Suggestions

After the Complaints exercise, and his sacking as a Facebook editor (see Double Standards), the former Webmaster had no more dealings with the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee for the rest of 2024. He had absolutely no email contact with the committee for over seven months - from May 2024 to January 2025.

For the first few months of this time Brett was overseas, and while he was away a new committee was elected at the 2024 SBW AGM in August. Departing President John Kubale in his final President's Report called the complaints that the Webmaster had made about violations of the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers constitution "distractions" ...

The new committee was substantially the same as the old committee - a bit like "shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic". The club now had a new President, and a new Vice President. Hopefully, they would do a better job than immediate past Presidents and Vice Presidents!

Over the Xmas / New Year period the former Webmaster had a close look at the new SBW website, and the documents, policies and procedures it contained. Unfortunately, the club's new website was not very good - it contained errors, it was difficult to navigate, information was split between multiple locations and was generally hard to find, and it had a lot of issues that needed to be addressed. It was created by non-technical people who really did not have much idea about website design - but it was a valiant effort! It does get the job done if a member just wants to walk and not worry about too much else.

Rather than make "complaints" about the issues he found, the former Webmaster decided to send "suggestions" to the committee in the hope that they would improve the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers website, policies and procedures.

After sending four simple suggestions to the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee in early 2025, Brett received a reply from the SBW email address which was signed "The IT Team". It was obviously written by new President Andy Winfield as it was cc'd to the other two members of the IT Team. The email from the IT Team showed that the four suggestions Brett had made had not been referred to the SBW committee - the new President had kept them SECRET and dealt with them himself.

One had been actioned by the IT Team, one would be "reviewed", and two were instantly dismissed. Obviously, nothing had changed in the "new" committee. The two former Presidents had believed that they alone ran the club, and the new President was no different.

Here is a list of links to the suggestions that were emailed to the committee. The first email was sent on January 28th, and others were sent at about three emails a week on average.

Jan 28 - Acknowledgement of Country
Jan 31 - Safety Procedures
Jan 31 - Alpine Areas
Jan 31 - Christian names / surnames

Feb 2 - Change required to Emergencies on Walks document
Feb 3 - Suggestion for Guidelines for Private and Confidential documents
Feb 4 - Suggestion to use WhatsApp
Feb 4 - Suggestion to fix the Minutes on the SBW website
Feb 4 - Minutes clarification please

Feb 8 - Insurance and Recces
Feb 15 - Suggestion re minimum numbers on a walk
Feb 15 - Suggestion re changing social days

Mar 22 - Suggestion re correspondence
Mar 27 - For the record - there was no need to change our website domain or hosting
Mar 29 - Problems with SBW's PLB document
Mar 29 - Use of PLBs on all walks
Mar 30 - Why are Walker Responsibilities different?

Apr 2 - Suggestion for policy to not burden leaders
Apr 5 - Suggestions (again) to improve the woeful CMCOC
Apr 6 - Potential problems with Joint Walks
Apr 6 - Group size limits
Apr 7 - Children on walks
Apr 8 - Suggestions resulting from the illegal and disgraceful “Special” meeting process
Apr 9 - No need for waiver forms in good mobile phone reception areas

Apr 9 - Conflict between Standing Resolution #27 and the Constitution
Apr 9 - Conflict between children on walks and the constitutionbr>
Apr 9 - Making up the rules as you go along
Apr 9 - Children and Minimum number of walkers
Apr 11 - Invasion of Privacy is not what you think it is
Apr 11 - No useful information being received from the Secretary
Apr 12 - The ethics and legalities of excluding members from normal committee meetings

At this point, the SBW committee decided to cancel the former Webmaster's membership for sending "vexatious emails"! In their explanation for the decision, the committee said that even if all the suggestions were considered good, and were acted upon by the committee, Brett would still have his membership cancelled.

The TRUE reason the SBW committee cancelled Brett's membership is almost certainly because of the two emails above highlighted in red.

Undaunted, the former Webmaster continued to send suggestions for improving the club ...

Apr 28 - Error in heading of January 2025 minutes
Apr 29 - Club Member Wellbeing Officer
May 2 - SBW non-use of "Incorporated" or "Inc"
May 12 - Vexatious Emails

Click this link for the next installment in this chronicle, the cancellation of the former Webmaster's membership - CANCELLATION.