United Kingdom: ME Association governance issues

How he feels that is appropriate is beyond me. Dread to think how he refers to those who are causing him a bit of a headache right now.

The more I see, the less suited I believe he is to any kind of role with any charity. He should skulk off into a deeply resentful retirement.

I’d hazard a guess that a good CEO employed wouldn’t need much handover from him.

 

The Act 2006 says "At least ten years" not that they have to be destroyed after ten years:

 

While I was looking for old email correspondence with Neil, I came across this which I had written to a fellow advocate in 2010 regarding the name change to "Myalgic Encephalopathy Association" passed by Special Resolution in 2001.

"As I could not remember the year in which the name change was ratified, the following information has been provided by Tony Britton, ME Association Press and Publicity:

The decision by the ME Association to use the term "myalgic encephalopathy" in their title and company documents dates back almost ten years. [2001]

The decision was discussed by the Association's Scientific and Medical Advisory Panel at the time.

It was also discussed and debated by ME Association members at an EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting).

This resulted in a vote being taken at the EGM on the name change that was held in London on 14 July 2001..

1274 MEA members voted in favour of using the term myalgic encephalopathy. 43 voted against."

​

It's interesting to me because it shows just how much influence the Association had over its membership. I wasn't involved in ME advocacy until mid 2002 but I think I have seen a copy of the magazine that contained several "for and against" opinion pieces on whether the name should be changed.

It's also interesting how many members took the trouble to vote - a total of 1317. Which is far higher than members voting in Special Resolutions for changes to the Articles or for voting in trustee elections.

AYME's membership also went on to vote in favour of formal adoption of the use of "myalgic encephalopathy".

 

Also as mentioned above, a November 2014 meeting may have happened over ten years ago, suggesting that material from that meeting no longer has to be kept, however minutes of a meeting are not a true and accurate account till they are accepted as such at a subsequent meeting, so it is likely that any minutes drafted in November were still being processed in 2015, less than ten years ago.

So if the MEA tried not to share such minutes because of the ten year rule, that would seem suspicious and may still be unlawful.

 

A Company Secretary should be dealing with this type of request. It should not be left to the whim of the Chairman to decide whether or not he cares to meet the obligation to provide copies of minutes. I don't understand why they no longer have one. It does not need to be a member of the board.

It's a pity Gill Briody is no longer Operations Manager. It was Gill, as Company Secretary at that time, who had signed the Resolution certification letter for Companies House. It would have been Tony Britton who put the magazines together with the resolution notice, summary report of that year's AGM and the General Meeting for the Resolution.

Four of the current 6 trustees were trustees in 2014. Likely that some of them still have copies of the minutes as email attachments. 10 years is not all that long ago.

 

Despite requesting a response from some one else, I just received this response from Neil:

 

Woah

what a tone

 

He could have sent you the minutes in the time it took him to tell you the excuse he's found to deny your reasonable request.

 

I’d ask him to provide everything from Jan 2015 (or whenever your initial email was dated minus 10yrs) onwards based on that reply

 

He's just shown his hand, hasn't he - he's playing the 10 year card.

But really, what's he hiding? Have they really just deleted all record of the minutes of the meeting, or, are they just refusing to share what they have because it's over ten years?

Still, the minutes would surely have to have been shared as part of the 2015 meeting for approval from the members, so, would need to be public record as of that date?

 

Had they even done the minutes within this timeframe after the meeting? A lot of places it takes quite a while for them to be typed and approved internally anyway so the idea they are from the meeting of Xth Nov doesn’t mean the minutes are over ten years before peters first request at all

 

As @PeterW has just posted on Twitter;

https://twitter.com/user/status/1874871208690470933


In an email he has shared it states that they have full copies of documents for the extraordinary general meeting in 2014;

https://twitter.com/user/status/1874871225543164079


So, have they destroyed them or are they just not sharing them? His email to @Peter Trewhitt seems to suggest 'not being kept' for inspection, ie. destroyed?

 

I just replied to Neil saying I wished to address these issues with someone else and sent the following to the MEA general admin email address, copied to Charles Shepherd:

Are we now in a situation where give someone enough rope and … … …

 

Whether or not the documents are available or legally viewable there is still no explanation for the convening of a meeting to make, apparently, no substantive changes to AoA. Riley's response sounds to me like bluster.

It is inconceivable that copies of the relevant documents are not available somewhere. And as noted, if they show there was a simple human error then all that is needed is to let everyone see what happened.

 

Smokin'!

 

It's beyond farce now. He's tying himself in knots over what he's saying to one and to another.

Agree, they just need to front it and say 'here's the documents, read it and weep, I was right all along' and it will all go away.

ETA: well, it might not entirely go away because it will spawn a whole other line of questioning about why they have obfuscated all this so much..

 

Neil says "and set out the proposed changes to the payments for services clause".

But there were NO CHANGES to clause 28 Allowed payments between the 2013 Articles and the document he says was the document adopted at the General Meeting.

It makes no sense at all.

 

Indeed. And at the same time, the AoA registered in 2014 does show logical amendment to the 2013 AoA regarding the ME Association's objectives, its property and allowed payments (including the removal of that loose "director's expenses" in Article 4 that was not present as a header in the rest of the document), and more specification on what happens in the case of dissilution..

See Dx Revion Watch's earlier side-by-side comparison of the AoA registered and signed in 2014 with the sudden replacement document that is a copy of the AoA registered and signed in 2013:

As you can see they show natural progression from 2013 to 2014, e.g. in Article 3 which was amended by having "restricted to the following purposes" removed. (If I remember right, then charities have to stick to their objectives, but such an absolute restriction in your government document can create issues when you branch out a bit as an aside on occasion.)

(edited to fix two typos)