Updates
In the last week or so I’ve been moving my home office so I haven’t had time to update this blog with the latest news of the mismanagement rife in the Diocesan Mothers’ Union. But that mismanagement continues, so I chronicle some of the ‘lowlights’ of the last few weeks:
That allegedly racist comment
Someone actually present at the trustee meeting when the allegedly racist remark was made has confirmed the details. So the Head Girl’s insistence on whitewashing the incident does seem to have been inapprpriate.
Election woes
Several people asked me to stand as Senior Prefect for the East Riding Archdeaconry following the resignation of the previous incumbent (who, incidentally, has since circulated a letter detailing the circumstances which drove her to resign the post for which she was eminently suited, at which she was hugely popular and successful, and from which she was hounded by the Head Girl and the Board of Governors. It makes for a depressing litany of petty bullying by the ‘management’ and shows clearly that I’m not the only one to have suffered). But after much heart-searching, long discussion with friends, and a lot of prayer, I decided not to stand. My nomination would simply have been a red rag to a bull[1] and would have risked extending the “managerial” bullying to anyone who supported my nomination. For quite a while there was no one capable of doing the job willing to be nominated
At the last minute a suitable and willing candidate for the post did appear, praise the Lord, otherwise there would have been a vacuum inadequately (see “Recruitment campaign. Not.”) filled by the temporary joint caretakers of the post. So members duly sent in their nomination papers. I hear last week that not enough nomination papers had been received... rumour has it that there is a “requirement” for at least six nominations to be received before any nomination is accepted. This despite there being no such provision in the Constitution, and there having been, in any case, at least that many nomination papers sent for the individual concerned. I await further developments with resigned dismay. transparent the process is not.
Recruitment campaign. Not.
A small group of clergy, along with several former members of Mothers’ Union and some potential new members, were well on their way to forming a new branch. They had been encouraged by the former Senior Prefect of the East Riding whom they invited to a meeting to talk about the final details. Who should arrive, unexpectedly, but one of the caretakers of the Senior Prefect post. This person set up her own table at the front of the meeting (everyone else had sat in the body of the meeting: the symbolism is clear) and started to tell the assembled company how to fill in the ‘yellow form’[2], how to send their money to the diocesan treasurer and sundry other such inspiring bits of information. This high-handed hectoring had its effect: a week later the group no longer wished to open a new branch of Mothers’ Union...
I was reminded of a long-time member and experienced officeholder of Mothers’ Union who attended a biannual Council meeting and came away vowing never to attend another. She resented being “treated like a recalcitrant schoolgirl and being told what to do all the time”: again, I’m not the only one to notice this "managerial" style.
The current (mis)management team seems much more effective at driving people away than they do attracting anyone.
The current (mis)management team seems much more effective at driving people away than they do attracting anyone.
Postscript
I finally got a reply from the CEO (see “Invisibility cloak”) suggesting that perhaps I was right and that his previous reply had been delayed some three months in the post. Who needs a postal strike?
