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Hi SBW committee,
There were three web pages referred to in the coordinated complaints from David Campbell, and Graeme and Lyndal Lawless. I will deal with two of those pages here - “The Role of the President” and “SBW Incorporated” - and the third one separately.
The two web pages shown in full below – the “Role of the President” and “SBW Incorporated” were added to the website by me after the 2023 AGM which saw Mary Furness step down from the role of President and John Kubale elected to the role. In my view, during Mary’s term as President she displayed very little understanding of the role of the President or of the legal obligations of the club and its committee under the laws of NSW and the requirements of the club’s constitution. I was hoping that the situation would change with John becoming President, but unfortunately it remains the same.
At John Kubale’s request, I had two meetings with the new President to discuss these matters and had come to the conclusion that John’s position echoed Mary’s position in that the President did not have to follow the constitution “exactly”. I thought it timely to bring these matters to the attention of the club and its committee, so I added the two pages to the club’s website under the “Club Information” menu item.
David Campbell made no specific complaints about the “Role of the President” page, but the Lawless complaint deals with it specifically. A sentence from the Lawless complaint states that “the focus on legal power rather than the chair's broader responsibilities around the general direction of the functions of the Club has produced a narrow and not particularly helpful view of the scope of the role of the chair.”
As shown, the Lawless’ complaint cites “the chair’s broader responsibilities” and “the role of the chair”. The term “chair” – which I assume Graeme and Lyndall are using in reference to the President – does not appear at all in the SBW constitution or the current Standing Resolutions. However, the term “President” occurs 28 times in the club’s constitution, and the term “Presiding Officer” appears 16 times. It would appear that Graeme and Lyndal are not familiar with our constitution or standing resolutions or are perhaps referring to the constitution of another bushwalking club with which they are more familiar.
The Lawless complaint says that the “Role of the President” page has a “focus on legal power” – and they are absolutely correct because it does focus on the legal power of the President. They complain that the page does not focus on “the chair's broader responsibilities around the general direction of the functions of the Club” – what are these "broader responsibilities" and where are they written? I think these "broader responsibilities" only exist in the minds of those people who believe that the President runs the club and can happily ignore the law and the club’s constitution.
At the meeting with me at my home on September 11th 2023, John Kubale, John Souter and Kynie Evison asked me to take down the "Role of the President" page. The second web page that they asked me to take down was “SBW Incorporated” – which detailed the legal requirements of an incorporated association's committee members - including the President. Apparently, the President does not want club members to know that we must follow the laws of NSW and the Department of Fair Trading, as well as the rules of our incorporated association's constitution.
Because I thought at the time that the meeting had been sanctioned by the SBW committee, I took down the two web pages. Had I known that the meeting was an example of John Kubale's beliefs on the unconstitutional powers of the President, I would not have taken those pages down as in my view they were an important means for SBW members to understand the role of the President and the rules of the constitution.
And finally, the term "appropriate" was mentioned multiple times in the complaints against me. "Appropriateness" is a grey area, subject to interpretation. I prefer things that are "black and white" - true or untrue - correct or incorrect.
I can see nothing in either of these two pages to warrant any complaints from any club member. If any of you can point out where anything I have written on these pages is untrue, incorrect, disrespectful, harassing, bullying, inappropriate, or should not be on the club’s website, please let us all know.
Of course, the committee might decide that John Kubale, John Souter and Kynie Evison were not acting on behalf of the committee when they requested that I take down the two web pages from the website, which would confirm my contention in another complaint that the meeting was unconstitutional.
Regards,
Brett
For those of you who haven't actually read the two web pages in question - and I suspect that is most of you - here is the text from both pages –
The SBW Inc article / web page
The Role of the President article / web page
[The text was included in the original email, not the links to the pages above]
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