 My Explanation |
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From: Brett Davis To: info@shoalhavenbushwalkers.com Subject: My Explanation Date sent: May 12, 2025 |
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Hi SBW committee, I know that it really doesn’t matter what I write in this email – you will not change your decision to cancel my membership of SBW because that would make you look weak. I also understand that you want to get rid of me - because what committee wants to be reminded of their own ineptitude all the time? – but the reason you have decided to go with is especially ridiculous. I have taken a look at the emails I have exchanged with members of the SBW committee about club matters over the past five years, and the number of “unsolicited” emails exchanged in 2025 is at an all-time LOW. Here’s a breakdown ... 2021 - 539 conversations - 1254 messages 2022 - 466 conversations - 1172 messages 2023 - 459 conversations - 1163 messages – I resigned in 2023 2024 - 75 conversations - 157 messages 2025 - 56 conversations - 72 messages If you’d like another example of the stupidity of quoting the number of emails as the reason for cancelling my membership, let’s look at my email correspondence with President Andy Winfield after my resignation from the committee when I was helping Andy with the new website. We exchanged 87 emails in four months. Assuming half of those emails were mine, this equates to 44 emails in four months – very similar to the numbers I am losing my membership for ... but there was no mention of cancelling my membership at that time. Anyway, Paragraph 4 of your email / letter entitled “Cancellation of the SBW membership of Brett Davis: Decision and Reasons” (which I will just call “Decision and Reasons” from now one) indicates that if I wish to present an explanation to the committee, either in writing or in person, I have one month from the date I received the email, and that my explanation is limited to one email, so I had better make it a good one! As you mention in Paragraph 1, the committee decided to exercise its discretionary power to cancel my membership under Rule 6 (a) of the Club’s constitution. For the record, Rule 6 (a) states – “The committee shall have the power to cancel membership where the committee judges the conduct of the member to be contrary to the objectives and rules of the Club or prejudicial to the interests of the Club.” I would suggest that rather than attacking me, the committee should instead be considering cancelling the membership of all those committee members whose conduct and decisions have been contrary to the objectives and rules of the club – for the past two years! Paragraph 2 further explains that the committee judged that I have engaged in “conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Club.” As you have pointed out in Paragraph 5, Rule 6 makes no mention of the committee having to provide reasons for a decision to cancel someone’s membership, even though it also says that the member shall be given the opportunity to present an explanation to the committee. While you now see the major problem with Rule 6 of our constitution, and while you now say to me that “natural justice would seem to require such a statement in order that you be in a position to provide an explanation to the committee should you decide to do so”, I’d like to remind you that all of you who were at the 2023 Special General Meeting to approve the new constitution, approved this rule despite my insistence that the constitution was seriously flawed and needed a lot more revision before it should have been adopted. As I recall, only two people opposed the motion to accept the new constitution – my wife and me. A committee’s power to cancel membership based on its own judgement had already been removed from the Model Constitution at the time our new constitution was created. The SBW Constitution’s Rule 6 (Cessation of membership) and Rule 13 (Disciplining of members) had been combined into the Model Constitution’s Rule 7 (Disciplinary action against members) - which now needs a complaint to be made against a member by another member of the club for any disciplinary action to occur. It is very likely that the Department of Fair Trading had updated the relevant sections of the Model Constitution because it realized it was unfair for a member to have to appeal to a committee that had already found them guilty! As you have used the term “natural justice”, you would no doubt know that it is also known as procedural fairness, and that it is a fundamental principle of law that ensures fairness in the decision-making processes of administrative bodies, tribunals, and courts. It dictates that individuals whose rights, interests, or legitimate expectations may be affected by a decision have a right to a fair hearing and an unbiased decision-maker. An explanatory email to the committee, or a personal statement in front of the committee, is obviously not a fair hearing, and the committee is not an unbiased decision-maker. Rule 6 of our constitution denies natural justice. However, it doesn’t matter how bad Rule 6 is, both the committee and I are still bound by it. This means that the committee will find me guilty as charged, and natural justice will be denied, but at least the committee can later claim that natural justice was dispensed. Paragraph 6 of “Decision and Reasons” says “It is manifestly