Committee Minutes March 2010

nzLARPS
#21

[quote=“Xcerus”]When the money was given to me there was no time limit put in place. The money was put into my bank account after Porls house was broken into to keep it safe. There is a Kiwi bank walking distance from my house (under 3 mins) there is not a BNZ even nearly as close.

I do not do internet banking. I do phone banking. “Why Adam - you seem so tech savvy!?” It is exactly because I am so tech savvy that I do not do internet banking. Ignorance is bliss.[/quote]

You might want to come back to this subject later, when you’re feeling better. These are very poor excuses, and making excuses is not really a good look here.

I don’t think it’s over-optimistic to hope for a more reasonable response. Even the slightest hint that you’ve realised that depositing the society’s money half a year late is unacceptably unreliable, and that you regret the delay, would be encouraging.

As for accusations, nobody has made any. Some people have expressed an understandable suspicion. That doesn’t reflect on you as an individual, it’s just common sense because money is so often a source of problems. I would expect the same degree of suspicion if it was me or anyone else who had been unreliable with society funds for such an extended period of time.

#22

Heya Adam,

So, learning from this upset, next time - whether it’s you or someone else - deposit the money in a couple of weeks or pass it on to someone who can. Caesar’s wife and all that, yes?

I’m sure it was - there’s a little widget at the top right that gives the time of the post. :slight_smile: A bit more seriously, on Tuesday I had a 13 hour work day, and I’m pretty sure you don’t have a moratorium on weird or long working hours of the people on this board. Citing the times the way you’ve been doing seems to be only about making this discussion adversarial, which I don’t think anyone else actually wants.

I hope your cold gets better soon.

#23

no He didn’t

I’m still finalising the final figures from the event, as it was only a week ago. I will have the figures and the money (either by direct deposit or giving them to some one going to the meeting) there at next months meeting. As I have already communicated to Anna.

#24

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]Let’s everyone take a deep breath.

There have probably been communication issues on all sides. The committee could have done a better job of communicating this issue to the membership in a way that wouldn’t have caused a flap. Adam could have done a better job of communicating the issues, including that he was sick. These things happen.

Feelings may be running high, but the money is deposited and presumably Adam will post about the situation when he’s feeling better. It might be best to just let this cool for a while.[/quote]

As a member of the society, I do not feel the committee did a poor job of handeling this situation. What people don’t realise is that for the last 6 months, there has been alot of communication regarding the money with Adam. Anna has sent Adam numerous emails, and various committee members have offered to help Adam to get the money into the account. It was a hard decision for the committee to finally let their concerns be known to the community. They felt that 6 months was an unreasonable time, and the membership needed to know what is going on.

Adam I am not accusing you of having used the money for yourself. I am however saying that you are not a good treasurer. There may be no written time limit to deposit money, but it is common sense that this should be done at the maximum a month from receiving the money. Also the fact that you “do not do internet banking” is concerning when it is obviously such a mission for you to get to the bank personally. How have you been doing the treasurer’s job? Like, checking who has paid for games and letting the game organisers know, refunding projects that have spent money on games etc?

I would appreciate an answer to these questions, especially since I have paid $192 from my personal bank account to pay for the venue of the next New Horizons game.

#25

[quote=“Xcerus”]I will never tolerate my name or word being put to question. I said the money would be deposited on the 25th - I went out of my way to appease the masses an action I did not have to do.
Why have I not publicly complained about my working hours and ill health? For a start its none of your business. Secondly I was taught at a young age to take a spoon full of concrete and get on with it.

When the money was given to me there was no time limit put in place. The money was put into my bank account after Porls house was broken into to keep it safe. There is a Kiwi bank walking distance from my house (under 3 mins) there is not a BNZ even nearly as close.

I do not do internet banking. I do phone banking. “Why Adam - you seem so tech savvy!?” It is exactly because I am so tech savvy that I do not do internet banking. Ignorance is bliss.

I feel that those who have posted in this forum commenting in anyway that I might have taken the money for personal use are in fact directly insulting my person and this is in fact the only reason why I deposited the money early. To prove that I am a man of my word - that I do not spend money that is not mine to spend. The money was in a 0 interest current account. I do not rule 7.

Any further query about this will be taken as a direct insult upon my person and honour.

I am a man of my word and will not tolerate Slander.

The time now is : 21.52[/quote]

Hi Adam,

Firstly, thank you for depositing the funds as fast as you were able to. I hope you feel better soon and that your workload lightens a bit in the coming days.

This is going to be the last comment I make on the matter and I hope that it provides some constructive feedback for you as well as some perspective as to why people’s reactions may be so strong.

