Kate Clanchy on paranoid poets
Poets are easy to poke fun at. Their lives’ work may well be shorter than a cook-book, and have fewer readers. Their art-form is notoriously ill paid. And they fuss, almost by definition, about things which seem incomprehensibly small to outsiders: scansion, line-endings, reviews, precedence. They fuss with each other too, again over goods which may seem petty: a professorship, an editorship, a review.
All this can make for a difficult atmosphere at parties: a paranoia of poets, our Poet Laureate once proposed as our collective noun. But I’ve always maintained that the paranoia was only skin-deep. I was treated very generously as a new poet, and I have always told other new poets that they will be treated generously too. In particular, I’ve always laughed at the notion of a ‘London-based cabal’, and a sinister group ‘in control’ of prizes and publications. I’ve always pointed out, for example, that prize juries rotate, and so does the editorship of our central Journal, Poetry Review. If your work is not the taste of one judge or editor, it might be to the next’s.
I went into the work of organising a Requisition to find out what was going on at the Poetry Society in this same spirit: I thought that something very poetical and principled, something to do with an ampersand, would be found to be the problem, and that everything would be sorted well before I collected my 300 signatures.
I have been horribly disappointed: at each turn, with each anguished email and late-night strange phone-call, I have found out more and more things that seem to have come straight from the imaginings of a paranoid poet. For example, that the Editorship of Poetry Review doesn’t rotate at all, any more. The Editor’s post was made permanent in 2008, and no one was told. Now, this may be one of those facts that seems incredibly petty to outsiders, but to poets, it’s like being told that driving licenses have only been given out through one instructor for the last 3 years, and no one thought that to know this was any of a learner-driver’s business. Poetry Review is a gate-keeper magazine. The keys can’t stay with one person.
Then I found out that the whole Poetry Society schism was also based on Poetry Review. The editor had been lobbying for years to be able to work separately from the Society, and suddenly this year she was granted her wish. In order to gratify it, the Board met confidentially, changed the Director’s job description, by-passed staff and funders and, when the Director protested, pushed her to resign and threw her out the building. When they realised they had actually broken a number of laws by doing this, they started a search for ‘something on the Director’, and hired very expensive lawyers who racked up huge bills – all without the Director having taken any legal action herself.
Why? Why on earth would a group of apparently good citizens do this to a reputable Society, established for 100 years, and a Director who had just won a record uplift in funding from ACE? How could this destruction possibly be worth while in order to win better conditions for just one employee, and for the magazine which is just one part of the Society’s work? What was the impulse behind it?
And what could be the worst possible answer? Whispers from a London-based cabal, of course, of the sort I have never believed in. But at the EGM which our requisition succeeded in calling, that was the answer I got. The Acting Chair said that the relationship between the Editor and the Director, though it hadn’t been the subject of any official grievance, or caused concern to funders, was ‘causing public comment’. I asked about the comment, and was not only told that it had not been written down, but also that it had not been ‘open’ to Poetry Society members. The Chair told me: ‘You obviously weren’t at that party’.
No, we weren’t at that party, we scruffy, regional poets in the hall. We are, as the Guardian kindly pointed out, not party-animals but beardy, older, in sensible shoes. So easy to poke fun at. But 507 difficult, paranoid people did get together to find out what was going on. And I believe 1000 will sign the petition currently being put forward by George Szirtes, asking the Poetry Society to roll back and start again. I also believe that it will, and that a new, better, less paranoid Society will rise from what looks more and more like ashes. But then, I’m a very optimistic person, or I’d never have tried to rally a group of poets.
From Anne-Marie Fyfe, former Chair of Board of Trustees
So many of you, including press, have contacted me (since my questions at Friday’s EGM and since Judith Palmer’s statement on Tuesday mentioning my issue with the Trustees) asking for explanations, that I’ve put together a very brief summary (sorry I can’t answer you all personally).
