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Hi SBW committee,
The unconstitutional safety sub-committee set up by Mary Furness in January 2023 was mentioned in General Business item 3 in the March 2023 committee meeting minutes which say "Julienne McKay and David Campbell will revise existing safety policies for review and agreement by the committee". There is no record in the minutes of how David Campbell came to be on the sub-committee, and there is also no record of whether the revision was ever moved, seconded or passed. I probably would have objected to this at the next committee meeting when it was time to move that the minutes of the previous meeting were a true and accurate record, but I was not at the next meeting.
The March minutes went on to say that "Mary Furness will post a Positions Vacant Notice in News on the website looking for people, who are not regular walkers, to act as a safety contact person for each walking group - On Track, Hybrid and Off Track". Again, there is no record in the minutes of whether this was ever moved, seconded or passed. You will have to realize that these meetings occurred during the time when Mary was attempting to control all communications to and from the club, as well as "revising" the minutes after they were produced by club Secretary Jennifer Himmelreich.
Now that it had been mentioned in the minutes - however informally - the quasi-legal safety sub-committee eventually produced some proposed new safety procedures – and Mary and Julienne started actioning those procedures immediately – without “review and agreement by the committee”- as can be seen by their actions described in the next two paragraphs.
On April 7th, six months prior to the date when the safety procedures would eventually be adopted, Mary advertised on the club News page for “Positions Vacant – safety contacts” as specified by those draft procedures, with Julienne McKay listed as a co-contact. This news is still able to be read under “Old News” on the club website.
On April 29th, Mary put up a news item with the subject of “Revised Club Safety Procedures” which said that “the club’s safety procedures have been revised” and that “these will be posted on the website as a set of safety procedures when our Webmaster returns from holidays”. I was cycling the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia at the time and did not get back home until May 15th, when Mary asked me to upload the draft safety procedures to the website to replace the existing procedures. I refused, as they had not been approved by the committee.
Much to Mary's annoyance, I then uploaded the procedures to the website but tagged them as "proposed procedures" and suggested that leaders could follow them if they believed that the new procedures added to the safety of the walkers under their care. Mary was ropable, and asked (ordered) me to use her alternate wording, but I again refused, saying she did not have the authority to make that decision for the club.
As you know, those safety procedures were never accepted by the committee. It was not until the October 2023 committee meeting that a highly modified version of those procedures containing very little of the original content was eventually accepted by the committee and uploaded to the new website.
The following extract from an email Mary sent me on May 15th, 2023 illustrates the exchange between Mary and myself. The text in blue is mine from my previous email to Mary, and the capitalized text which I have coloured red for clarity, is Mary's response.
"In a recent email when I said that you didn't have the authority to change the safety procedures on the website, I may have misunderstood your intention." YOU DIDNT MISUNDERSTAND.
"Because of your news posts on April 7th and April 29th which make it appear that the club has already adopted the proposed changes to the safety procedures, I may have wrongly assumed that you wanted me to change the safety procedures prior to their approval by the committee." I DID WANT YOU TO CHANGE. THE EMAILS TO COMMITTEE FROM THE VP, INDICATED THAT THEY WERE COMPLETED. BOTH VP AND I THOUGHT THE NEW SAFETY PROCEDURES WERE IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO BE ADOPTED EARLY AND SANCTIONED OR ALTERED BY THE C'TEE LATER.
I can supply a copy of this email - and many others - if needed by the committee should they decide to investigate this complaint.
Mary and Julienne seemed to believe that once the safety sub-committee produced the new safety procedures, those procedures would automatically be adopted. They also seemed to believe that because they were President and Vice-President, they had more power than the constitution provides. They did not know, did not understand, or chose to ignore the SBW constitution which states under "Rule 24. Delegation by committee to Sub-committee" (c) that "Proceedings and recommendations from the Sub-committee shall be presented to the committee". And - as we all know - "Rule 22. Club management" (a) states that "The Club shall be managed by the Club committee".
As a result of ignoring the constitution, they started actioning the new procedures prior to their acceptance by the committee. Once the sub-committee produced its report, and with the President and Vice President already actioning it, the committee was highly likely to "rubber stamp" the entire process, given that most committee members - and some supposedly knowledgeable members from other clubs - seem to share the view that the President can make up the rules as he or she goes along. It is highly likely that nobody on committee apart from myself would have batted an eyelid had the new safety procedures been uploaded to the website to replace the existing safety procedures that had been working without a problem for years.
Regards,
Brett
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