Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

It could bankrupt the railway

 

Can I check that we share the same understanding of events @H Cloutt:

- Anne Belsey appears to have filed valid nomination papers for the 2023 Trustee election on or about 30 March 23.

- No one, including Peter Miles, is claiming that Anne's nomination was invalid.

- Peter Miles and Tony Nicholson acted to remove a valid nomination from the Trustee's ballot. We now know that this happened not later than the (late) dispatch of the AGM paperwork in late April.

- With the honourable exception of Chris Duffell, it seems that no other existing Trustees attempted to stop the exclusion of Anne's nomination.

- When I politely asked Tony Nicholson to point me to the section of the M&A A that confered on him (or anyone else) the power to veto nominations on the 26th of April, his reply on the 29th did not contest the validity of Anne's nomination or provide any legal basis for the exclusion of her nomination, but instead retreated to character assassination:

"You may not be aware that Anne Belsey currently faces a disciplinary investigation on serious - potentially criminal - charges. It would not be fair on her for me to say more but it would clearly be inappropriate for her to stand for election as a Trustee until the matter has been resolved."

- This 'explanation' was the replicated on the website. I consider both are defamatory of Anne, and in any case indicate that the Trustees have made their minds up before the process has even started.

- Peter Miles finally replied to me on 4 May, noting on the exclusion of Anne's valid nomination that

"The action taken is as noted in the guidance documents provided by the CC which as our governing body we have to follow. This guidance was followed owing to the lack of clarity within the Trust Articles of Association which are silent on this and in the course of review."

- In other words Mr Miles is not contesting the validity of Anne's nomination, nor is he contesting that he was acting ultra vires in doing so, because the power he sought to wield does not exist in the Trust's M & AA.

- You will also notice that no claim was made of Charity Commission guidance or involvement until Peter Miles' email. If the decision to exclude her nomination had been taken on the basis of 'guidance documents provided by the CC' then why didn't Tony Nicholson say so in April, and point me to the guidance in question? Moreover, if Peter Miles is relying on CC 'guidance documents' , then they must be written and publicly availble: he should point us to them to allow an assessment of his otherwise illegitimate actions.

This looks to me like a pattern of behaviour from Messers Miles and Nicholson:

- ignore the rules;

- attempt to cover up what you've done;

- when that fails, cast libelous accusations on others on email, in Newsletter 80 and on the website;

- when forced by evidence, implicitly admit wrong doing and then claim (without providing any evidence) that this was in line with Charity Commission guidance.

And people wonder why there is a problem in trusting Peter Miles and his top team (with the exception of Chris Duffell)?

So, no, until we get the Trust operating within its own rules (which will mean rescheduling next weekend's AGM and re-running the Trustee election with Anne's name on the ballot), then I am not minded to give Miles and Co the benefit of the doubt. Not least, because when it comes to their conduct, there isn't any doubt about their actions.

 

I don't think it will do that, as this sort of thing appears to be more of a case of trustee liability. I feel we are moving into an area that will need some legal advice on at some point.

 

What I was saying was that all of this information should have been "sub judice". I don't know the exact words which they should have used to respond to enquiries but maybe something like "A nomination has been recieved for Anne Belsey but this has not been included because of an ongoing investigation". If further questions were asked they could have said "We are not in a position to respond because information regarding the investigation is confidential".

 

The problem with that approach is it would give a perverse incentive to incumbent trustees to reject any application they disliked.

"Why didn't X appear in the list of candidates when their application was valid?"

"We can't tell you why as it is subject to an ongoing investigation".

That is pretty prone to misuse by an unscrupulous set of trustees (and the L&B would hardly be the first such grouping to have trustees who wished to abuse their power to limit the opportunities for fresh candidates).

Ultimately, people are innocent until proven guilty. So at the moment her candidature should appear on the list. It is only if (and a big if) she were to be found guilty of some impropriety that you would then require some action appropriate to the scale of the offence committed. But you can't prejudge that.

(Clearly in a contested election, the electorate can also express view on who they wish to elect and who they wish to reject. But that is a matter for the electorate given a list of all valid candidates; it isn't for the existing trustees to artificially limit the list that is even presented for consideration).

I'm not generally in favour of term limits on such things, but there does seem to be a natural length beyond which even people who have done much good earlier in their career start becoming ossified and resistant to new ideas. Sadly, few people seem possessed of the necessary powers of self-reflection to appreciate the point at which they stop being part of the solution and instead become part of the problem.

Tom

 

Yes. Or maybe omitting Anne's name completely, in order to maintain complete confidentiality in the matter. It's not that difficult, is it?

 

How true that is. Only has only to look at the track record of any government which has remained in power for more than 2 terms.
And then there are the Banana republics...

 

Not the clothing retailer shops, I presume...

 

Someone once said to me in connection with another heritage organisation, not a railway, that projects need three groups of people, tghe founders who get the ball rolling, those who then implement it and finally those that then run it.

They may be the same people but not always.

May I suggest that having set up Woody Bay in its current form there was then a need for a new group of trustees with the skills to extend the railway to a new level, however that for whatever reason has not happened,.

The challenge is to make it happen.

