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Woodturning clubs and Minutes of Committee meetings

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csbrown7:
A nice reply Andy, thank you. I have been an active member of my club for three years, always willing to get involved and lend a hand. I would challenge anyone in my club to try to argue otherwise. The facty is I "obtained" some club minutes because I was considering standing for nomination onto the committee. I found something on the minutes that I wanted to question and thereby naturally sought answers for. So I wrote to the Chairman, I didn't get a satisfactory reply and that started a series of e mails that culminated in me ringing the chairman to try to resolve our issues. I was still not satisfied so I wrote an open letter summarising our exchanges, I had told him that this was being considered. I later got an e mail from him telling me I had breached club policy by obtaining and publishing material from the club minutes amongst other accusations.
The club do post decisions of the committee on a door on club nights. When I requested copies of minutes and to attend a committee meeting I was told that my request would have to be put to the committee.
I recently put myself forward for nomination for several posts, after the chairman had told me that if I was interested in the work of the committee I should put myself forward.
At the AGM the Agenda, specifically the election of officers was changed from that originally circulated. One of the positions up for nomination was withdrawn. As a candidate it would have been good practice or polite to have been informed but I was not. The first I knew of it was at the AGM. Then there was another twist the election of officers would have to be carried out not as listed on the Agenda. This was to allow the secretary if he was unsuccessful to revert back to his old postion of vice chairman, that which he had given up to be the secretary.  Dubious practice  in my opinion. If the outcome was such that he did remain as secretary then the next twist was the person standing for chairman was an ex chairman. This again was a complete suprise to me. I withdrew my nominations. The fact is in my opinion they engineered the meeting to get the result they wanted.

TONY MALIN:
Hi

Being in the process of recovering from a major crash on my PC I'm glad of the chance to chip in here.

Having been on committees since I was at school in the late 30's I can safely say that the majority do not publish minutes. Some do.

But of course those that do would be careful to see that nothing personal or too contentious would be minuted.

This whole question has been debated in parliament recently regarding Cabinet Minutes.

The really clever part of Minutes is to be the Secretary and so decide what to put in and what to omit.

That jogs a cord. If at the next meeting a member of the committee claims he was misreported, the minutes get amended, so I suppose the final minutes are what count, by which time most of the actions will have taken place.

Tony Malin

Andy Coates:
csbrown7...it sounds like your problem is one of personality clashes rather than an issue of publishing minutes or not. If minutes are not routinely published and somebody does so without explicit consent then I could well see an issue developing as you describe.

Might I respectfully suggest a private meeting be proposed between yourself and the committee to discuss, and hopefully resolve, these issues.

Clubs are by nature delicate organisms and their destruction is often the result of bad feelings and misunderstood motivations.

I'm sure both yourself and the committee want the same things - a happy and well-run club - and perhaps the problem is one of a difference of perception and execution?

Nige7:
I have to report experiences opposite to Tony's.  I have also been on committees for a good number of years and most of them did publish their minutes.  To not do so can and does lead to accusations of cover ups and nefarious goings on.  As a parish counsellor I can confirm that our Parish Council minutes are always published.

Nigel

csbrown7:
Hi Andy and Nige 7 thanks for your thoughts.

I'll try for the sake of sanity to draw this to some sort of conclusion. I do not think there was a personality clash prior to these events. I think I am a good club member who has always worked for the benefit and in the best interests of the club. I am easy to get on with but I don't suffer fools nor do I like to be fobbed off with half baked responses, that I can  accept make me difficult at times to deal with if you fit into one of those categories. So I'll defend myself. Here's what I've done for the club then you decide if you would like me as a member or not. I have run the club raffle every club night for two years and the last two christmas club raffles, raising about £1,500 for the club. I regularly submit articles for publication in our monthly newsletter, being one of the top contributors. Up until recently following winning the clubs wooodturner of the year I regularly submitted items for the theme of the month and items for the show and tell table. I have made articles to be used by the club at outside events to raise money. I have supported the outside events, demonstrated and promoted the club. I have had club members come to my house, receive my hospitality and where necessary assisted them in there progress at woodturning. Oh and most improved turner the year before. I am positive beyond a shadow of doubt that I have done more than most for the benefit of the club.
Now here's something else I did. I dared on one occasion over three years to ask the committe about a decision they had made, the information gained from minutes I should not have had (apparently). One of the results of that was that I spoke to one other of the committee members and some changes were made to try to go some way at addressing the problems I had highlighted. The chairman said put yourself forward if your interested in the work of the committee. I am,  so I did for any of three positions. Then the absolute disgraceful stitch up at the AGM took place. They decided they wanted to keep the old boys network in tact and engineered it accordingly, read my entry above. ( Do you actually see, understand what they did? They kept all the facts to themselves and changed it on the night, having planned it in advance and didn't tell any of the candidates). They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I am not without blame, perhaps I should not have taken the course of action that I did, but I felt that I wasn't getting a fair response, but I did try to resolve it by telephoning the chairman before taking that action. What saddens me also is that the rest of the membership sat there mute and just let it happen like it was all perfectly normal. I know what my options are. Why should I leave? But then again why should I work and support a crooked regime?
If minutes are made of committee minutes where is the harm in any member seeing them? Most won't bother. One reason put forward was that of what if disciplinary issues were discussed and someone was mentioned by name? How often are disciplinary matters discussed, hardly if ever I suspect. If they were the secretary by careful minuting could work his way around that. It is most definitely within the scope of this committee to do just that with ease.They might now be discussing disciplinary issues at this club.

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