  • You had 6 months to bank these funds and multiple offers of assistance. I’m sorry that you chose to take care of the responsibilities that come with your position on a day that you did not feel well, but this is not anyone’s fault but your own. Had you done your job in a more timely manner you would not have been put in this position.

  • Although you may not have been given a specific timeline in regards to when the funds needed to be banked, most reasonable people would agree that waiting half a year to give NZLARPS their money is sloppy practice. The money that you held in your personal account is money that was not available to other NZLARPS members or the organisation to use for the benefit of all.

  • While you have explained some of the reasons why you did not bank these funds in a timely manner, I think you might have considered offering a simple, sincere apology for the delay and any miscommunication and offered an assurance that it won’t happen again. The wider community is probably looking for reassurance that you are still the right person for the job, not excuses or antagonism.

Thanks.

Jackie

#26

What I said is that the communication with the membership could have been better. There is no reason to withhold any information from the membership at all in this matter. The information ideally should have been disclosed in full, including details of what the committee was doing to recover the funds, at the earliest opportunity, which would have been months ago. There is no concern of privacy here, the treasurer is an elected official and this is official society business, so full and immediate transparency with the membership is the order of the day. This isn’t intended as a harsh criticism of the committee, I’m just pointing out that the communication with the membership could have been better.

EDIT: even if this had been in the January meeting minutes, we wouldn’t have known until now because the Jan minutes have only just been made public, two months after the meeting. Again, this is not a harsh criticism, but meeting minutes should ideally be published within a week or so of the meeting, and that’s an important communication role for the Secretary so that the membership who elected the committee know what’s being done in their name. I for one read the minutes closely and value the information they contain, and it seems that others do too.

Kaizen, and all that.

#27

I find this all a little irrelevant - we are not and never have been at 0 or even close to - Last bank statement put us at over $5,000. Sorry if you feel another $500 as being critical to the further running of the society. However as at no point have we hit 0 I find this a mute point.

Nikki - Perhaps actually asking for the money might be a more productive way to ensure you have the money - I have no e-mails from you or pm’s stating your request for the money. You might have asked for and been given permission to use the money by the committie but as I was ill during the last meeting perhaps having the sence of mind to ask the treasurer instead of hoping my as yet not god like powers will have finally transcended into a state where I can read your mind. If you e-mail me with your account details I will do my best to make sure you are out of pocket for as short and amount of time as possible - I would also like an e-mail of the project proposal that was approved so that I can do the required paperwork.

#28

It’s all entirely relevant, Adam. The bank balance could be $10,000 for all it matters - the point is that you had monies that belonged to the club, and took an inordinate amount of time to see them to the club bank account. As treasurer it should have been a priority, and doubly so as someone that takes such pride in having high and rigid morals. It’s about trust, and your immediately perceived attitude isn’t going to help convince anyone that you’re the right man for this job, or any committee position for that matter - especially as you have still yet to show any sort of acknowledgement that you could have done things a bit more quickly, or the smallest regret that you didn’t, which I agree with Ryan is not overly optimistic to hope for.

#29

A couple of additional points for Adam:

  1. you can do funds transfers over the phone, last I tried. Just call your bank, identify yourself with password etc, tell them you want to make a payment, give them the details of the destination account and amount, and they do it. Not that it matters, as you had endless other opportunities to make it happen, including letting someone else handle it at any time. One way or another, you could have made it happen within a month or so of receiving the funds.

  2. while your account may not have been earning interest on the money, the society’s account presumably would have been. So you have lost the society the interest on the amount over six months.

The committee members clearly chased you up on this. If you really don’t believe that you’ve made a mistake here, that means that you don’t respect the opinions of the committee members who tried to inform you that the money needed to be deposited, or the community members who’ve expressed their opinion here that the delay was unacceptable. This suggests you think you’re unaccountable to the society for your actions, and that only your opinion of your actions matters. This isn’t a desirable trait in an elected official.

#30

Posting from the hotel in CHCH

The matter was mentioned (in passing I’ll admit) in the December and Febuary. I’ll admit that it should have been inclueded in more detail, but we fell confident in the way it was handled.

The matter was not raised to me till febuary (as I was unable to attend the metting with the hand over of the money so I had not relised the time delay) since then I feel the commitee has taken due care in handling this matter in a mature and delicate way. Emails and Correspondence were exchanged on the matter between Anna and Adam. No accusations were laid - Partly because of delicacy, partly because we came to the point where we were unsure what was happening at adam’s end due to his absence from the later meetings due to personal reasons (illness and family).

