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Hi SBW committee,
I apologize for the delay in sending this email which concerns the minutes of the August/September 2023 committee meeting, but I first had to wait for the minutes of that meeting to be approved at the October committee meeting, and then for the minutes of that October meeting to be posted on the new website before I could legitimately comment on their contents. I then had a few health concerns that provided a distraction.
On page 11 of the minutes of that split committee meeting held in August and September 2023. there are only three items of "Correspondence In" recorded for the September part of the meeting - one dated 8th September from Graeme and Lyndal Lawless, and two dated 17th September, one from me, and the other from David Campbell.
The minutes state that "David Requested (sic) that his letter be treated as a confidential briefing to the committee to assist with deciding on a course of action." Given that the Lawless email and my email were recorded in full in the minutes, while the David Campbell email was not recorded in full, it would appear that David's request for confidentiality was granted.
May I ask why David's request "that his letter be treated as a confidential briefing to the committee" was granted?
The club constitution states in Section 23 - "committee Meetings and Quorum" that "committee Meetings shall be open to Club members subject to a decision by the Presiding Officer to restrict attendance to all or part of the meeting", but this restriction applies only to "attendance". The same section also states that "Proceedings of committee meetings shall be available to any Club member". This indicates to me that nothing from a committee meeting (or committee business conducted via electronic means) - including discussion about any correspondence - should ever be "confidential".
Given that David's request for confidentiality appears to have been granted, does this mean the committee is ignoring the constitution and keeping some matters SECRET from the rest of the club? Is it even legal for the committee to keep some matters SECRET from the rest of the club? If the committee is keeping SECRETS, are there any guidelines on what can be kept SECRET and what can't? Or are those guidelines a SECRET? Can the committee hold a meeting, keep everything SECRET and report absolutely nothing in the minutes to the club? Or not even produce minutes for the SECRET committee meeting?
Perhaps this is already happening!
[A month after this was written, the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee held a SECRET meeting, produced SECRET correspondence, and recorded NO MINUTES for the meeting. They later produced one set of minutes for the website, and presumably a SECRET set of minutes for themselves.]
The SBW website contains committee meeting minutes from 2001 onwards. Prior to 2005, minutes of previous meetings were recorded in the minutes as "read and confirmed", but the wording changed in September 2005 with the motion saying that the minutes of the previous meeting were "a true and accurate record". In fact, the current "Agenda / Minutes Form" template on the new club website - on the "Club Information" page under "Documents and Information" says "Minutes of previous meeting were read. Moved by , seconded by , that minutes were a true and accurate record".
The wording - a true and accurate record - prevailed for 18 years from 2005 until the 2023 AGM. Since that time there have been three (or four) committee meetings where the minutes of the previous meeting have been merely "accepted". Are the minutes of our committee meetings since the 2023 AGM no longer a true and accurate record, or are they an accepted but incomplete record with all the SECRET bits left out?
But perhaps I am jumping to conclusions and the David Campbell email was edited for another reason. Perhaps it was edited due to space / size limitations, but this would seem to be a stretch given the incredible capacity of electronic communication these days. Also, it is certainly easier to copy a complete email and paste it into the minutes whole than it is to copy sections of an email into the minutes. Is the President and / or the SECRETary selectively editing the contents of correspondence received – and if so, why?
Of course, as far as I am aware, there is actually no rule on whether or not correspondence should be reported in full or not, so perhaps we need some guidelines on that, but just to completely clarify the situation, I would suggest that the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee pass a resolution stating "No business transacted by the SBW committee shall be kept SECRET from club members". This would be a simple and easy solution, and wouldn't conflict with the constitution. Correspondence would not necessarily have to be reported in full, but all business that arises from the correspondence would be reported.
If the committee believes that some SBW business should be kept SECRET from club members - which in my opinion would conflict with the constitution - then the committee should pass a resolution stating "Some business transacted by the SBW committee may be kept SECRET from club members, according to the following guidelines" - and then those guidelines should be listed. This is a much more complicated and time-consuming process, and would probably be subject to "appropriateness" and "interpretation" issues.
I'm a great believer in truth, openness and honesty. I don't believe that any committee business should be kept SECRET from club members, but I'm happy for you to try to change my mind.
Looking forward to a timely response ... 😀
Regards,
Brett
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