in the best interests of the Club that it be governed effectively by its elected management committee” – and I fully agree. Unfortunately, the club has not been governed effectively by its elected management committee for the past two or three years. This brings us to Paragraph 7 – the reason for the cancellation of my membership – and what a pathetic paragraph it is. It is the product of a committee that had already reached its guilty decision but was desperately searching for some prejudicial conduct on which to hang that verdict. For the record, here is Paragraph 7 – “The committee considered your conduct between 20th January and 9th April 2025 in sending 50 unsolicited emails to the committee. The committee judges this conduct to be prejudicial to the interests of the Club in that it amounts to a vexatious deployment of email communication to the committee either intended to cause disruption to - or with reckless disregard as to its likely impact on - the committee’s effective governance of the Club.” First, let’s examine the spin shown in the term “50 unsolicited emails”. I believe the committee has used the term “unsolicited” to portray the emails with a negative connotation, as “unsolicited” can mean unwelcome, unwanted, uninvited and uncalled-for. Additionally, spam has sometimes been defined as “unsolicited emails” as well. However, in terms of emails, “unsolicited” merely refers to emails that are sent without being requested or asked for - so “a happy birthday email” is unsolicited; “a request for information email” is also unsolicited; and “a thank you for your hospitality” email is yet again unsolicited. Suggestions for improvements to the club are indeed unsolicited, but possible improvements are good thing, so let’s not think of the emails negatively. Let's just call them “50 emails”. While 50 emails might sound like a lot, the first half a dozen of these emails were a give-and-take between Andy and me about the best way to contact him in his official capacity as President – given there is only one email address for the whole club instead of the six or more that were used when I was Webmaster. Those emails included discussion about technical issues on how many emails he could send with Outlook and how he had been forced to use his Gmail address to send out the Leaders Training Day email. “50 emails” is obviously a deliberately inflated number. Additionally, I sent SBW 10 suggestions in the 15 days between February 1st and 15th. None of these emails were acknowledged by the club Secretary Clare Lord as having been received. When I still hadn’t heard from Clare by March 22nd – 7 weeks after the last of those 10 suggestions was sent – I assumed that they hadn’t been received so I re-sent them. Had Clare responded to my emails in a timely manner – as would happen in an efficiently run organization - those extra 10 emails would not have been sent. This further inflates the so-called “50 emails”. A more reasonable figure – and one with which I will happily agree – is 30 emails. To get really technical, in the 71 days between 28th January (not 20th) and 9th April I sent the SBW committee 30 suggestions for improvements to the club. Paragraph 7 in the “Decision and Reasons” document says that these emails were “vexatious”, “intended to cause disruption” and showed “reckless disregard” to their impact on the governance of the club. Where did that conclusion come from? The committee has not provided any examples to show that any of the suggestions were anything but what they purported to be – genuine suggestions made in the hope that they would be actioned, and that the club would be improved as a result. Some of the problems my suggestions were intended to fix are relatively minor but they only required a quick and simple fix – like changing a column heading on the list of members from “Christian” names to “First” names. Other suggestions were for more major problems, but even some of these only required a quick and simple fix – like changing the minimum numbers of participants on a walk or recce from 3 participants to 4 members. And others, admittedly, would require a lot of time and effort to arrive at the best possible solution for the club – time and effort that should have been put into the formulation of the procedures or policies in the first place! I cannot see how any of my suggestions could be regarded as vexatious and defy any committee member to prove that opinion with an example. The allegation that my suggestions were “intended to cause disruption” is ludicrous – how could any committee member possibly know what my intentions were? Can any member of the committee provide an example that shows any intention other than me trying to help the club? This brings us to the claim of “reckless disregard as to its likely impact on the committee’s effective governance of the Club”. For a start, in my humble opinion, there has been no effective governance of the club in the past three years, otherwise there would be no need for me to make more than 30 suggestions to try to fix the problems that the committees during that time have caused. I did not recklessly disregard the impact of my emails on the effective governance of the club – I cautiously hoped that the impact would be beneficial. Paragraph 8 talks about “the burden on the Club’s secretary”, the “84 pages” of correspondence, the “onerous impost” of having to read that