Late at night after the pivotal 13th April meeting (about which you will have read in Paul Ranford’s statement and Judith Palmer’s statement) Chair of Trustees, Peter Carpenter, phoned me to demand that he be allowed to use a short e-mail note I’d sent him asking what was distressing Judith. He was afraid that night that changes they’d forced on her at the meeting could lead Judith to claim constructive dismissal and (as part of what the Board has since recognised as a “gross over-reaction”) said he needed to have use of that e-mail—showing Judith had attempted to contact me—to use against her as a supposed “breach of confidentiality”, should she ever take legal action. I refused permission. After a hectoring, bullying phone-call he gave up, apologising profusely some days later for his behaviour and promising not to use the e-mail.
The Board says it became “increasingly evident” Judith had revealed the contents of that 13th April meeting to me. She hadn’t. And they can produce no evidence that she had. But the accusation suits the Board’s purposes in allowing them, before and since her resignation, to hold over her the fabricated threat of legal action. And despite the assurances of one Trustee, both that the Poetry Society could never stoop so low, and that she’d been personally promised the accusation against Judith would be dropped, the threat was subsequently repeated and reinforced in a lawyers’ letter (which refers to me no less than five times!)
Laura Bamford, as Acting Chair, now says that the Board were unable to keep their promises, (although she will not explain why) and the Trustee in question has since resigned. (She was, incidentally, shown, by fellow Trustees, what purported to be a copy of the lawyers’ letter, but which strangely omits the “breach of confidentiality” accusation and omits the five references to me.)
After three months of denials, the remaining Trustees have now suggested, faced with detailed exposure of their fabrications, that I meet with them so they “fully understand events from my perspective”. Absurd. And totally pointless. They have all the e-mails.
This is just a small strand, I know, in such an appalling mess, but the Board’s reluctance to admit this one falsehood used against the Director, shows how desperate they were to clutch at anything, and failing that, to invent accusations, to force her to comply with, and keep silence over, the new “arrangements” they knew would be totally unacceptable to any Director or to the Membership. All symptomatic of a much wider climate of secrecy and culture of manipulation.
Petition to reinstate Judith Palmer as Director of the Poetry Society
(Please see the note below*)
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Proposed by George Szirtes:
As readers of poetry, poets, and members of the Poetry Society, we are distressed that the Poetry Society has experienced problems of governance so severe that the Arts Council has suspended its grant funding.
To help restore the Arts Council’s confidence, and to avoid an otherwise necessary suit for constructive dismissal by the former Director, we call on the Trustees to restore Judith Palmer immediately, (that is, before August 19th, the date by which such a suit must otherwise be filed) to her post on the contract she held on April 1st 2011. We further call on the Trustees and the Society to work with all parties concerned to identify and resolve the underlying problems which led to the breach, using all appropriate processes of the constitution and recognised good practice for mediation.
We ask this without apportioning blame and in the interests of a new start; and as the best hope for the Society which serves the art form we all love.
Liz Lochhead, Makar of Scotland
Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales
Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate
Jo Shapcott, former President of the Poetry Society
Simon Armitage CBE, Professor of Poetry, University of Sheffield
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NB – you DON’T have to log in to Facebook in order to sign the petition. You can go directly through PetitionOnline’s signing-in form beneath the Facebook logo on the Petition page.
Please check your signature: If you haven’t already done so, please return to the PetitionOnline page and check that your name has been added as a signatory. It seems that several people who signed in through Facebook have not been added to the list.
Verification: You should have received an e-mail with a verification link after signing the petition. Please make sure that you have verified your signature. If your name is followed on the list by ‘(unverified)’, you haven’t. Your e-mail address remains confidential and is never shown, and even I can’t get at it to ask you to click on the verification link.
___________________________________
*Note: This is a corrected and slightly altered version of the actual petition which, sensibly, I could not meddle with once the first signature had been added. Please read the ‘real’ petition at PetitionOnline carefully before you sign, because it is the PetitionOnline version to which you are adding your signature. The changes and corrections made above, which are not material to the matter of the petition, are as follows:
‘necessary’ replaces ‘inevitable’ in paragraph 2; the mis-spelling of Lochhead and the abbreviation of National have been corrected; Simon Armitage’s name has been added.