#31

The December minutes say “Adam has ~$300 still to deposit”, no hint that the money is three months late at that point, or that the committee had discussed this as a matter of some concern. The Feb minutes were only just posted a couple of days ago. The December minutes should have made it clear how late the funds were (and so should the November minutes, if it was discussed). The minutes could also have made it clear that personal reasons were delaying the payment. Members have the right to know when something goes wrong with the society’s money, regardless of circumstances.

With the money only being three months late in December, members could have communicated their dissatisfaction with this to the Treasurer, who was posting on the forum regularly in December (and not incommunicado as you imply), with the understanding that there may have been reasonable reasons for that amount of delay.

Just to make this entirely clear: members have the right to know what’s going on at the meetings, when it relates to society business. You are there doing our business, on our behalf, as agents of the membership that elected you. We require full transparency in regards to official meetings, so that we can raise objections to how society business is being handled. If the committee meeting discusses unsubstantiated rumours that might show someone in bad light, then fair enough that such discussions should be removed from the minutes, as they are not society business and they’re genuinely delicate. But that’s not the case here, this was business of direct interest to the membership, who want to know what’s being done with their money.

Again, to be clear: this is not a harsh criticism, but the committee has not acted in a manner that I find fully satisfactory in this regard, so there is room for the society to improve. If the committee members continue to put their fingers in its ears and say “we acted perfectly” despite the communication issues I’ve outlined, then I’ll have to regard the committee in the same way I’m regarding the Treasurer at present: unwilling to accept feedback, unwilling to accept any room for improvement. Again, that’s a poor attitude for elected officials.

You might think that the members just want you to get on with the job, and that’s probably right. But some members also want to know what job you’re getting on with, so they can tell whether it’s a good job and make suggestions. Transparency is not too onerous a thing to ask for.

#32

I’d just like to second this bit. Transparency is vital for accountability. Its a vital principle of democratic governance. Its our society, we own it, and we have a fundamental right to know what is being done in our name.

In this case, it also worked. Transparency achieved in a few days what months of diplomacy had failed to do. Money paid, problem solved. That probably would have happened a long time ago if there’d been a standard policy of disclosing such matters.

#33

If this is the case then why did I deposite the money earlier than I said that I would. Surly if I do not respect the opinions of people who post here I would have continued doing as I pleased and deposited the money on the 25th as I said i would to Anna - which means the money would still not have been deposited.

I take that as a direct attack against me, Ryan, and as such demand an appology from you.

#34

If this is the case then why did I deposite the money earlier than I said that I would. Surly if I do not respect the opinions of people who post here I would have continued doing as I pleased and deposited the money on the 25th as I said i would to Anna - which means the money would still not have been deposited.

I take that as a direct attack against me, Ryan, and as such demand an appology from you.[/quote]

/Facepalm

I don’t like commenting on committee business because I’m not a committee member and really have no place in committee matters but really Adam? Your reaction is angry and defensive. Ryans points against you have been pretty balanced from where I’m standing. That may indeed be from a point of ignorance but again, why so angry and defensive? Why not just say aplogise and move on?

Your gesture of depositing the money early is kind of wasted because it took so very long to get to that point. I don’t know the full details and I am sure you have some defence for timeframes but should a treasurer really be that limited when it comes to banking? As Treasurer you need to be able to get to the bank in a timely fashion.

The point everyone seems to be making is that the time before you deposited the money was simply too long and they are voicing their displeasure.

Perhaps it is time for you to vacate the role of treasurer until such time as you can fully deal with its responsibilities?

Its just how its looking from my wee pedestal and its not that great aye?

#35

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]The December minutes say “Adam has ~$300 still to deposit”, no hint that the money is three months late at that point, or that the committee had discussed this as a matter of some concern. The Feb minutes were only just posted a couple of days ago. The December minutes should have made it clear how late the funds were (and so should the November minutes, if it was discussed). The minutes could also have made it clear that personal reasons were delaying the payment. Members have the right to know when something goes wrong with the society’s money, regardless of circumstances.

With the money only being three months late in December, members could have communicated their dissatisfaction with this to the Treasurer, who was posting on the forum regularly in December (and not incommunicado as you imply), with the understanding that there may have been reasonable reasons for that amount of delay.

Just to make this entirely clear: members have the right to know what’s going on at the meetings, when it relates to society business. You are there doing our business, on our behalf, as agents of the membership that elected you. We require full transparency in regards to official meetings, so that we can raise objections to how society business is being handled. If the committee meeting discusses unsubstantiated rumours that might show someone in bad light, then fair enough that such discussions should be removed from the minutes, as they are not society business and they’re genuinely delicate. But that’s not the case here, this was business of direct interest to the membership, who want to know what’s being done with their money.

