[Lifemember] [Centres] Working Party

Mon Sep 16 20:03:10 AEST 2024

Dear RDA NSW Centres & Volunteers

As the Chairperson of the RDA NSW Board, I was not consulted in anyway,
shape or form in the drafting of the letter that went out this evening
purporting to be from the RDA NSW Board (see below).

I would like to make it crystal clear that the below email is not the
position of the RDA NSW Board, nor the RDA NSW organisation. It would appear
that some members of the current Board have, funnily enough, set up their
own Working Party.

This, under any other circumstances, might appear to be amusing.

However, the individuals responsible for the attached email from the 'Board
Working Party' may have, in my opinion, made some very serious accusations
that could be defamatory.

I believe that this is a most unfortunate development, and extremely
counterproductive to what appears to be a genuine attempt by the
Constitutional Review Working Party to generate a constructive process,
under the Constitution, to solve a number of problems with the Constitution
that have remained unresolved for at least 6 years.

I believe that in order to quickly deescalate the situation, we should offer
the 'Board Working Party' the opportunity to withdraw their email
immediately. If they do so by midday tomorrow, Tuesday 17 September 2024,
then I would urge any parties mentioned in the withdrawn email to overlook
some of the comments that may have been made in the heat of the moment.

So, with that issue squared away, let's look to the future.

I have had time to review the proposal and requisition request of the
Constitutional Review Working Party.

Having reviewed the Constitution, it appears that the Constitutional Review
Working Party (Working Party) has submitted a compliant set of papers.
Given that the Working Party's Requisition Letter appears to be compliant,
it is my view the Board has no option but to facilitate and support the
holding of the Special General Meetings (SGM) requested.

I have already called a Board Meeting for Wednesday evening where I will
make my understanding of the Constitutional compliance of the Requisition
Letter clear. I will make it clear that the Board must follow the
Constitution and do all that is necessary to ensure that the meetings go
ahead as requisitioned.

I note that the Board came out with its suggested pathway forward on the
Constitution last week. However, the only way to change the Constitution is
a Special General Meeting. So, either way we need to have an SGM, where all
points of view will be considered.

Greg

Greg Urand

Hon Director, Chairperson

NSW Justice of the Peace

0400 858 190

From: Centres <centres-bounces at rdansw.org.au> On Behalf Of
stateoffice at rdansw.org.au
Sent: Monday, 16 September 2024 5:15 PM
To: Centres at rdansw.org.au; lifemember at rdansw.org.au
Subject: [Centres] Working Party
Importance: High

Hi all

Please see the email below and attached Minutes of the EGM held on 15 July
2001 referred to in this email below.

>From the Board Members noted below

To those with the self-appointed name of The RDA Constitutional Working
Party.

We have perused the letters circulated around the centres and the
organisation and believe that these unauthorised communications are from an
unsupported Group with members in Centres who may not necessarily know of,
nor condone their membership of, this Party. These centres have not
submitted minutes that have proposed the establishment of this party nor
advised their supposed members' representation. 

It is abysmal that, instead of assisting the Board in a positive manner,
these Working Party are continuing to subject the present voluntary board
members to constant harassment, denigration, and demonisation. The current
Board are accused of being slow in dealing with matters however the
continuing behaviour of a few means that time is taken away from everyone
else and incurring ongoing legal expenses in actions resulting from their
demands.

Whilst the current Board members want to represent ALL of the Centres, this
current behaviour appears to be motivated by money and power struggles - it
is abhorrent, does not correlate to RDA's mission and value statements and
should not be tolerated. This has been going on for some time and was
addressed by Kerry Johnstone in the attached statement.

For clarity, the following members of this party, who are attempting to
demonise current Board Member behaviour, have the following history and
current standing in our organisation: 

*	Charles McClintock under suspension from RDA (NSW). 

*	Anna Rimac is under suspension from the RDA (NSW); the legal
proceedings are still pending.

*	Anna Rimac, Graeme Gulliver and Helen Fauske are from Ballina Centre
(on RDA owned land) - which is under administration. Directors, CASP and the
Regional Representative/Administrator's attempt to attend the centre (to
work on a pathway forward out of administration) have been denied access on
many occasions and they have been treated with bullying, intimidation and
legal threats to instil fear. 

Note that Bruce Manefield is an external consultant in private business who
has not been given authority by the current Board to formulate a new
Constitution, nor to assist in preparing paperwork nor to conduct special
general meetings in this regard.

The actions of these people are in direct contradiction to the very
principles behind RDA (NSW), an organisation that is supposed to have
volunteers who have empathy towards others and who are expected to be here
to help and assist people who have a disability, not as a means of showing
how important these named people consider themselves to be while, at the
same time, adversely affecting the operations of RDA (NSW) and denigrating
others.

We'd like to quote a very respected life member and former director Kerry
Johnston.

For and on behalf of the majority of RDA(NSW) Directors

Kind Regards

Olwen Smith,Linda Bower,Tracy Lucas,Allan Burton and James Van-Lane

Email -  board at rdansw.org.au <mailto:board at rdansw.org.au> 

WEB -   WWW.rdansw.org.au <http://WWW.rdansw.org.au> 

Kind Regards

Lucy Pentony

Office Coordinator 

Riding for the Disabled Association (NSW)

Quad 1, Level 2, 8 Parkview Drive

Sydney Olympic  Park  NSW 2127

(PO Box 710 Sydney Markets NSW 2129)

Ph: (02) 8736 1256

Email:  <mailto:stateoffice at rdansw.org.au> stateoffice at rdansw.org.au

Web:  <http://www.rdansw.org.au/> www.rdansw.org.au

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 57027 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0004.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 77629 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0005.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 7848 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.png
Type: image/png
Size: 8630 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0006.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 3331 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image006.png
Type: image/png
Size: 49808 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0007.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image007.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2837 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://rdansw.org.au/pipermail/lifemember_rdansw.org.au/attachments/20240916/aa755094/attachment-0005.jpg>