The responsibility for these errors and omissions is mine. Many apologies.
Martin Alexander – Admin
On Friday 22 July 2011 members of the Poetry Society recorded a resounding No Confidence vote in its Board of Trustees at an Extraordinary General Meeting called to discuss the ramifications of the recent spate of resignations at the organisation. One of those resignations was mine, yet the Board neither invited me to attend nor to present my evidence to members. In the hope of ensuring that the meeting stayed focused on the Board’s alleged reckless financial mismanagement, and on the urgent need to call this to account to protect the Society’s future, I forwarded only a brief outline statement. Given comments made at that meeting, I would now like to expand on this here.
On 19 May 2011 I reluctantly resigned from my position as Director of the Poetry Society. I explained my reasons to the trustees, stating:
“I loved the job I had, and the team I worked with. I was proud of our achievements and was looking forward to delivering the 4-year programme which had just been agreed. In a few weeks, the Trustees’ unilateral decisions, have made the Society a very unhappy and unproductive place. There’s total confusion. Non-executive trustees have unilaterally taken over responsibility for areas of my job. Agreed staff procedures aren’t being followed. Funding relationships are being mishandled. I’m no longer free to run the organisation using my professional judgement, and under these circumstances I cannot be held responsible, if the organisation begins to fail.”
Decisions were increasingly being made that I had no knowledge of or influence in – decisions made outside the contexts of normal, open, minuted meetings. I had a duty to carry out the instructions of Trustees, but found myself unable to reconcile this with my obligations to staff, funders, and members.
When I left, the Poetry Society was in excellent shape. I wished it well, and hoped it would flourish under the good stewardship of the Board of Trustees.
These are some of the circumstances that led to my resignation:
On 30 March 2011, after a year of huge uncertainty about the Society’s future, we received the good news that our funding bid to the Arts Council had been successful, and we had been awarded a 31% increase in funding.
Two days later, I was called to a meeting by the Poetry Society’s Chair of Trustees, Peter Carpenter. I believed we were going to be discussing the urgent problems facing other organisations in the Poetry Sector. Quite out of the blue, I found there was something else on the agenda.
The Chair told me he’d been waiting until after the funding announcement to tell me about a proposal put to him by Fiona Sampson, the Editor of Poetry Review, a proposal that he’d been discussing with her since January without my knowledge. She requested a new working arrangement whereby she would reduce her days, work mainly from home, and report directly to the Board. I must emphasise that this was put forward as a permanent arrangement. It was initially communicated to me verbally and, a few days later, in writing.
The timing was completely unexpected. Although the relative integration / independence of the Society’s magazine Poetry Review within the Society’s activities had been a regular subject of debate throughout the Editor’s tenure, and long pre-dated my appointment, this had not been a recent subject of discussion.
In September 2008, before my time as Director of the Poetry Society, Fiona Sampson approached the Society’s Board of Trustees with a similar proposal. She requested that her fixed-term contract be made permanent and that the structure of the Society be altered to raise her status and allow her to report directly to the Board rather than continue to be managed by the Director. The Board rejected both suggestions (7 October 2008). The Arts Council was involved in the discussions, and supported the Board’s rejection of the proposal at a subsequent Board meeting I attended on 20 November 2008.
I queried with Peter Carpenter the timing of this revival of Ms Sampson’s proposal in 2011. We had only just submitted a detailed 4-year plan to the Arts Council that had been supported fully by the Board. The plan had reflected a fully-integrated Poetry Society, and this was the vision endorsed by the Arts Council. To make such a significant change now seemed to me both dishonest and dangerous. Our funding offer from the Arts Council remained only conditional.
Carpenter apologised, but explained that poets were putting pressure on him, the Board were going to split over it, and that Ms Sampson had suggested she would otherwise leave.
