 The ethics and legalities of excluding members from normal committee meetings |
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From: Brett Davis To: info@shoalhavenbushwalkers.com Subject: The ethics and legalities of excluding members from normal committee meetings Date sent: April 12, 2025 |
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Hi SBW committee, As we all know, the SBW constitution says 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.” Definition 3 (vii) in the SBW constitution states “Presiding Officer means the person presiding over any meeting”. Please note that “presiding” is present tense, so a Presiding Officer can only be a Presiding Officer while the meeting is taking place. The constitution does not define a Presiding Officer as “the person who will preside over any meeting”. We all know that the committee believes that the Presiding Officer can be chosen days or weeks prior to a meeting and can therefore restrict attendance to a committee meeting prior to the meeting as well. Because of this belief, the President – believing he will be the Presiding Officer at that meeting - has restricted attendance to the April 15th 2025 committee meeting. This decision was revealed to me when I requested the details for the upcoming committee meeting. The date of the meeting is shown on the club program. The Secretary sent me the time for the meeting. When I then requested the location of the meeting the President replied saying “Attendance to all of the meeting is restricted to committee members”! Perhaps I am getting a little bit paranoid, but it seems to me that the decision to restrict attendance to the meeting was only made after I asked where it would be held. There is nothing on the club program to say that the April 15th committee meeting will be a SECRET meeting. There is nothing in the club news to say that the April 15th committee meeting will be a SECRET meeting. Apparently, not only is the committee meeting SECRET, but the decision to keep it SECRET is a SECRET as well! While I acknowledge that the constitution allows a Presiding Officer to restrict attendance to an entire committee meeting, it is a very disturbing development in the running of the club, especially as no reason is given for the decision. We have a President pre-empting the role of Presiding Officer for future meetings and then restricting attendance to the entire meeting. And if this committee meeting can be kept SECRET, ALL FUTURE COMMITTEE MEETINGS CAN BE KEPT SECRET! The minutes to the upcoming meeting will no doubt contain a list of those present; any apologies; an acceptance of the previous minutes; business arising from the previous minutes; reports from the President, Secretary, Treasurer, Liaison Officer, Weekend and Mid-week Walks Coordinators; Social Secretary; Ettremist Editor; and Technology Team; and accounts of the Standing Items re walk numbers, incidents and member’s awards. None of these have ever been kept SECRET from club members before, but for some reason that has not been explained, the President has decided that these standard items at a committee meeting need to be kept SECRET from the club. If this is true, their details will not appear in the minutes. If it is not true that these standard items at a committee meeting should be a SECRET from the club, their details will be shown in the minutes of the upcoming meeting, and club members should not have been forbidden to be present when they were being presented and discussed. There may be some General Business on the agenda that the President considers should be kept private and confidential (SECRET) from the rest of the club, and if so, he is within his rights to restrict attendance at the meeting for those specific agenda items, but RESTRICTING ATTENDANCE TO THE ENTIRE COMMITTEE MEETING IS A GROSS ABUSE OF POWER! Regards, Brett |
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