Again, to be clear: this is not a harsh criticism, but the committee has not acted in a manner that I find fully satisfactory in this regard, so there is room for the society to improve. If the committee members continue to put their fingers in its ears and say “we acted perfectly” despite the communication issues I’ve outlined, then I’ll have to regard the committee in the same way I’m regarding the Treasurer at present: unwilling to accept feedback, unwilling to accept any room for improvement. Again, that’s a poor attitude for elected officials.

You might think that the members just want you to get on with the job, and that’s probably right. But some members also want to know what job you’re getting on with, so they can tell whether it’s a good job and make suggestions. Transparency is not too onerous a thing to ask for.[/quote]

I agree that the matter could have been recorded more fully. I accept that feedback. But I still feel that this matter has been given the attention and due concern that was needed, at the time of the meetings.

#36

I fully accept my part in this lack of communication, and sincerely apologise for it. I should have posted last month’s minutes earlier. I have no excuse for this lapse other than slackness and and a failure to prioritise. I am aware that the society needs to know what is going on and thus this month, I made sure I typed up the minutes the next day after the meeting. I also fully intend to post all future minutes in a timely manner.

#37

There are a few threads involved in this discussion.

On the one hand, the committee had an undertaking from Adam that the money would be paid by a specified date. I can see why Adam is unhappy that he felt that people were calling his intention to pay into question. The date was set for a reason (ability to get to the bank), and I think that we need to acquiesce to the committee in terms of their determination of whether there was undue risk associated with regard to whether the payment would have been made or not. That’s why we have a committee.

On the other, the minutes could have tracked this issue from day one. If this had been a minuted item, with an action point that was answerable to the next meeting, then I think we could have avoided this situation entirely.

I agree with Ryan and IdiotSavant, transparency and communication are key. Having served three years on the committee, I must say that the timeliness of minutes has been a recurring issue. Getting 3 month’s minutes in the same week is not the ideal way to reflect committee business, and I can understand some members’ reaction to the revelation that Adam had taken 6 months to transfer some funds, even though the committee were satisfied that they had the matter in hand, and had a specific date by which resolution of the matter would occur.

Adam, I think you are conflating criticism of your intention/ability pay (never in doubt, IMO), with criticism of how long it actually took you to pay. Ryan contends that it was a mistake to take 6 months to transfer some funds. In all fairness, I would have to say that it is indeed too long, and you did make a mistake of timeliness, but not of capacity or intention. This is not about your trustworthiness - and I believe your actions in paying earlier than the agreed date of March 25th are a clear indication that you really did intend to meet your obligation - but more about whether the members consider allowing this matter to drag for 6 months is acceptable or not.

Again, this matter could have been better served by being a fully minuted item, with minutes that were released in a timely manner. Concerned members could have raised their concerns at a point in time when they felt there was a risk of this item dragging on, rather than after it had dragged on for a periond longer than which which they were comfortable.

My recommendation to the committee: minute all outstanding debt obligations (this could be the responsibility of the Treasurer), together with an action item for followup before the next meeting, which is therefore part of the matters arising for the next meeting. We don’t necessarily need to know the names of the persons involved (e.g. late payers for recent games), but we do need to know who is going to chase up the debts and therefore report to the committee at the next meeting.

i.e. if there are some late payers for a specific event, then perhaps the one of the commitee members could be tasked with chasing this up with the organisers.

However, a clear matter of a person with Society funds who needs to transfer said funds to the Society could be a specific minuted item, to enable maximum transparency.

#38

My apologies, I did not see this post until after I had made mine, so the context of my post was not with your post in mind.

Aaargh ! I feel I’m going from pillar to post on this one…:wink:

#39

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
My apologies, I did not see this post until after I had made mine, so the context of my post was not with your post in mind.

Aaargh ! I feel I’m going from pillar to post on this one…:wink:[/quote]

That’s okay. You’re criticism was valid. I should have posted minutes earlier and feel crap that I didn’t. I really won’t let it happen again.

#40

If this is the case then why did I deposite the money earlier than I said that I would. Surly if I do not respect the opinions of people who post here I would have continued doing as I pleased and deposited the money on the 25th as I said i would to Anna - which means the money would still not have been deposited.

I take that as a direct attack against me, Ryan, and as such demand an appology from you.[/quote]

You have a point, I’ll rephrase my statement. While your banking of the money now does indicate that you care what the community thinks, not admitting any fault on your part in the six month delay indicates that you don’t take the community seriously enough when they say that kind of delay is unacceptably poor performance as Treasurer. The committee having to hound you to make payment also suggests you didn’t take their concerns seriously enough.