correspondence and the fact that the committee’s “forward work program would likely be swamped”, and further states that this should have been obvious to me. It was! But if the committee had thought things through initially and produced good policies and procedures in the first place, none of the burden or impost or extra correspondence or swamped forward work programs would have been necessary! For example, consider the two decisions of reducing the number of participants on a walk from 4 to 3, and subsequently allowing children on walks. Couldn’t anyone see that this inevitably leads to the possibility of having one adult and two children on an official club walk? Also, for some reason, the committee seems to believe that all my suggestions have to be considered and / or actioned immediately. This should certainly happen with the suggestions which concern the safety of club members, but most of the suggestions have no time constraints on them. They can be dealt with at the committee’s discretion - whenever. There is no need for any swamping of forward work programs. And I would like to point out that the committee’s work includes considering the suggestions of club members. The woeful committee Members Code of Conduct states that committee members will “be open to feedback from members and where appropriate, take members’ concerns to the committee”. And can I add that it is the committee’s Standing Resolution #26 - which says “Email communications from SBW members for the attention of the SBW committee shall be addressed to the Secretary via the Club’s info@shoalhavenbushwalkers.com email address. Such email communications should not be addressed (or copied) by non-committee members to committee members’ personal email addresses” - that caused the “burden to the Club’s secretary”. I would have happily eased her burden by emailing committee members directly! Paragraph 9 basically says the committee can’t handle the workload. Again, the workload would not exist if the work had been done correctly in the first place. Paragraph 9 also says that based on the past, the committee can predict the future, and that my “escalating disruption to the committee’s other duties and functions, is unlikely to diminish”. I don’t think there are too many more problems with the current policies and procedures of the club left for me to find, so at the moment I have no intention of making many further suggestions. Of course, if the committee continues to produce inferior work into the future, I will continue to try to help the club by pointing out the committee’s mistakes and making suggestions for improvements, but as I am getting kicked out of the club in the next month or two, this is probably a moot point. The first line of Paragraph 10 is hilarious! “The committee has not based its judgement on the merits or otherwise of each of the individual emails”. Here the committee is acknowledging that my membership will be cancelled even if every one of my suggestions is a good one and actioned by the committee for the betterment of the club. Is that a rational decision? While Paragraph 10 has one line devoted to the merits of my suggestions, most of the paragraph is concerned with a comment I made about the person who updated the committee Members Code of Conduct – not the “drafter” as shown incorrectly in the paragraph. I know who the drafter was, but I don’t know who was responsible for the updated version. For the record, my comments said “The current committee Members Code of Conduct (CMCOC) is an embarrassment to the committee and the club. It is so bad that it could be considered to be “prejudicial to the interests of the club” because any thinking person who reads it would consider the club is being run by fools. The CMCOC is either the product of a disturbed mind, or the product of a bureaucrat. Or both. 😀” Perhaps the committee noted the “smiley face”? As most computer literate people know, the “smiley face” at the end of a comment in an email signifies a smile and indicates that the preceding statement is meant to be friendly, light-hearted, or not entirely serious. If the committee wants to consider this to be “gratuitously sarcastic as well as disparaging and possibly defamatory” or “suggestive of vexatious intent” then they can go right ahead and misinterpret it any way they want to. Just when I think that the committee’s “Decision and Reasons” can’t get any more insane, the inclusion of Paragraphs 11, 12 and 13 proves me wrong! Paragraph 11 says “The committee has not based its decision on the two judgements made by the former committee in March 2024 relating to conduct by you judged to be prejudicial to the interests of the Club or to the incidents to which they related. Nor has it based its decision on your conduct in April 2024 in lodging eighteen simultaneous complaints against Club members.” It then contradicts itself by saying that “These matters did, however, provide the present committee with background context” – effectively confirming that the committee had taken into account the March 24th judgements and the eighteen complaints when making its decision. Why is there not a whole long list of other events, decisions and judgements that the committee did not base its decision on as well? Why mention anything that allegedly did not affect the committee’s decision? Paragraph 11 simply should not have been included in the “Decision and