 

Certainly not what happened to a loco owning group

 

As a CIO it will have a constitution (by whatever name) which sets out its aims, powers and responsibilies and which will have been approved by the Charity Commission. (I know because I am a trustee of an organisation which converted itself from an unincorporated charity to a CIO.) The Trustees have a legal duty to abide by that contitution. Anyone can see what the YVT is there for and can make an informed decision whether or not to donate money.

 

It certainly isn't as you will observe from the Charity Commission's RS7 Guidance for Membership Charities!

"A governing document may set out the minimum procedures/rules relating to the expulsion or suspension of members. In many cases the trustee body retains the right to terminate the membership of any member, provided that the member concerned shall have the right to be heard, accompanied by a relative, friend or advocate (if wished) before a final decision is made.

A power to expel a member must be exercised in good faith and not capriciously and the basic requirements of a right to be told the nature and details of the offence and reasons for the expulsion or suspension, a right to notice of the hearing and a right for the member to put his case are well accepted (Labouchere v Earl of Wharncliffe, (1879) 13 Ch D 346; Calvin v Carr [1980] A.C. 574). These principles also apply to suspension of membership.

Powers to exclude from membership are fiduciary in nature and must therefore be exercised according to the purposes for which they were conferred in good faith in the interests of the charity and satisfy the rules of natural justice. Trustees cannot use these legal rules to adopt an arbitrary method of implementing a membership policy so as to ensure (for example) that the membership does not contain people that might oppose their views."

Para 1 makes it abundantly clear that due process must be followed with the right of all members to be heard with a legal representative present, if desired, BEFORE A FINAL DECISION IS MADE (My emphasis)

Para 2 defines unequivocally the terms of reference to be applied which includes the stipulation that such powers MUST BE EXERCISED IN GOOD FAITH (My emphasis again)

Para 3 states that the power to exclude members must be exercised in accordance with THE RULES OF NATURAL JUSTICE (Ditto)

I have to confess that I have the greatest difficulty in identifying those criteria in RS7 to which the Trust has actually adhered. Which is why I do not accept the premise that the Trust sought guidance from the Commission prior to instigating its action against Anne.

 

>>>>A governing document may set out the minimum procedures/rules relating to the expulsion or suspension of members. In many cases the trustee body retains the right to terminate the membership of any member....."

Having had cause to read the L&BRT's M&AoAs many times in the last few weeks I can find nothing in them whatsoever which specifically describes any process for the terminations of someone's membership. It is true that Clause 69(1)(i) does give the Trustees the power to make rules or bye-laws to govern such a process, but Clause 69(2) then requires them to bring such rules or bye-laws to the attention of members.

It is some years now since I joined the Trust, but I do not recall ever having my attention drawn to any rules or bye-laws which governed my continuing membership (other than the obvious need to pay my membership fee every year). If such rules or bye-laws do exist, then where are they held such that members can find them easily? If not, how can the Trustees even consider terminating someone's membership if they have not been informed of them at the time that entered in the 'contract' - as it were - of becoming a member?

Are such things perhaps buried away in this mysterious 'disciplinary code' to which Anne referred recently?

 

Having dipped in and out of this thread, I'm not sure that I have this right, but I thought the issue was whether the person concerned can be allowed to stand as a trustee, not whether her membership is withdrawn?
I don't know if she is a member, but a while back I thought it had been established that a prospective trustee doesn't have to be a member anyway?

 

Spot on, @Jamessquared - precisely this. It's not complicated, is it? And failing all of this, ask yourself how you'd like to be treated if you were in Anne's position.

 

As I understand it, Anne's a Life Member, and in addition to refusing to allow her to stand as a Trustee despite having a valid nomination, the Trust leadership are seeking to strip her of her Life Membership as well.

 

If they wanted to carry on as they have, @H Cloutt - and I think @Jamessquared is quite right to point out that they should not have tried to stop Anne standing given that she was validly nominated - then the Trust could have said something like the following:

"Members will be aware that under section suchandsuch of the Charity Commission guidance (attached), there are times when a candidate may be disqualified from standing as a candidate in the Trusteeship Elections. Regretably, we have had to do so on one nomination this year, though you will appreciate that until that matter has been resolved through an independent and impartial process which no existing Trustees are sitting on, the Board cannot comment further."

Except of course they did not, not least because there is no evidence that any such Charity Commission gudiance exists - all we have is Peter Miles' assertion that it does, which is meaningless until he publishes it - and his failure to do so (and Tony Nicholson's failure to cite this in his letter to me) suggests that either (i) the guidance simply doesn't exist or (ii) it wasn't the basis for the Trust's decisionmaking in mid/late April when they decided to unconstitutionally exclude Anne's valid nomination, and that Mr Miles is scrabbling around for an excuse having been caught out.

My best guess is (ii). But it still stinks to high heaven.

 

Ah, right. In that case, pending a more detailed explanation, the trustees (minus 1) appear to fear her so much that they are prepared to dig themselves into a very big hole!
I don't know any of the people involved, but as Anne appears to be a very active volunteer at Woody Bay I find the whole situation baffling and somewhat distasteful - whether it complies with any rules or not.

 

Therein lies the nub of the problem-there is NO formal disciplinary code in existence as has been established by Railwest's investigation into the Trust MoA&A. Miles has conveniently alluded to this absence as 'Silent' on the matter and relied upon the erroneous assumption that the Trust can freely interpret the RS7 guidance and apply punitive sanctions as it sees fit.

 

Cancelled