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 four suggestions had not been shown to the SBW committee - the new President had kept them SECRET.

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 ran the club, and the new President was no different. Why should the new President bother the committee with correspondence or decision making?

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.

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

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

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

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

Suggestion for policy to not burden leaders - Apr 2
Suggestions (again) to improve the woeful CMCOC - Apr 5
Potential problems with Joint Walks - Apr 6
Group size limits - Apr 6
Children on walks - Apr 7
Suggestions resulting from the illegal and disgraceful “Special” meeting process - Apr 8
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 constitution - Apr 9

Making up the rules as you go along - Apr 9
Children and Minimum number of walkers - Apr 9
Invasion of Privacy is not what you think it is - Apr 11
No useful information being received from the Secretary - Apr 11
The ethics and legalities of excluding members from normal committee meetings - Apr 12

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 ...

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

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