Reasons”. But now that the committee has included those judgements and that conduct in Paragraph 11 of the “Decision and Reasons” document and has taken those judgements and that conduct into account as “background context” when making the decision to cancel my membership, let’s have a closer look at them. The committee meeting in March 2024 was a SECRET meeting. The meeting was not advertised to members and it only had one agenda item – whether to cancel my membership or not. The minutes of that meeting were not published on the club’s website. Decisions were made at that meeting, and “correspondence out” resulted from that meeting, but those decisions and that correspondence has never been made available to club members until now – over one year later – and not as minutes or correspondence, but as brief mentions of their existence in the “Decision and Reasons” document which was delivered to me, and which has now been circulated to the club via the posting of the minutes of the recent committee meeting. About six weeks after the SECRET March 2024 committee meeting there was another committee meeting – in mid-April. The minutes of this meeting were posted shortly afterwards, and they recorded the previous meeting as having occurred in January. There was no mention of the actual previous committee meeting which was the SECRET meeting in March. Shortly after those April minutes were produced, I emailed the committee with the following - “The club website as of today - 30th April 2024 - shows committee meeting minutes for January 2024 and April 2024. The "SECRET" committee meeting minutes held on March 5th, 2024, are not listed. In addition, the minutes of the April meeting state "Minutes of the committee meeting held 18/01/2024 have already been approved electronically and published on the Club website" - so there is no mention of approving the minutes of the actual previous meeting which happened on March 5th.” The committee eventually responded by doing two things. They produced and posted a “website version” of the minutes of the SECRET meeting, and they passed an illegal special resolution (#27) to justify keeping documents SECRET from club members, in contravention of Rule 47 of the SBW constitution which states that the minutes of all committee meetings must be open to inspection. The “website version” minutes of the SECRET meeting have never been approved, and the SECRET, full version of the minutes of the SECRET meeting have never been made available to members - or approved either! The "website version" of the SECRET meeting minutes of March 2024 says - “The purpose of the meeting was to consider the conduct of a member of SBW in relation to Rule 6 (Cessation of membership) of the SBW constitution. The committee resolved to make two judgements pursuant to Sub-rule 6(a) that there had been two instances of conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Club. The member was notified of these judgements by letter dated 8th March and delivered on 10th March, the letter having been approved by committee members by an email approval process in the days following the meeting.” The member’s name was not shown in the minutes. The judgements were not shown in the minutes. The letter – which was correspondence out from that meeting – has never been shown in any minutes. The “website version” of the minutes of the March meeting effectively say absolutely nothing. Club members have no idea what the SECRET version of the minutes of the March meeting say, because they have never been revealed. But I digress ... What were the two judgements mentioned in Paragraph 11 made by the former committee in March 2024 relating to conduct by you judged to be prejudicial to the interests of the Club or to the incidents to which they related? As they have never been made available to club members, I will quote them here. “1) The committee considered your conduct on 6th February in circulating by email the David Campbell document of 10th September 2023 to all committee members without the informed prior consent of the author, the author's partner referenced in the document or the committee. The committee judged this conduct to be prejudicial to the interests of SBW in that the conduct constituted an invasion of privacy of the author, the author's partner and those committee members who had not previously seen the document.” “2) The committee judged your conduct in August or September 2023 in posting on the public access area of the SBW website, a document titled "The Term of the President", without the committee's prior authorisation or knowledge, to be prejudicial to the interests of SBW ...” (The second judgement goes on for another half a page and I won’t quote the rest of it here.) This first judgement is a perfect example of the Double Standards that the committee applies to any actions by me as compared to similar – and in this case identical – actions by other club members. I freely admit that I did circulate the David Campbell document to committee members without the consent of David Campbell and Julienne McKay. However, I received that document from President John Kubale at a meeting which was also attended by John Souter and Kynie Evison. John Kubale had circulated the David Cambell document to committee members (John Souter, Kynie Evison and me) without the consent of David Campbell and Julienne McKay as well. If I was then found guilty of