Why is there a Clash between the Tutors and the AFC

1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.3.4, 1.3.6 on page 11 of the Code of Fundraising Practice look highly relevant - you may well have her! I do hope so.

mac wrote:1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.3.4, 1.3.6 on page 11 of the Code of Fundraising Practice look highly relevant - you may well have her!  I do hope so.

I will also be putting in a formal complaint asking for investigation and I hope others do too. So that's at least two of us on here. I hope more follow.

good luck - It will be a messy business, even more messy than it's been thus far.

How many, who and where general members of the SNU are I have no idea.  Whether you'll need to or be able to contact them I have no idea but at some point they'll become aware and I guess the current election of officers may have to be re-run.

interesting times - I'll be re-considering my own IM membership next time my subscription is due for renewal. I was sceptical when you new members arrived and started this conversation but I've been persuaded and I hope the matters can be brought back to how the SNU should be representing Modern Spiritualism.

Maybe now the whole organisation needs root-and-branch reform to try to make it relevant for this new century and millennium.

mac wrote:good luck - It will be a messy business, even more messy than it's been thus far.

How many, who and where general members of the SNU are I have no idea.  Whether you'll need to or be able to contact them I have no idea but at some point they'll become aware and I guess the current election of officers may have to be re-run.

interesting times - I'll be re-considering my own IM membership next time my subscription is due for renewal.  I was sceptical when you new members arrived and started this conversation but I've been persuaded and I hope the matters can be brought back to how the SNU should be representing Modern Spiritualism.  

Maybe now the whole organisation needs root-and-branch reform to try to make it relevant for this new century and millennium.

Fortunately the fundraising regulator deals with it all and I shall write a full report later. I know of others who have taken the same action and reported this misleading fundraiser. It may seem noble to raise funds for a building so loved by Spiritualists. Yet for the president to lie publicly on YouTube, is to prey on the goodwill of the public, the students and the tutors who held numerous events to raise money for a building that had NOT  been neglected for the past 10 years, whilst the SNU had spent over £2m on it and also held millions in the reserve account.

What her statements caused, were fears that the college would be lost unless people donated. That it's state was so neglected, only we could save it.

Mac - it is no wonder you are reconsidering your membership. I am sure you are not alone. I agree in the root and branch reform. This current administration is complicit in allowing this fundraiser to go ahead with all its false information and public lies. Now we will leave it to the regulator to sort out and the penalties are severe.

At least this time, we are past the election for the president and nobody can now accuse any concerned parties that the goal is to disrupt that process - as we have recently seen on social media - the false claim that this was the objective of the tutor dispute.

When do we know the results of the election? As notabigjump says, this issue can no longer be treated as a part of influencing the results. However, one assumes that either nothing is done to reinstate them o,r alternatively, an ex President and Paul Jacobs depart the AFC.

Admin wrote:When do we know the results of the election? As notabigjump says, this issue can no longer be treated as a part of influencing the results. However, one assumes that either nothing is done to reinstate them o,r alternatively, an ex President and Paul Jacobs depart the AFC.

The mystery deepens as the current president, offered a 'thank you statement' on social media and included the line "There will be a delay until we know the result and whatever happens, I’ll continue working hard for our Union."

I have no idea what the delay is or why it could be. Or even if it is ambiguous turn of phrase?

Well we must wait, I hope that JW does not win because I feel this issue with the tutors will not go well.

I believe you are correct and I do think she will win. Mr. Bruton spoiled his chances by his track record and we don't have anyone else to stand, so its a foregone conclusion that she will win. I know of many who didn't want either of them but the preferred was JW and they will either not renew their membership or suck it up.

Will it be the end of the AFC because of how they treated the tutors and her 'you will do as I say' attitude. I hope to goodness individuals who are not in the clique will stand for President next time and no one from the current NEC will be successful.

I will be interested in hearing what the regulator says and whether or not we will get an admission or denial regarding this alleged writ that was served to JW at the AFC.

A member of the NEC has informed me that the NEC including Jackie Wright has had sight of the election results.

