Since my conduct (and those of others) in respect of my past involvement in the Management Committee of Brighton Unemployed Centre is being called into question, here is a collective response to some of the allegations swirling around. Please feel free to read if interested, or disregard if not. Sorry...its long...... Open letter to the Volunteers at Brighton Unemployed Centre Its clear from your Letter to Tony which we received on 19 October that you have been misinformed (mainly deliberately in our view) about the problems currently faced by BUC, and the reasons for those problems. The first point is that from the beginning, when it was first discussed by Trades Council more than a dozen years ago the Building Fund was intended solely to purchase new premises, not to repair whatever building we were renting in the meantime. The Centre Management Committee took the view - unanimously until last year, by an overwhelming majority more recently - that we would spend the minimum necessary on repairs to a building that we would never own. However, in the summer of 2013 when it became obvious that several thousand pounds of repairs were needed the argument was not about whether or not to carry out the repairs - as you appear to believe - but over which repairs should be paid by which sector of the Centre. One view was that the non-charitable sector of the Centre - effectively the Building Fund - should pay for all of the repairs. The other view was that the non-charitable sector (which received the rent from the flat upstairs) should pay for repairs to the flat and the charitable sector (which used the rest of the building) should pay for the repairs to the centre itself. There are of course perfectly good arguments for and against each of those views: its to no ones credit that the debate became over-heated, with ill-mannered emails flying around. But the issue should have been settled for once and for all when the Centre Management Committee - the Centres governing body - discussed the issue and decided that repairs to the flat be responsibility of BUWC [the non-charitable sector]. The charities pay for the downstairs. (Extract from minutes of MC meeting 4 Sept 2013.) Unfortunately Giuseppina Salamone [GS] disagreed with the decision, and used her undoubted influence at the Centre to ensure that it was not acted on. The outcome is that over a year later hardly any of those repairs have been carried out - and this despite the sterling efforts of one of the trustees of the building fund to try and overcome the problem of arranging access for various tradespeople without the co-operation of some key representatives of the charity. While this was going on the Centre was facing other problems which took up a huge amount of time and energy for some of the members of the MC. The most significant of these was the fact that the fundraiser we had taken on proved to be uninterested in the job, did very little fundraising and took unauthorised leave for weeks at a time. It took far longer than it should have done to resolve this problem, largely because GS took it upon herself to act as the fundraisers representative, arguing that we should pay this person further wages. [The problem was finally resolved by the fundraiser leaving of her own accord.] Also during this period someone stole a cheque from the Centre , forged at least one signature on it and tried to steal £3000. Towards the end of October 2013 a member of the MC asked GS to write down what she thought were the fundamental issues. The statement she produced - clearly the result of careful thought - included the following:“We at the Centre are happy if we agree for a friendly and clear separation between the Centre (charities) and the building fund. This will stop arguments and unnecessary suspicions, personal attacks etc.” She also said, under the heading This is what we need to go forward:“No one at the Centre has any intention to use up the building fund. We believe that the Centre should be self financing.” [Incidentally, a few days later on 6 November 2013 Robert Bryan [RB] wrote: This hoard of cash, that honestly no one in the centre cares for one bit is yours, you are welcome to it as far as I am concerned. though in his case it probably was not the result of careful thought.] And, GS continued:“We want a solemn guarantee that the charities can continue to operate at 4 Crestway Parade”.As far as any of us can recall this was the first time that anyone on the MC had talked about Crestway Parade as anything other than a temporary base.At that stage we did not agree about the need for a separation between the Centre (charities) and the building fund - friendly and clear or otherwise. We have changed our minds on that. And while no one could give a guarantee about continuing at 4 Crestway Parade we have decided to offer the lease to representatives of the charitable sector - something that we would not have even considered a year ago. Anyone who didnt go through the process would find it hard to understand why it took so long to hold an AGM and elect a new MC. The delay was partly by mutual consent, partly due to circumstances beyond anyones control, partly because of pressure of other events - and partly because of a hope that tempers would cool if we waited a bit longer. But the long overdue AGM took place on 25 June 2014, and was attended by almost all members of both the charitable and non-charitable sectors. The elections were keenly contested but in spite of some difficult moments there seemed to be a positive mood by the end of the meeting. The first (and as it turned out only) meeting of the new MC was on 23 July 2014. Again, it was well-attended with only one member absent. Following a detailed discussion on finances the MC voted by a large majority for a resolution which GS disagreed with. [It concerned how to overcome the problem of a serious decline in the charitys finances; GS supported one method, the majority agreed to a different one.] Once she realised that she had not got her own way, she started shouting foul-mouthed abuse (screaming is probably a more accurate description), said that she would be looking for a new job and managed to completely disrupt the meeting for what seemed like ten minutes or more. (At the same time her partner Felton Shortall, present as an observer with no speaking rights, was also screaming