conduct prejudicial to the interests of SBW, then John Kubale was guilty as well, but John was never charged. In addition, when John gave me the document, he gave no instructions to me as to how it should be handled, so I could do anything I wanted with it. I suspect John might have thought that I would be so embarrassed by it that I would never tell a soul. He was wrong. The document in question was entitled “REQUEST FOR ACTION TO ADDRESS THE DAMAGING BEHAVIOURS IN SBW” and it was sent to the President of SBW in September 2023. It was used against me in the illegal complaints meeting described in the previous paragraph which occurred one day after the document was sent to the President – September 11th 2023. This first judgement against me was made six months after David Campbell sent the letter to the President of SBW. During that time, it had never appeared in any SBW meeting minutes as “correspondence in”. John had obviously withheld the document from the rest of the committee – which is probably another illegal act that he was never charged with. Given that the title of the document was “REQUEST FOR ACTION TO ADDRESS THE DAMAGING BEHAVIOURS IN SBW”, it seemed to me that the committee had the right to know about it and that it was in the best interests of the club to correct John’s action of keeping it a SECRET from the rest of the committee. So not only were my actions identical to that of the President, they were also in the best interests of the club – as opposed to the President’s behaviour - and yet my actions were judged to be prejudicial to the interests of SBW and the President gets off Scot free! In addition, the meeting at my home on September 11th 2023 was an illegal complaints meeting which violated the constitution. The committee meeting in March 2024 where my conduct was judged to be prejudicial to the interest of SBW was also an illegal meeting which violated the constitution. And because neither of those meetings followed the rules of the constitution, I was never given the chance to defend the allegations against me. And now a judgement for conduct I have never been allowed to defend is being used as a major reason for cancelling my membership! Knowing all this, I found it laughable that the committee referred to “natural justice” in Paragraph 5 of the “Decision and Reasons” document, as I have not been given any natural justice for the past two years! The second judgement as reported above dealt with a document titled “The Term of the President” which I posted on the old SBW website. It concerned the history of SBW, and the hard work done by Peter Dalton in changing the constitution to allow Presidents to serve for longer than two consecutive years. It also concerned the efforts of two SBW committee members to restore a limited number of years to the term to the President. While I could agree that the document might have shown some members in a bad light, I would argue that it was the actions of those members that were prejudicial to the interests of SBW, not my publication of their actions. This is a classic case of killing the messenger. Every statement in “The Term of the President” was true. The second judgement effectively charges me with conduct prejudicial to the interest of SBW for publishing the truth. If any member of the committee thinks this is not the case, I would like them to point out to me - and to the committee - any statement that was not true. After receiving the SECRET letter that detailed the two judgements shown above – marked “Private and Confidential” – from the committee, it became obvious that the committee was quite happy to violate the constitution whenever it liked. As a result, I sent 18 complaints to the committee on April 15th, 2024. These are the complaints mentioned in Paragraph 11 of the “Decision and Reasons” document. Those complaints documented each occasion that the constitution had been violated - IMHO - in the period from the illegal formation of a sub-committee by President Mary Furness in January 2023, up until the time I made the complaints. By showing every occasion when the committee had violated the constitution, I mistakenly believed that the committee would realize the error of its ways and return the club to responsible management. The complaints – in effect – were a wake-up call. After a couple of weeks, which gave the committee enough time to digest, process and understand the mistakes it had been making, I withdrew the complaints – on April 30th. I did this partially because my point had been made, but primarily because it was in the best interests of the club. This is also why I have sent in suggestions to the committee this year for changes and additions to the policies and procedures of the club – to make it better! I also believe that suggestions for improving the club are a much better approach than complaints, even when the complaints are justified. A couple of days after I withdrew the complaints – on May 2nd – Acting President Kynie Evison posted a news item to the SBW News page which reported to club members that the complaints had been withdrawn. Kynie also said “All committee members are conscious of the importance of complying with the Club’s governance framework”. I would have been much more impressed if she had said that the committee would actually comply with the club’s governance framework rather than just being conscious of it. Given all the events