It's not really the members' fault if articles no association, rules, procedures and such like are inappropriately changed because they don't vote against that change. I think it's entirely normal for members of any association or club to simply trust those running it to do so in a proper manner. When faced with sets of AGM proposals that speak in legalese my own eyes tend to glaze over, I'm sure I'm not alone. When I'm faced with a set of accounts I tend to assume that the Treasurer knows his or her job and has discharged it in a proper fashion. Lazy, sure, but that doesn't make it my fault.
It is this entirely reasonable trust and assumption that allows things to go wrong, but It's actually not my fault when they do. It seems apparent in this case that those members who have indeed questioned things, challenged anomalies, tried to get at facts instead of summaries, and acted in precisely the way that probably we should all act are not only onto a loser, but they end up suspended, in court, or perceiving little alternative but to resign. That really is, on the surface, unhealthy. Non-declared interest is unhealthy. A club finding itself needing insurance money or paying out legal fees is unhealthy - those could be avoided with the due care that a member may rely on being exercised in the club's management.
This "stirring", this persistent challenging, the arguments, they are all symptoms of a deeper problem. Any collection of twenty-odd thousand people is bound to have more than a few who won't just keep quiet, and indeed if that person is on a national, regional or county committee it really is their duty to be aware of what goes on and why.
There have been references on this thread and elsewhere to the history of it all. I'm not privy to that because I'm a newcomer, I haven't been around long enough to have absorbed it all, and most of it is spoken of in terms that imply we all know about it anyway. I don't. But what I have seen over the past couple of days coupled with the generally low standing of the CPSA with its membership does rather trouble me.
No comment from those that could clarify, only this business about the use of social media, which smacks to me of the relieved response of someone who feels he's found a cast-iron excuse for not responding meaningfully.