I raised serious operational concerns about how the proposal would work in practice, explained that many other members of staff would be affected and they would need to be consulted. I explained that the staff had all been working hard in an atmosphere of great uncertainty and did not deserve a major upheaval just when they were expecting to enjoy some well-earned stability. I must emphasise that I did not reject the proposal: however, I gave my opinion that the proposal was potentially destabilising and could jeopardise the Society’s future funding; and that our urgent priority ought to be playing an active role supporting those poetry organisations that had received cuts in funding, rather than looking inwards. I clearly needed more time to consider this. The Chair’s response was unexpected. I was forbidden to discuss the matter further with him, in an email dated 2 April, 11.36.
There followed, in my opinion, the most extraordinarily stubborn and ill-considered sequence of actions by the Board. A confidential Board meeting was called (4 April, 08.34). I petitioned the Chair four times to think carefully before preventing the Arts Council from attending the meeting as stipulated in all previous funding agreements. The Chair replied: (5 April, 08.09) “There is no need for ACE to know of the content of our board discussion… It is confidential to the board and thus only the business of the board.” I pleaded to be given the chance to gather information for the Board in order to help them make an informed decision. (5 April, 09.16). This was refused. I asked to know what would be discussed, and was told that it would be only ‘organisational structure and related issues’ (12 April, 09.31). I was not invited to attend the meeting, and neither were the staff who usually attended Board meetings (Paul Ranford and Rebecka Mustajarvi). However, I would be required to return, unaccompanied, to hear ‘the outcome of our discussion’.
I was unprepared for the nature of this confidential meeting on 13 April. With no independent witnesses present, and with no preamble, I was read out two Board decisions: ‘There will be a formal job evaluation of the Director’s role & responsibilities’ and ‘The Board accept the proposal as set forward by the Review Editor’. I asked to discuss this, and was told that that was inappropriate. There was no written proposal to discuss, no costings, no time-frame, no implementation framework, no staff consultation plan. I prided myself on running a professional organisation and I was responsible for safeguarding the employment rights of staff. I was responsible to funders and members for delivering against agreed objectives. If the Board were not prepared even to allow me input into such significant decision-making, I warned them I would have to consider my position. I further warned them that they were acting in disregard of my rights and interests and I might have to consider resignation.
This meeting was timed immediately before I was due to go on a long-planned trip to Australia, and I took the precautionary measure of sending a formal letter (17 April) requesting that no organisational change be made until proper discussion could take place on my return. The Board waited until my return, but implemented the proposed changes immediately and without discussion (10 May). Peter Carpenter confirmed he would “split off Poetry Review so it reports to me [Peter Carpenter]”. I feared this was the first step towards a much more profound separation of the Review from the Society.
As the Board began to take legal advice, they appear to have realized the depths of the hole they had dug for themselves. They insisted the restructuring proposal was not permanent, but just a 3-month trial (though with no end game declared for determining whether it would continue or not). And they appear to have tried to find things to justify their actions in retrospect. They maintained suddenly that the proposal was being implemented to ease my workload, for example; or that it was as a result of strangers talking at a party regarding an apparent rift. I do not accept that any actions were taken as a result of a desire to ease my workload, and I have been given no evidence of people talking at a party. Indeed, I have received inconsistent accounts of this alleged conversation. My job description was then re-written and casually presented to me. Finally, months after I left, I learned for the first time, from remarks made by the Acting Chair at the EGM, and reported in the press, that apparently Trustees were giving me a ’breathing space’ from contact with another member of staff – even though they had reassured me time and again there had been no complaints about my management.
I raised concerns about the divisiveness of giving one member of staff preferential terms and conditions and perhaps making her feel isolated; I raised concerns about the need for proper consultation with staff; I raised concerns about the need to have a structured plan to avoid operational confusion; I raised concerns that there was no business case for the changes imposed; and I raised concerns about spending and funding. I also raised concerns about the way I felt I had been treated personally and what I felt to be unacceptable and unremitting bullying behaviour towards me.