just described, and all the interactions between myself and the committee, how could the current committee possibly say that they did not take them into account when arriving at its decision to cancel my membership? In late May I went on an extended overseas holiday, and I did not contact the committee for more than 7 months. During that time the old committee introduced Special Resolution #27 which also violates our constitution, and a new President was elected at the August 2024 AGM. New committee members also came on board. I had hoped these new committee members would improve the committee’s compliance with the club’s rules, but it hasn't happened. I expected more from them ... Now that the ludicrous Paragraph 11 had been dealt with, I will turn my attention to the even more ludicrous Paragraph 12. Paragraph 12 states – “In reaching its decision, the committee has considered whether it is satisfied that the cancellation of your membership is warranted in the circumstances. These four italicised words do not appear in Rule 6 but they do appear in the wording of Rule 13 under which a member can be expelled or suspended from the Club for similar reasons, in particular for conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Club.” My membership is being cancelled because of Rule 6, not rule 13. Bringing in wording from another rule is typical of the way the committee ignores the constitution. And even though it is appreciated, presenting a document to me to explain the “Decision and Reasons” for the cancellation of my membership is yet another example of the constitution being ignored. And so we come to Paragraph 13 – the final paragraph ... Clause (i) of Paragraph 13 states “this is the third separate finding against you of conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Club”. The first two findings were discussed above and shown to be violations of the SBW constitution. I have also never been allowed to defend them. The findings happened at a SECRET meeting, are apparently reported in SECRET minutes, and are only now being brought out into the open to justify another finding at yet another SECRET meeting. Unlike the other SECRET meeting though, the minutes of the latest one have been published for club members, as the constitution demands for ALL minutes. Given that I have never been given the opportunity to defend the allegations made in the first two findings – they should have no bearing on the current allegations. Clause (ii) of Paragraph 13 states “you have previously been notified of the potential consequences of a third finding concerning conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Club”. This notification occurred in the “Private and Confidential” document and said “However, the committee reserves the right to revisit the exercising of its power under rule 6(a) of the SBW constitution, should you further engage in conduct to which Rule 6(a) applies.” It doesn’t actually matter whether or not I have been previously notified, so this paragraph is superfluous. Clause (i) of Paragraph 13 states “the extenuating circumstances to which the former committee had regard were not written so as to apply to subsequent conduct to which Rule 6 (a) applies;”. The extenuating circumstances talked about my service to the club. Just so you remember, here is a summary of that service – I joined the club in 1999 and received life membership in 2016. I led over 130 walks for the club, and I am in the top 10 leaders of all time on the "Leaders Hall of Fame" list for number of walks led. In 2000 I joined the committee and created the club website. I was the Webmaster for 25 years (2000-2024), and during that time was also Ettremist Editor for 7 years (2000-2006) and President for 2 years (2007-2008) when maximum two-year terms were compulsory. In addition, I assisted Barbara Robertson in compiling the club history in 2001, and I kept it up to date on the website until my resignation from the committee. I also took the Walks Inventory - produced by Russ and Dawn Evans - and digitized it for the club website, where it was expanded over the years to include over 400 activities - many with maps, track notes, KML files (which show walk routes in Google Earth), GPX files and links to almost 500 albums of photos I have taken on club walks. I also set up and managed the club's Facebook and Twitter pages, and I was also a regular guest speaker and slideshow presenter at Club general meetings. I also represented the club in the annual Navigation Shield Rogaine nine times - 2001-2, 2004-9 and 2013-14. Prior to resigning from the committee, I set up the Google sheets and forms for the club's Program and News pages, and despite my battles with the committee at the time, I assisted the newly formed IT team (which replaced me) in getting those two vital pages onto the club's new website. Since leaving the committee I have continued to try to help the club by making many suggestions for improvements to its policies and procedures. I am quite happy to accept that the extenuating circumstances mentioned above and referred to in the two prior illegal judgements against me at the illegal committee meeting in March 2024 were not written so as to apply to subsequent conduct. They shouldn’t have applied to the two prior illegal judgements! If a person does something bad enough to warrant their membership being cancelled, their so-called extenuating