abuse and looked as if he was about to carry out a physical assault on Tony Greenstein - so much so that one MC member felt it necessary to place herself between the two of them.) When, eventually, the meeting was able to resume the MC also discussed the issue of repairs and agreed - again by a large majority - that only the repairs identified in a letter from the Estate Agents should be carried out; the charitable sector to pay for repairs to the Centre and the non-charitable sector to pay for repairs to the flat. RB later referred to this decision: on 23 July 2014 the Centre’s management committee preferred to follow Tony Greenstein’s advice to dismiss this report and only agreed to pay for a few superficial repairs. But he failed to mention that the MC is the governing body of the Centre, and that only one of the eight Trustees of BHUARC - i.e. his employers - present at the meeting voted with the minority for the alternative motion. RBs version of events continues:Soon after, in a letter dated 28 August, Tony Greenstein and Bill North announced BUC Ltd’s resignation from the lease.While that is at least partially true it avoids any mention of what was going on between 23 July and 28 August.On 24 July, the day after the MC had comprehensively rejected her resolution GS contacted us, and made it clear that she had no intention of carrying out the MCs decision. Over the next few days she repeatedly demanded that we act on her resolution, refused to complete the financial statements if she did not get her own way and rejected all offers of help to overcome what she claimed were problems with the MC decision. RB backed her to the hilt in this. The MC majority was put in an incredibly difficult position: one option would have been to take disciplinary action against GS for what was clearly gross misconduct. No one was willing to go down that road as it would undoubtedly have led to the Centre being destroyed. Another result of the intolerable behaviour of GS and RB was that Tony Greenstein decided to end his involvement with the charities. This included a decision to resign as leaseholder on the Centre. The other leaseholder, Bill North, was not willing to continue as sole leaseholder. Without leaseholders there would be no lease, and without a lease the charities could not continue to operate at 4 Crestway Parade. We held a meeting of Trades Council delegates who had been at the AGM. All of these individuals are members of the Trades Council EC, including senior officers, and included nine out of the thirteen members of the Centre Management Committee. The meeting recognised, unanimously, that GS and RBs refusal to accept the democratic decisions of the Centres governing body represented a complete breakdown in the relationship between the charitable and non-charitable sectors - including the building fund. The two sectors had been able to work together because - despite all of the disagreements that occurred over the years, and no matter how heated the debate had become at times - there had always been a consensus about the overall direction of the Centre as a whole. Once that consensus was broken a formal separation between the two sectors was inevitable. The meeting also decided that the TC delegates who had been elected Trustees of BHUARC would resign those positions. This meant that eight out the nine trustees resigned, which illustrates the extent of the problem with absolute clarity. An organisation where a majority of eight to one (or nine/ten to three/four in the case of the MC) cannot get its decisions implemented is clearly in crisis: it must either break into its component parts or collapse altogether. We chose resignation rather than a continuation of faction fighting in the hope of avoiding any such collapse.We want to try and ensure that the charities can continue to operate at 4 Crestway Parade if that is really what they want to do. To make this possible we have offered the lease on the building to representatives of BHUARC. The exact details of how this could be achieved would need to be worked out (and we have offered to pay for up to £500 in legal fees for advice from the Centres solicitor - an offer which GS and RB have rejected). If necessary we are willing to hand over control of BUC Ltd (the company that holds the lease at present) to people nominated by the charity. BUC Ltd is a limited liability company, so there is no question of any leasholders being personally liable as a result of taking over the lease. It suits GS and RBs purposes to continually suggest that the charities are short of funds - though they have said very little about fundraising as a possible solution. But what would the situation be now if theyd accepted the decisions of the MC? Bearing in mind that the MC resolved: That the non-charitable sector would pay for repairs to the flat That for the rest of the building we would only carry out the limited repairs detailed in the letter from the Estate Agent, and that these repairs would be paid for by the charitable sector. Compare that with what we have offered - and which GS and RB rejected: That the non-charitable sector will pay for repairs to the flat The non-charitable sector will pay for most of the repairs to the rest of the building detailed in the letter from the Estate Agent The charitable sector can take over the lease, with the non-charitable sector funding up to £500 legal costs to ensure that this happens in the most advantageous way. The charity would obviously need to fundraise to cover other repairs that might be necessary - but would also get the income from the flat that till now has gone to the non-charitable sector. In any case, a self financing charity should have no problem raising funds for repairs to a building that it has occupied rent-free for fifteen years. No one wants to see the Centre close, but the only way that it can continue to operate from 4 Crestway Parade will be for BHUARC, the charity that all of you are presumably members of, to find two people willing to act as leaseholders. There is still time to do that - but only just. A decision not to take on the lease would be a decision to close the Centre. Tony Greenstein Bill North Andy RichardsJ ohn Johnstone Building Fund trustees and former Centre Management Committee members 22nd October 2014
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 08:02:45 +0000