If the Board were implementing organisational changes, I asked why they didn’t recognize the necessity of contacting the HR consultants we had on retainer for employment law advice – who could and should have been consulted, free of charge, and whose indemnity policy that protected the Poetry Society was now no longer valid as their advice had not been sought. An invoice from lawyers Harbottle & Lewis was presented to me, and I had to sign a cheque for expenditure that I had been unaware had been commissioned by the Trustees. I had previously secured the services of a legal firm pro bono for the Society, and was never asked if we had any existing arrangements in place before Harbottles were instructed. I believe Members and funders should have full information as to how funds are being spent, and it is for that reason that I raise this point.
Eventually, there was chaos, with different Trustees in and out the building, contacting different members of staff directly (rather than going through me as was usual practice) with random unplanned instructions. Trustees insisted I drop important planned priorities to attend unplanned meetings about their ‘organisational changes’. On one occasion the insistence that I attend a meeting at 24 hours’ notice prevented me from preparing for a presentation on which a £100,000 funded project depended. When I requested the proposed meeting be rescheduled to enable me to carry out my job effectively, my request was refused. I asked again if I could give my view on the place of Poetry Review within the structure of the Society, and was told (9 May) “please would you explain why you assume that the status of a meeting that members of the board choose to have with the Editor depends upon ‘the contents of our discussion’.
I wrote Trustees a letter (11 May) outlining my grave concerns about the consequences of the Trustees’ recent diversion from our agreed priorities for the current year. Included amongst my concerns was this: “It is a condition of Arts Council funding that the organisation tell the Arts Council if it wants to make significant changes to the agreed programme…We urgently need to discuss the further impact of recent events upon our Arts Council funding. I am concerned that the funding was awarded to us on the basis of a certain set of circumstances, which have now been fundamentally changed without any discussion with me let alone the Arts Council.” I reassured Trustees that we had an excellent relationship with the Arts Council, and in my professional judgement ACE would be supportive as long as we talked things through openly and honestly with them.
I found the behaviour of certain Trustees increasingly intimidating and on 17 May I received a direct instruction to conceal information regarding issues within the Poetry Society from the Arts Council at a forthcoming meeting. Despite the fact that our funding agreement insists “The success of the relationship relies on effective communication and the sharing of information”, I was told I must convince the Arts Council it was ‘good news, good news, good news’. I was told that if I let the Arts Council know I had any concerns about governance, I would face immediate disciplinary action. I had grave concerns about governance, and would not lie about this, and so on 19 May, I resigned. I felt I had no option but to take this step.
Peter Carpenter accepted my resignation, and on 20 May, he and Trustee (now Acting-Chair) Laura Bamford, arrived unannounced at the Society’s offices to cut off my email and tell staff they were not to let me back in the building. I was not in the office, since I had booked a day off. They didn’t think to tell me personally my employment had been immediately terminated and I would not be required to serve the notice that I had given them. I was on a train to Liverpool when a letter was couriered to my home address, which I therefore did not receive until two days later. Certain members of staff were apparently invited to read through my emails while I still remained uninformed that I was no longer working for the Society. There was to be no handover – no cancellation of meetings, no changing of bank signatories, no guidance notes left or to-do lists talked through.
This is only a brief summary of the events that led me to resign. It was not (as has been suggested) because of my working relationship with a member of my team or due to my workload.
To deflect attention from their own actions, it seems the Board have tried to throw people off the stench with false allegations about myself and Fiona Sampson, and the prospect of legal action.
I have not taken legal action. I have repeatedly reassured Trustees that I have no wish to take legal action. The Poetry Society’s Board of Trustees, however, has already spent £24,000 on legal advice – on a range of matters – in the few months since they first adopted a new management style and decided to step beyond the bounds of their usual remit. Last year, there was zero expenditure on legal advice. In addition to the £24,000 already spent this year, at least £3000 has been spent on unplanned additional PR, supposedly to mitigate reputational risk. To give you an idea what these sums mean to an organization like the Poetry Society, some of its staff earn around £17,500 a year. Imagine how those staff must feel, watching this wanton expenditure. Imagine how painful it is for us to contemplate the toil and the toll of raising the money that the Trustees have so recklessly thrown away.
