd of December 2014, I admit to not having checked the website to find the AGM Minutes, assuming that they would not yet have appeared. In Eddie's letter of the 2nd December 2014, sent immediately after the November committee meeting, he told me that it had been decided to immediately suspend my membership. As a non-member, I was therefore immediately (and still am) denied access to the 2014 AGM Minutes, so have no idea what went on. Eddie did not tell me what justification was given to the AGM that resulted (I am told) in a large majority supporting the motion. It was not until 5 months after the AGM that I managed to drag out of him even the wording of the motion itself.
I am the only member of the Chamois Mountaineering Club who is being kept completely in the dark regarding what has been said about me behind my back. This is presumably deemed necessary to prevent me destroying the lies which have been told about me. Specifically, I am the only Chamois Mountaineering Club member who has been denied access to the Minutes of the 2014 AGM, the Minutes of the Committee Meeting held 29th November 2014, and the January 2015 (and subsequent) Newsletters. I have been the only member of the Chamois Mountaineering Club unaware of what has been going on behind my back on the subject of myself.
It was only in late April 2015 that I was informed by a friend that the following appeared in the Minutes of the 2014 AGM:
"Committee (under Andrew Jackman's firm 'leadership') had agreed that (my) behaviour as a member of this Club was unacceptable and had agreed to recommend to the AGM that a letter be sent to (me). Jillian Currey read out to members the suggested key points that should be in the letter, namely:- (a) Take down his Chamois Mountaineering Club website and the content within it and his websites pertaining to the Club with immediate effect. (b) Make unreserved apologies to every member of the Club by 24th January 2015. (c) Desist from making public any further personal criticism of members which might reasonably cause them distress or potentially bring their integrity into question. (d) If Mel fails to carry out all the actions detailed above, his membership of the Club to be suspended as from 1st February 2015 until the 2015 AGM."
I learned of this for the very first time, more than five months after the AGM, when I discovered exactly what Eddie was so unwilling to tell me about what the Committee had been broadcasting inexcusably behind my back to the entire membership. It meant that I had attended my very last Chamois Mountaineering Club meet and would never again be able to set foot in the Chamois Mountaineering Centre. Sadly, it is all over, after more than 50 years, 31 of which were spent on Committee, as President, Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, and during my early years when the eight other committee members held no portfolios, I carried out all of the tasks now performed by the Meets Planning Secretary, Meets Bookings Secretary, Membership Secretary, Newsletter Editor (and typist on Gestetner skins) and Librarian for our initial library of 6 books which I kept at home and posted to borrowers. The only positions I had yet to fill were those of Hut Warden and Webmaster. I was the first to book for the 2015 Glencoe and Grasmere meets way back in October 2014, and for months was the only one to have done so, offering to coordinate both since such volunteers had been sought for both meets. The Committee peremptorily cancelled both bookings behind my back.
BUT I really cannot just leave it there and quietly walk away, since the Club is making a very grave mistake if it thinks that it can get away with using lies to traduce my honour and destroy my reputation in the way that it has, in complete breach of libel laws and laying itself wide open to being charged with defamation of character. I am therefore quite resolved that this full story will be posted here in perpetuity, freely accessible to all members of the general public, as a millstone around the necks of the Committee.
I also strongly challenge the directive that I must: "desist from making public any further personal criticism of members which might reasonably cause them distress or potentially bring their integrity into question". Their integrity has indeed been brought into serious question, but solely by the folly of their own actions, and hopefully, in time, their distress might bring them to their senses.
It would appear that Eddie Wilshaw, ably aided and abetted by Judy Wilshaw, has taken up the cudgel of continuing with the feud that has been waged against me hitherto by Andrew Jackman. The advantage of being completely outside of the jurisdiction of the Club is that the Committee can no longer tell me what to do.
Andrew George Jackman is listed by Companies House as a Civil Engineer and Gwynedd Sarah Jackman is listed as an Administrative Assistant for a Companay named Jackman4 Ltd. Both were appointed 9th February 2010, and no-one else is mentioned. Companies House finally added that their company Jackman4 Ltd was dissolved on the 26th of January 2016, providing yet further evidence that Andrew screws up everything he touches.
To prove that you have read this webpage, please be able to quote the name Macbeth. During the week-long ski-meet at the end of January 2015, I still had no idea what Andrew had preached about me at the 2014 AGM behind my back, nor of the content of his paper that he had the Secretary read out for him. As a result, during my many social encounters with him that week, I adopted my usual warmly affable and friendly persona. He had plenty of opportunities to have a 'quiet word' with me any time he wished, but failed to even attempt to do so.
And yet, almost unbelievably, this is the same Andrew Jackman who has publically condemned me to the entire membership for failing to use face-to-face opportunities to discuss points of concern!
If the flimsy case to suspend my membership has been considered just cause to do so, there must surely an infinitely stronger case to permanently terminate the membership of Andrew Jackman for causing all of this mayhem and for seriously damaging the Chamois Mountaineering Club.
The Committee, through the Chairman, was invited to answer the following question when they met on the 25th of April: "Does the Committee agree that I have been the victim of a dishonest and vexatious personal feud waged against me by Andrew Jackman, or does it think that all of Andrew's actions have been right and proper, and that it is really I who have been carrying on a feud?"
The Committee met on the 25th of April, but ignored this question completely. They are unwilling to challenge Andrew, and unable to justify his actions.
To ensure an acceptable balance of views, anything emailed to me by Andrew for publication here will be added verbatim and unabridged in place of this paragraph. Should Andrew decline to seize this opportunity, it will be assumed that he can neither justify his stance nor is willing to back down.
(This is the only thing in this webpage that I cannot prove beyond doubt.) Amongst many other lies, I had obviously been seriously condemned for writing dreadful emails. This had puzzled me for years since I had never done so. Did all these emails appear to have been written by me and forwarded by my single chosen recipient to the Committee? Yes? It is very easy to fabricate an email on any subject on one’s keyboard from anyone, and then make it appear to being merely forwarded by my intended sole recipient to his selected audience. This is the strongest possibility. I suspect that the source who had fabricated these emails would have successfully persuaded his recipients never to take them up with me, to avoid his action being discovered. Yes?
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