Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I suspect that’s wishful thinking.

 

It would be helpful to see the minutes of the board's meetings. However, my understanding is that the board is currently dysfunctional due to the refusal of "the six" to work with "the three". If correct, it follows that substantial questions exist about the validity of decisions, and whether they are actually decisions of the board, or merely of individual directors; especially since the May AGM. Bear in mind that the Memorandum and Articles require that all Trustees be invited to meetings of the board. You will appreciate that this is a fine but critical distinction.

More generally, I am struggling with the interpretation of collective responsibility presented here. I appreciate and agree that where a board takes a decision, it is binding on all members of that board and that they must act in pursuit of that decision. I don't believe that it extends to the degree of pure majoritarianism articulated above, in which dissenting board members must either line up with the majority or resign. The implication of that is that a majority opinion, once formed, cannot be challenged. I regard it as the duty of the chair of a board to seek to make it an effective body, and to draw in all members so that the board is effective - even, not to say especially, if the chair personally disagrees with the views of some of those elected members. My understanding is that no such process of board formation has taken place, and that what we are seeing is in reality the failure of the chair to even try to make the board work in the face of intransigence from those who will not engage with some or all of those elected members.

My understanding of collective responsibility is also that it does not preclude board members deciding to amend or even reverse previous decisions. Therefore, if a decision has been taken by the board to progress with an extension to Cricket Field Lane, collective responsibility would not preclude a decision to reverse that decision, whether because of changed circumstances or even simply because it was adjudged the wrong thing to do. Indeed, with the duties of charity trustees in mind, such a reversal might even be required under some circumstances.

In those circumstances, it is unreasonable to presume that the dissenting members should be required to leave the board. Indeed, I would go further and suggest that @21B is correct in his suggestion that the refusal of the majority to work with those duly elected to the board is in itself reason why the majority should leave.

PS. As it's a matter that's been raised in respect of board composition in the past, I am not aware of any reason to suggest that any of the three "minority" trustees is in post either as the result of a "popularity contest" or lack the aptitudes to act as directors/trustees. At the same time, the voting results also suggest - strongly - that confidence in the leadership of the board is not high, and that a broader range of opinions is required in order to restore the confidence of the membership in their leaders. At which point I will close by adding that it is for the electorate to choose their leaders, not the leaders to choose their electors.

 

I’m happy to agree that the role of any board member is to probe and challenge and that they must all be invited to board meetings. It’s also the primary responsibility of a chairman to ensure an effective board including making sure that all board members contribute to discussions. Before rushing to judgement it would be useful to know whether the established trustees have actually refused to work alongside their newly elected colleagues in principle or because, as has been suggested here, those new trustees believe that, having been elected on a mandate for change, nothing less than that will be acceptable i.e. a minority demanding to rule the roost.

 

Insofar as I am aware (and I freely accept that my information is all hearsay), the issue lies with a simple refusal to work together by the established trustees. On the same basis, I don't believe that enough business had been discussed to have got to the point of the minority making demands of the sort that you suggest may have happened.

 

Quite. That why we shouldn’t rush to judgement.

 

If you are referring to the hope that the majority would begin to conduct themselves better than they have in the last 12 months or so, you may right.

 

Who is rushing? It has been clear for well over a year that the performance of the board is lacking. Unable to accept responsibility for the failure to capitalise on the planning permission, (because there is NO evidence to support a conclusion that they decided not to pursue the extension because strategically it no longer worked in the best interests of the trust) they lied about the interactions with the ENPA. Then they tried to rig an election. Since then they have rufused to disclose information to trustees, but did so publicly when the minority report was published. They are now damned by their own words which largely vindicated the report , except in detail of numbers, which they wouldn’t share with the minority report authors.
It is really very clear that the majority of the board is not behaving with the competence required. Even were that only in communication skills it would be bad enough, but it’s pretty clear there are some serious governance issues as well.
So I don’t agree that anyone is rushing. I don’t agree the minority trustees should resign, it is their responsibility now to be the voice of an increasingly concerned membership . In an ideal world the majority trustees would either step down in some ordered fashion and/or start to engage in the process of wider consultation and bridge building. And boni don’t believe that they will, but that still doesn’t mean that they should be allowed to stay in post unchallenged at every opportunity, because if they do stay and are not challenged until there is a change of behaviour then the Trust is on a road to oblivion

 

I would agree, if there weren't plenty of other evidence pointing the same way. If what I've said were all, I would be with you - and you will see posts on here from a last autumn/winter when I was. But the evidence of my own eyes, and of the documents in the public domain, take me to the same conclusion as others - that more of the same from the current board will guarantee failure.

 

If there are serious allegations about corporate governance failings then the best process is to involve the organisation that can actually do something about it i.e. the Charity Commission. As trustees the three newly elected ones could have submitted a Serious Incident Report to the Commission.

 

I have worked in IT for a number of 'professional' charities over a total of around 30 years. Whilst I had very little to do with any of the trustees, I was aware that, in all of those organisations, there was quite a comprehensive training/familiarisation scheme put in place for newly-appointed trustees. This - and also CPD for all trustees - was invariably provided by third parties, but does the L&BRT have anything similar in place, even if only printed documentation? How do other heritage railway charities deal with this?

 

I believe that the Charity Commission already have a file open. Meanwhile, I prefer to apply the advice of Mervyn Stockwood on prayer - "to pray like there is nothing you can do yourself, and to act like prayer can do no good".

 

Sage advice, but acting could have been going down the Serious Incident route, which only Trustees can do.

 

Both of which appear to be currently missing?

 

I think perhaps they may have hoped that the others might see reason. A not unreasonable position even if forlorn

 

Harsh but fair

 

Understood, and I hope one has been raised. However, I rather more had in mind that prayer equated to reliance on the Charity Commission, which is is known to be under-resourced and whose interventions in the case of the Actors Benevolent Fund were neither rapid nor entirely comprehensible to informed onlookers. Action, on the other hand, relates to what the participants can do themselves.

 

I agree. A Charity Commission investigation of an organisation in my neighbourhood resulted in the disqualification of a trustee - about 10 years after the initial complaints were made and by then the charity was in liquidation.

 

Lets hope that does not happen to the L&BR but if it does then lets hope someone somewhere has already got something going on in the background.

 

The fact that a down 1 in 50 gradient meets an up one of the same here on the embankment is confirmed in the SR accident report of a derailment of a Howard bogie box wagon in August 1927. The SR gradient diagram showed a 4-chain level back towards Barnstaple and the northerly gradient post can be seen along with the 13 3/4 mp on the embankment in the c1907 Friths picture reproduced on p77 of the 'Celebration' book.

 

If anybody fancies a taste of trusteeship training, I've just found these free sessions:
https://www.icaew.com/technical/charity-community/trustee-training-modules