circumstances should not be taken into account. And if the committee had not taken those extenuating circumstances into account, they could have followed the constitution, allowed me to challenge the two prior illegal judgements, and whatever the outcome would have been, we would not be in the situation we have today where two judgements I have not been allowed to question are being used against me. Clause (iv) of Paragraph 13 states “this third finding goes to a fundamental matter: conduct adversely affecting the committee’s ongoing ability to effectively manage the Club;”. It is a sad day for the club when a member who was justified in making 18 complaints about the illegal activity of members of the committee and withdraws those complaints for the good of the club, is then found guilty of adversely affecting the committee’s ongoing ability to effectively manage the Club because he makes 30 legitimate suggestions for the club’s improvement! It was the committee’s lack of ability to effectively manage the Club – and its inability to produce effective policies and procedures - that led to the suggestions being made in the first place! Clause (iv) of Paragraph 13 states “your pattern of behaviour during the term of this committee suggests a high likelihood that you will continue to engage in conduct disruptive to, or adversely affecting, the committee’s governance of the Club.” This condemns me for actions that might never occur, a bit like sentencing someone to death because they might commit a terrible crime in the future. The committee thinks – correctly - that I will not change my behaviour. I will continue to try to improve the club. I will continue to make suggestions when I see bad policies and procedures that should have been formulated with a lot more care. And I will continue to point out any and all of the mistakes that future committees make. While the committee thinks that my behaviour won’t change, for some reason I still believe that the committee can change its behaviour for the better. I believe that there are enough intelligent and well-meaning people on the committee to make good decisions for the club, unlike the many bad ones that they have made over the past few years. I believe that some members of the committee can effectively consider the merits of suggestions made to improve the club, despite their personal bias against the member who makes those suggestions. It seems to me that the committee has become an echo-chamber where a majority of otherwise sensible people go along with the dominant views of one or two because they don’t want to rock the boat. The seriously flawed committee Members Code of Conduct instructs them to think that “I will actively contribute to the effective work of the committee by ... attempting, where possible, to reach decisions by consensus.” Consensus seems to now mean agreeing with everything suggested by anyone. And I think that in the future the committee could effectively manage the Club a whole lot better if it was not spending its time on personal vendettas; if it was more focused on the actual problems rather than the person who was pointing them out; and if it started concentrating on improving the sloppy policies and procedures that it has been producing in the past. So, to sum up your allegation, the committee believes that I spent a considerable amount of time over a three month period writing a series of emails which purported to be suggestions to improve the policies and procedures of the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers club – so much time in fact that a committee of twelve people did not have the time to read or process all the correspondence – when my actual motivation was to create a “vexatious” front designed to prevent the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee from functioning properly. Do you realize how crazy that sounds? At the risk of being accused of casting aspersions on the committee, I would seriously suggest that anyone who really believes that scenario should seek counselling! Given how ridiculous the committee’s accusation is, I am forced to the conclusion that it is perhaps being used to hide the real reason for the committee’s desire to get rid of me. My emails contained details of two disputes that I have with the club. The SBW constitution says that the committee must action these matters first with mediation, and if that fails, by arbitration. Getting rid of me means those disputes do not have to be dealt with ... Having said all that, Paragraph 4 deals with whether or not I “wish to present an explanation to the committee” about your decision to cancel my membership for allegedly engaging in conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Club. I do so wish, and this email is my explanation to the committee. Cheers, Brett P.S. I would appreciate getting a response from the Secretary that this email has been received, hopefully sooner than the 7-week delay cited in this email. If I don’t hear anything in the next few days, I will have to resort to sending it to all committee members – and nobody in the club is allowed to do that - so then you might actually have a VALID reason to kick me out. Or, as you announced your decision on the club’s News page, perhaps you could publish my decision to not accept the committee’s decision as another news item ... |
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