Important Note. The whole is the sum of its parts; the whole of what follows is the sum of many individual sentences. In not a single sentence is there a personal criticism of anyone, just a reminder of hard facts, facts that are already in the Chamois Mountaineering Club's public domain. If the honestly straightforward repeat of these facts show any particular individual in less than a good light, then it is the facts themselves that are being critical, not the authors.
Throughout the early decades of the Club's history, the Committee carefully fostered democracy, by publishing well in advance of each AGM the details of all posts which would need to be filled by election, and by encouraging the general membership to persuade and nominate those whom they felt they would like to see fill the various positions.
In the Chairman-approved minutes of the September 2014 committee meeting, quite openly published on the club website for us all to see, the situation today appears to be completely different in a way that, in practice, disenfranchises the membership:
The following nominations will be put to members at the AGM:
This extract might appear at first glance to be innocuous, but only if you don't think about it too much. So let's think about it.
President: Robin Luscombe.
Chairman: Gwyneth Jackman (for 12 months to finish AJ's term).
Hut Warden: AGM is to be asked to agree to PR continuing for a further 12 months past his four year term in office.
(AJ will step down as Chairman and come back as Hut Warden in 12 months' time).
Treasurer: JR.
Secretary: No nominations for new secretary at present. (JC has served for four years).
There is no suggestion here that nominations will be proactively sought from the members, as they used to be when the Club was young and vibrant, just that "the following nominations" will be put to the members. An election is defined as an event at which the electorate have the opportunity to choose a candidate for each post from a field of at least two. Both our previous Constitution and our current Club Rules require us to hold elections. Both our AGM Agenda and our AGM Minutes habitually refer to elections. But the Club never holds elections! The retiring Committee decide who they want to join their team (i.e., who is least likely to upset the cosy status quo) and they immediately go ahead and nominate them without thinking of pressuring the members to nominate anyone. It is even worse than that, in that as soon as they have nominated whomsoever they want, they actively discourage further nominations. (How often have you heard something like: "Oh, we don't need a nomination for that post, we've already got one" ) We never elect our management team; we simply declare that our retiring Executive's preferred nominees have won! This is a travesty of democracy.
In these uncertain times, fraught with the possibility of quite dramatic changes in the offing, then should the Chairman be unable to chair for any reason, such as by losing a confidence vote at an AGM, we would need the President to step in immediately. Our Club Rules state in the context of General Meetings that: "The Chamois Mountaineering Club Chairman or, if not present, The President or, if not present, the most recent Past-President present shall be Chairman." Robin deserves our full support and grateful thanks for accepting nomination for this important role at this critical point in the Club's history. However, and this is nothing against Robin, a lot of us believe that the choice of Club President should lie with the members at the AGM, not with the retiring Committtee.
Andrew's then-current term in office ended at the 2014 AGM, so he had no unfinished term at all. All Officers are elected, (and have for 50 years been elected), for just one year at a time, at the end of which they 'may' be nominated and subsequently elected for another consecutive year only as long as they have not reached the maximum number of consecutive years that they are permitted in the same post. Such widespread ignorance of a rule that has been in force unaltered for 50 years leaves one with a feeling of despair.
Specifically, Chairmen have absolutely no entitlement whatsoever to claim the right to all three of the consecutive one year terms that is their permitted maximum. There was therefore no unexpired term at the disposal of either Andrew or his committee.
In international circles, this is now known as the Mugabe Move, as a result of Robert Mugabe's intention to be replaced by Grace Mugabe.
The following is totally impersonal and independent of the players involved. At this critical time in the Club's history our choice of Chairman must be dictated by the direction in which we want to see the Club led from the front, the choice being between the following stark opposites:
It was Gwyneth Jackman who publicly affirmed that "we only want to recruit new members in their 50's and 60's, since younger members dont think like us." Repeating statements of fact like this are most emphatically NOT personal criticisms. Neither is asking such highly relevant questions as:"What else is in her election manifesto?"
It was Gwyneth Jackman whom we thanked for the excellent anniversary party. In the September 2014 minutes the Treasurer reported that "the 50th anniversary celebrations contributed towards the significant deficit in the Club account this year". Once again, this is just the honest report of yet another management cock-up already made public, not a personal criticism.
