gavinthobaven

Dear members In reply to Mr Tatlock as he requests: Insurance policies relating to legal protection (in this instance of board members) have included in them a directive that the contents of the policy are not to be disclosed to any third party. Clearly this is because if someone had the intent to perform an act requiring that policy to be implemented they would be unfairly advantaged by knowing the full extent of legal coverage. The policy held by RA-Aus for this purpose has a clause stating that it is not to be disclosed and if it is then the policy is void. That was made very clear to the members of the board. The only harm that could be done is if the contents of the documents are made public. Regards

Well Bandit, I certainly cant argue with that.

Dear forum In line with complete honesty am happy to openly state that I am a freemsaon. My membership of freemasons has never affected my decisions on the board of RA-Aus. I have never been approached to vote in line with any other freemsaon based on my membership of that organisation and I could truthfully say I that I do not know for certain who is even a member of the "craft" on the board of RA-Aus. To me freemasonry is the only activity that I have exclusively shared with my now aging father. All other activities with him were shared with my brothers and sister, so freemasonry is very important to me for that reason. I might add that other activities I shared with my father included scouting as apparently that might be questionable as well. While I am here I will openly state that I am a buddhist as I noted that was also included in these posts and I wouldn't want anyone saying I keep things secret. I am not a communist though, sorry. Regards

A correction requires that the new information is correct. I will say no more on the matter.

Dear forum In line with complete openness I will make the following comment. I have been informed that there is some conspiracy theory being promoted by one or more members of this forum relating to membership of the freemasons. I am proud to openly state that I am a freemason, albeit I am not overly active in the organisation due to other commitments including the time I put into RA-Aus. The freemasons is a very historic and benevolent organisation. It is also very importantly an activity that I share with my father, the only activity that I have had to myself with my father making it very special to me. It also has very strict rules in relation to the freemason's public actions. Freemasons are forbidden to use their membership to gain any advantage. I have never been approached by any board member to vote for an item because of my membership of the freemasons and I would never countenance any such approach. Any suggestion that I have agreed to vote based on this membership is false and defamatory. I have been advised that there is sufficient information in posts to identify me and that information may state that my membership of the freemasons has caused me to act inappropriately in my board activities. If true I would find this offensive. People who know me will know that I am very easy going, but they will also know that I hold my integrity as a huge issue. If I find that posts on this forum, or any other, have defamed me I will not hesitate to take appropriate legal action. In West Australia defamation is listed as a criminal offence, items published within the state fall under this banner and publications, depending on their nature, may be deemed as published in the state even if they are written in another place. I offer the opportunity to any forum member who has posted any unfounded allegation or suggestion against me to publicly withdraw the comment and post a clear retraction. I would accept any such retraction as closure of the matter so long as it was genuinely given. Withdrawal should be done in the open by highlighting the comments and striking them out and posting a retraction alongside. A separate post confirming the retraction should also be placed so members coming onto the forum later would know that it has been done. I have been advised of details of the posting members and the post numbers of posts that may make these possibly defamatory comments. I expect that they posts not be subjected to any attempt to edit or remove them as this may constitute an offence of tampering with evidence or a conspiracy to pervert the legal process. I would expect that the owner and moderator on this forum would know that they may also be joined as a party to any legal matter coming from their forum. I would hope that reasonable care is being take by the moderator to ensure that the forum retains some integrity. In closing I am hoping that the information I have received is not accurate, but if it is the opportunity is there to bring closure to it immediately. I would be extremely upset if the organisation that I share with my aging father was being used to try to fuel an inappropriate attack on me and the organisations members. Regards

Riley I have responded to all emails that I have received and I have spent considerable time responding to telephone contacts from members. I will continue to do this while on the board. My votes on RA-Aus matters are always based only on what I consider is the best possible outcome for members. I am not ever inclined to vote in line with any dictate from others except the counsel of my members from WA when it is appropriate. My vote is also not always on the winning side, as is the case in a democratic process. I do notice things on this forum but I must note that when I attempted to open a line of communication with the forum I was personally attacked for my efforts. The last straw was when a person claiming to be a lawyer demonstrated that they either had absolutely no idea of how legislation works, or intentionally disregarded the way legislation works, just so they could try to belittle my comments. I said in an earlier post that I would contribute while the communications demonstrated a level of decorum. While many members of the forum showed commendable restraint in their quest for knowledge, a select few behaved like petulant children and as a result of their actions I decided that there was no way to reason with the unreasonable. I will continue to respond to member emails but I will not regularly contribute to this site as any attempt to inform members is quickly sabotaged by those running an agenda of their own. I cant blame other board members for abandoning the thankless process of communication on this forum due to actions of the few. Regards