Congratulation to Jackie Wright and Julia Almond on your reelection.

Commiserations to David who will probably hear through Facebook, or here rather than the official channels.

What an NEC who can’t even resist from breaking their own byelaws and leaking very confidential information within 24 hours.

Let’s just thank God SNU Spiritualists don’t practice confession.

The NEC has always done this leaked matters. I got told by a friend that I had passed my ministers exam. I said how do you know he told me JS. Told him. Yes the same person accused me of leaking information but, I proved them wrong. No apology, just removed from the committee. This is the problem with the SNU. I know the NEC sign NDAs, yet information always leaks.

There may be a complication should the fundraising regulator find irregularities sufficiently serious to take action over the way monies have been raised.

Potentially there could be censure of the individual(s) involved with potential consequent knock-on in the structure and management of the SNU and AFC.  

Were that to happen who knows what might follow? Or maybe the situation would just be "toughed out"?

Well, the results of the election has now been declared.
President: Jackie Wright. Votes: 1171
Unsuccessful candidate David Bruton. Votes: 470

Now I am not an SNU member these days but still take an interest in the SNU and especially the AFC, and have been, like many, deeply disturbed by the recent discord between a significant number of AFC tutors and the "management" of the AFC/SNU.

I am also puzzled by the voting results posted on the SNUs website.

As I understand it there are currently 316 SNU Churches in the UK and each church has 5 votes in an election. That is a total of 1580 possible votes.

Then there are individual members, both those affiliated with a specific church and other "independent members not affiliated with any of the 316 SNU churches.

I don't know the current total members numbers but based on there being 316 churches, even a very conservative count would arrive at at least 1580 individual church members (@ just 5 members at each of the 316 churches), and perhaps a further 50 independent members.

If my understanding is correct, and my conservative estimate of membership numbers is within reasonable bounds then there was not less than 1630 odd other potential votes available for these current elections.

Yet, the total vote for the successful presidential candidate from a potential of 3210 was just 1121 votes. This represents just a third of the total voting population.

Clearly not all of the churches voted for Jackie Wright and one must wonder whether any of the individual members or independent members voted either for Jackie Wright, or, indeed, voted at all.

Now voting is clearly not compulsory, however, it is hard to see how the successful candidates in this election could feel confident that they really had a mandate to act.

Lis

I was looking at the results to December 2022 to try and establish what the AFC brought to the SNU in funding. The audited accounts were the place to go. An initial look suggested that education created a horrifying loss. Yes 2022 was recovering from the Pandemic and the Barbanell Centre is losing money but it did not explain why the apparent loss was so big. The analysis shows a different picture.

Equally Lis's piece on the election clearly shows there is no mandate for Minister Jackie Wright. Her numbers are very robust. I have obtained more recent estimates of the actual membership and total votes available.



or there is an alternate way given the discrepancy in the 2022 membership receipts to that low number of members.



Neither are pretty in terms of the acceptability of the Presidential Candidates to their voters nor about the health of the SNU in terms of membership

Whichever figures you choose to work from it is quite evident that either 57.8% or (horrifyingly) 71.9% of those possible votes available to elect a president were not used.

Why?

Are the members/churches so uninterested they chose not to bother?

Are the voters not voting because they didn't want either candidate?

Were the churches/DCs/individual member voters afraid to vote against the incumbent president for fear of the potential consequences?

The treatment of the 20 AFC tutors would indicate disagreeing with the current "management" leads to removal from the SNU.

Whatever may be the reason/reasons that almost 58% or 72% of the SNU voting membership did not vote, it suggests that there is something very very wrong with the current operation of the SNU.

A disinterested or disenchanted membership and what appears on the figures to be a rapidly diminishing total membership of the SNU would seem to indicate that there is a significant rejection of the value of the SNU - or - even more concerning - a very significant rejection of those who are currently running the SNU - this leading to the membership voting with their feet as it were. Letting their membership lapse.

I repeat my initial thought. I cannot see how the current president can believe they have a true mandate to act. Certainly not to act to refuse to enter into dialogue with unhappy tutors, or to contemplate removing tutors from the AFC and replacing them with untried, unproven, and it would seem, unqualified substitutes.

