I found the AGM a little worrying.
The Bush Dancers display group
It started with the treasurer reporting that he hears
nothing from The Bush Dancers display group, putting the group in the same
category as groups that do not in fact have the same financial relationship with the
society.
The display group does not charge a performance fee (we are
doing it to promote bush dancing and Australian traditional music; if we were
doing it for the money we wouldn't be doing it!) but welcomes donations to the
society. All receipts are and have been paid into the society bank account and
outgoings are paid by the MFS Treasurer.
The donations to the society that we have attracted are
sitting in the society bank account. The display group submits an annual
budget, and quarterly and annual reports. Sometimes the financial transactions
are nil and sometimes they are not - that is the nature of our business. We are
there to promote bush dancing, not to make money. Whether we have a nil return
or not in any one year does not change the permanent relationship that exists
between the society and the display group. It is the same as that with the Bush
Dance Group and the End of Month Dance Organising Team.
In spite of this, the treasurer appeared unwilling to
correct his report, and I am not sure he understood that his categorisation of the display group was wrong. The meeting accepted the report
subject to audit. We can only hope that the Treasurer realises his
misapprehension and the display group can continue as it always has, as part of
the society.
A Long Off-Agenda Item
The latter part of the meeting was particularly troubling. I
was reminded of the saying that there are people who would rather have 100% of
nothing than a share of something great. The defamatory comments against a
member that was not at the meeting, in front of twenty witnesses, were
astounding. It was particularly surprising given the litigation in our midst
and the likely tit-for-tat legal consequences. As with a messy divorce, the
winners will be the lawyers and everyone else will lose. I find it impossible
to imagine anyone of substance not currently on the committee being attracted
to such an environment.
In the real world, much of what is publically expressed
could be considered as defamation by those being criticised. But generally, it
does not go to court and when it does it seldom succeeds (unless one side is
much more wealthy and therefore likely to succeed), and folk get on with their
own lives.
My understanding from the AGM is that the litigant is acting
under legal advice, the other party is following legal advice including having
no contact with the litigant, and all that needs to be done now is to await the
outcome of the legal processes.
When a new member at his first AGM suggested that the
discussion was inappropriate for an AGM he was ignored, the meeting was not
asked to vote on closure, and the one-sided defamatory comments continued. What
must he think of this society?
Society Management
I have heard of fears about people losing their houses and
the society folding, but in fact these are exaggerated fears and there is no
reason that we should not continue business as usual. Each of our businesses
are progressing under competent management, but the MFS Committee appears to me
to need to work on the decentralised management skills that will achieve
success in a multi-business volunteer organisation like ours.
An Open and Transparent Society
It is also appears to me that MFS Committee have not been
properly accountable to members.
Rule 40 makes it clear that members have the right to
inspect any records of the society, and the intent of the rules and laws is
clearly that MFS Committee is accountable and open to scrutiny by those they
represent. Confidentiality applies to disclosure outside MFS, not within the
membership. Those members who were not at the AGM have no information about matters
that have apparently taken a lot of committee time and were the longest item by
far at the AGM, but not even mentioned in the President's Report. Those who
were at the AGM only have a one-sided expression of opinions to go on. The
minutes of MFS Committee meetings are not a secret diary, they are part of MFS
Committee accountability to members, and should be freely available for any
member to peruse. It took us about six months to obtain partial copies of
minutes.
Succession Planning
The final abuse of the night, was a "question"
that appeared to us to be meant as some kind of slur on our reputation, about
us advising the Canberra Times of our retirement plans and succession planning
before telling the committee. We announced in 2011 that we were working towards
retirement. Since then we have worked very hard to ensure that our various
roles will be taken care of. The appointment of Roni Giacobetti as Assistant
Convenor, EOMDOT, was reported to MFS Committee, along with a number of other
appointments, in our March 2012 Quarterly Report sent 19 April 2012, with a
request that MFS Committee confirm the appointments by acceptance of the report.
Obviously the assistant convenor is the convenor-in-training in these
circumstances, and that was certainly what the End of Month Dance Organising Team decided. I myself had discussions over several months with the previous
president about Roni taking over, in the context of the need to update PayPal
permissions to allow this.
All reports since then, including the Annual Report, have
shown this assistant convenor role. All EOMDOT minutes and reports are openly
available to members on the members' site, and the roles and responsibilities
have always been shown in the members' "contact details" page.
In Perspective
So, it is a shame that this AGM should have left such a bad
taste in our mouths, not a happy memory.
However there are overwhelmingly many wonderful folk in the
wider MFS, and this year has otherwise seen so many successes, that those happy
memories will win out.
Regards
Lance