I agree that we, as a board, could communicate better with the members. This is not an uncommon trait with boards, but it is not an excuse. I have tried to provide feedback to WA members via emails. I have managed to obtain some email addresses and try to drop a line to them when I can. I have sent out a few bulletins and will continue to do so. I also invite both emails and telephone calls from members. I don't think I have ever failed to respond to a member query and have had some long chats by phone. I would like to think that WA members know that I am available if needed. The email list I have is very much incomplete and privacy laws prevent me being supplied with a full list of WA members. I am pushing for a link for use of board members to select that allows us to email all our regional members, without knowing who we are sending to, to get around the necessity to provide us with lists of email addresses. I am hoping that this happens soon as the website develops.

I actually dont believe that there was a necessity to vote on the withdrawal for the reasons I stated. I can only guess the reason for the vote but I could only guess it was that they wanted to validate the consensus. I know that this forum has some issues with Mr Runciman as president. I can only say that he is one of the hardest working people I know for the organisation. He admits himself that he makes errors, as do I for that matter, but his intentions are good. I could honestly say that there is no member of the board who does not have the interests of RA-Aus at the forefront of our thoughts. We are not perfect, we do make mistakes but we also inherited a pretty messed up situation that we have been trying to resolve. Issues affecting members right now were not caused in the past two years, they date back a lot further than that. Having said this the board has not backed away from tackling problems and we continue to do so. I will continue to interact on this forum far as long as it is clear that my contributions are welcome. You will find that I will not become involved in arguments or blame games. I also don't agree with character assassination or defamatory conduct. If that is the intent then I will consider that I my contributions are not needed. Regards

I came on here to interact, because what I was hearing was that people wanted to talk to the board. I am trying to answer where I can but if the intent here is just to be difficult then maybe you might pick up on why people on the board withdraw away from this style of communication. I am happy to continue to interact while we are having an intelligent exchange of ideas but if you plan of just attacking all the time then we will have achieved nothing. Regards

John All I can say is that there were two occasions in the time I have been on the board where a member of the board stated by email that they had resigned. Neither had sent the email to the offices. They have both retracted their resignation and both were treated in the same manner. It would not be either fair or ethical for me to comment on a matter that I was not involved in. I therefore couldn't comment on your circumstance. Sorry. The posts I am placing on this forum are my own comments only. They are not official communications of the board or executive. I am just trying to put some perspective into the reasoning I have used in any determinations I have been involved in. Regards

The response is my own based on my reading of the valid legislation. I do have over 30 years of experience in reading legislation so I generally hit pretty close to the mark. If you read my other responses you might note that emails are valid if posted to the correct place. In this situation the email was not sent to the correct place and therefore was not valid. I wont comment on the remainder of your post as you appear to have already made up your mind regardless of facts. regards

I am happy to hear your queries and as you can see I will respond where I can. I am not familiar with Section 73 of that act. As it is ACT legislation and not Federal I would have to do some checking into where RA-Aus. was registered initially. As I do not know this information off hand I couldn't respond to your query. I wouldn't be surprised if RA-Aus. was a federally registered association to enable it to act as a regulator. If that was the case then the Associations Incorporation Act 1991 would not have any effect on the association. Legislation obviously only has effect int he place it was enacted. Even though RA-Aus. is currently based in ACT it doesn't mean it was registered there. If anyone can advise me on the place of registration I might be able to respond to that. Otherwise I will endeavour to find out. regards

Colin, emails posted to the correct place can be used in most cases. From memory my nomination was posted by snail mail but even if it had been emailed it would have been to the appropriate place for the nomination to go. If it had been sent somewhere else it would not have been legal. We cant go around laws because it suits us or our purposes. There are no consequences if things are done legally Regards

You are quite right that emails are legally accepted when posted to the appropriate place. The email from the president was not addressed to the offices of RA-Aus or any person based at those offices. Until it is posted to that place it is not a resignation by definition. I don't write the laws but that's what they say in this case. Regards

Yes I can confirm that since I have been ont he board there was only one other resignation submitted by email that was later withdrawn. That withdrawal was accepted and the member remained. The same standards were applied in both cases. Regards