It says in 2009 there were 14000 members. This was actually wrong. In 2010 the NEC decided to work out true numbers of IMs. It was found that they had not audited membership for several years. They had kept on members who had lapsed, left and passed away and the actual number after the audit was 2700 paid up members. It should have woken them up but sadly it has been a sinking ship for many years.

Lis wrote:Whichever figures you choose to work from it is quite evident that either 57.8% or (horrifyingly) 71.9% of those possible votes available to elect a president were not used.

Why?

Are the members/churches so uninterested they chose not to bother?

Are the voters not voting because they didn't want either candidate?

Were the churches/DCs/individual member voters afraid to vote against the incumbent president for fear of the potential consequences?

The treatment of the 20 AFC tutors would indicate disagreeing with the current "management" leads to removal from the SNU.

Whatever may be the reason/reasons that almost 58% or 72% of the SNU voting membership did not vote, it suggests that there is something very very wrong with the current operation of the SNU.

A disinterested or disenchanted membership and what appears on the figures to be a rapidly diminishing total membership of the SNU would seem to indicate that there is a significant rejection of the value of the SNU - or - even more concerning - a very significant rejection of those who are currently running the SNU - this leading to the membership voting with their feet as it were. Letting their membership lapse.

I repeat my initial thought. I cannot see how the current president can believe they have a true mandate to act. Certainly not to act to refuse to enter into dialogue with unhappy tutors, or to contemplate removing tutors from the AFC and replacing them with untried, unproven, and it would seem, unqualified substitutes.

It is clear to me that the SNU members do not need more of the same, but a new way forward that is relevant to Spiritualists today. Certainly with such poor figures this cannot be seen as a resounding mandate. However, on her Facebook page, the president is publicly 'grateful' over the fact she won by 70% of the vote! This is quoted: "Friends, I am so grateful to the 70% of members who endorsed our direction of travel as a Union. I was clear: we can’t go back and this result endorses that."

All votes are declared in such a way. Even trade union votes. They count the votes and work the percentages from that. They dare not say thank you to the actual 26% of voters who voted for stagnation.

Jbodoski wrote:All votes are declared in such a way. Even trade union votes. They count the votes and work the percentages from that. They dare not say thank you to the actual 26% of voters who voted for stagnation.

I realise that having been a shop steward myself and know this to be so from experience. However, ironic to spin the percentage, given how many who did not vote. It's not the declaration that's the issue - it's the victory parade!

mac wrote:The election is over and the result declared.  In respect of the original subject of this thread nothing looks likely to change.

There are still some outstanding HR issues for the tutors to go through yet (soon) and there are a number of legal cases being lodged against the president and the NEC - I fear you may be correct Mac, but for now I'm still holding out for some hope, until they say they are done!

Clearly not all of the churches voted for Jackie Wright and one must wonder whether any of the individual members or independent members voted either for Jackie Wright, or, indeed, voted at all.

Early on in this conversation it was declared that the election outcome was all-but inevitable anyway. Not voting may indicate disapproval of the choices and/or disaffection about or disinterest in the whole system.  I cast my vote despite this.....

notabigjump wrote:

mac wrote:The election is over and the result declared.  In respect of the original subject of this thread nothing looks likely to change.

There are still some outstanding HR issues for the tutors to go through yet (soon) and there are a number of legal cases being lodged against the president and the NEC - I fear you may be correct Mac, but for now I'm still holding out for some hope, until they say they are done!

We can only hope it won't be a case of lawyers being the only winners in the whole, sorry matter.....

All votes are declared in such a way. Even trade union votes. They count the votes and work the percentages from that. They dare not say thank you to the actual 26% of voters who voted for stagnation.

I'd guess few elections require a minimum number of voters to take part.... Percentages are often meaningless in any practical sense.

Only AGMs require a quorum, the minimum number of members required to vote. That is why they vote for officers how they do. They assume all will vote as all members get ballot papers.