The Club Treasurer is considerably more than a mere book-keeping functionary. The Club Treasurer is not only an Officer jointly charged with running the Club as a whole, but has the key responsibility for ensuring that the Committee sets and then rigorously enforces budgets in each expenditure area, such as the Meets Programme, the 50th Anniversary Celebrations and the Hut, each of which made an unbudgeted loss.
The Treasurer is expected to take the lead in obtaining funding from the BMC, by investigating it thoroughly and preparing a case to be agreed by the Committee before submission. This funding is usually available from the BMC in February each year. In February 2014 grants were available for improving club websites, for example. The next opportunity would have been February 2015. BMC grants have also been made available for helping clubs with the recruitment of new members. We should have applied, especially since we have deficits in the Club account as well as a big problem with effective recruiting. Did we apply: if so, what was the outcome, and if not, why not?
So why had no nominations been actively sought for this or for any other vacancy? Why did Andrew write to those he personally wished to see in this post, pressing them to accept nomination, using such language as: "The post that "I am struggling" to find someone for is Secretary"? Is it because our Rulers are forever wishing to force their own choices upon us?
There is absolutely no criticism of Jillian as the retiring Secretary whatsoever. She has merely recorded what the committee decided and what the Chairman confirmed.
The following conversation between a questioner and Gwyneth Jackman was overheard during the September 2014 work meet, before the committee meeting at which it was decided behind our backs that Andrew and Gwyneth would be moving into the Warden's room in a year's time: Questioner: "What job are you going to do?" Gwyneth: "I'm going to paint the Warden's room." Questioner: "Oh yes, of course, you've got a vested interest in that room haven't you?" Since this conversation took place before the Committee is supposed to have hatched their plot, it might not have been the Committee that has been responsible for stitching up the elections, after all. The Committee itself might have been manipulatively stitched up. Is the Committee actually running the Club, or not? And what is the point of holding elections at an AGM? Surely the members should have a greater say in running the Club than being expected to blindly rubber-stamp the dictates of the self-perpetuating oligarchy currently in power.
It was a near-certainty that no member would wish to stand or nominate anyone to stand for any post for which the Committee has already so-clearly published its own dictatorial wishes. So much for the principles of democratic governance! Why bother turning up for the AGM if you are destined to be manipulated into rubber-stamping committee decisions, as we were last year with unnecessary mutualisation and this year with an election stitch-up and a possible attempt to expel from the Club any members having the impertinent audacity to call the Executive to account?
There was a time when concerns like this could be expressed privately by email just to those on the Committee, which would most certainly have been my preference, but that was before the committee started dictating to individual members such as me that we must not on any account email members of the committee about any matter of concern. You can see how badly that ban misfired, since without it, none of this would have been web-published, or indeed, even written. If you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind. Banging on against using emails was clutching at straws, revealing a total lack of better arguments, since using email was obviously the optimum route for sharing the same concern with every member of our large Committee, the alternative of picking up a phone as advocated by Andrew to make a dozen identical calls would have been ridiculous.
All of my emails have been completely polite and inoffensive.
Since the Committee in their wisdom deliberately chose to openly publicise their election stitch-up, they should be prepared to take it on the chin when members equally as publicly challenge them. Holding elected office can be tough at times, as any Member of Parliament will tell you. If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Shape up or ship out.
Andrew Jackman had no legitimate mandate to chair the Club. He was first elected to that position in 2012 at an inquorate AGM, depriving his chairmanship of any constitutional legitimacy. At the following AGM the Committee ensured that he was the only nominee, supported by the indifference of the membership.
Since Andrew Jackman had been thwarted in his plans to be succeeded as Chairman by his wife, what were his options? The very best way in which he could try to ensure that he remained untouchable for carrying out his Vexatious Feud was to reason that if Judy became untouchable for her Vitriolic Feud, then he would also be protected. The best way in which to achieve this was to ensure that he was succeeded as Chairman by Eddie, who absolutely refuses to add something to the 2014 AGM Minutes to identify which two members nominated him. Why is identifying them so embarrassing, and to whom? This goes against all democratic principles and marks a complete change in Club practices that had prevailed for half a century.
The Committee, through the Chairman, was invited to answer the following question when they met on the 25th of April 2015: "Does the Committee agree that it trampled on Democracy at its September 2014 committee meeting, or does it feel that it was in the right and I was in the wrong for questioning their actions?"
The Committee met on the 25th of April 2015, but ignored this question completely. They are unwilling to accept collective guilt and unable to deny the charge.
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