Members must now ask whether these Trustees were acting in good faith and in the best interests of the Poetry Society. Given the current state of the Poetry Society’s Arts Council funding (suspended until further notice), the Board’s ‘no-one need know’ approach does not appear to have served the Society well. Out of concern for my colleagues I have been wary of making the Board’s actions public. It seems quite clear, however, that funding cannot flow again, until the truth is out and a new Board is up.
Judith Palmer
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All of the above can be supported by letters, texts, emails, and witness statements.
Those Trustees on the Poetry Society Board throughout 2011 were Laura Bamford, Alan Jenkins, Emma Bravo, Jacob Sam-La Rose, John Simmons, Duke Dobing, Wendy Jones, John Richmond, Barry Kernon, Jacqui Rowe and Anne Jenkins.
Robyn Bolam and Peter Carpenter have since resigned.
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27th July 2011 10:00 am – This post has been updated with minor corrections
EGM – Vote of No Confidence Passed
A vote of no confidence was passed at the EGM: 302 for, 69 against, 11 abstentions.
The current Board announced at the beginning of the meeting their intention to resign, with a view to a new Board being in place for the AGM which has been moved from November to the beginning of September.
The current Board expressed an unanimous wish that the Society should emerge from this meeting as a stronger, more transparent and more stable institution, to the benefit of the Society.
In the interim, and following the vote of no confidence, it was agreed that three new Members of the Board suggested by the meeting will be co-opted to the Board in order to fill currently available seats.
Though it would be constitutional for the Board to resign one after another in order to co-opt all five of the Members earlier recommended by the requisitioners, of whom three were submitted for consideration by the Board along the one Member nominated in the meeting, the Board insisted that it wished to remain in place as a collective Board with unity of responsibility.
In the intervening period before the AGM, nominations for the new Board, to be appointed in September at the AGM, are invited. Present and co-opted members will then have the opportunity to stand again.
Minutes, notes and a dramatic, professionally mixed but extremely long and tedious audio recording will be posted soon.
Anyone who listens to the whole thing will do so at his or her own peril.
Infinitely more promptly and palatably served is Phil Brown’s distillation of the twitter feed that didn’t make out of the hall because of lack of signal. Here’s what survived.
This statement is being distributed now in Lincoln’s Inn. We wanted the rest of you to share it too.
Statement from Paul Ranford, Resigned Finance Manager of the Society
My name is Paul Ranford. I am a Member and the current Finance Manager of the Society. I have given notice of my resignation as Finance Manager – a job I much enjoy – on the grounds of loss of confidence in the actions of the Trustees. I want to set out why. My statement here is supported by written evidence which I have with me today in the form of minutes, emails, or accounts. Insofar as these comments refer always to members of the Board, or the Board, as if they were all the same, I would like to make it clear that we have very much appreciated the principled honesty of Wendy Jones, Barry Kernon and John Simmons, in particular.
April
Four months ago, The Poetry Society was at the peak of its reputation and influence. Well regarded by its stakeholders, highly energetic and creative in its art, benefiting from careful stewardship of funds, we emerged from a very worrying period of uncertainty when we heard that we had been successful in our detailed bid for increased public funding when all around were being cut. The Director, Judith Palmer, was almost entirely responsible for that successful bid. I admired her dedication and commitment; as I did that of the Editor of Poetry Review and all the Staff at the Society.
In early April the then Chairman undertook discussions with the Editor without informing the Director and reached an agreement that “for a 3-month trial period” the Editor would report to the Chair rather than to the Director, that the Editor would henceforth work mainly from home, and that the Editor’s hours and days would be relaxed to 3 from 4 days a week with no alteration in pay. This was agreed by the Board at a confidential meeting on 13 April.
The Director was informed of these changes on (or about) the day that the ACE award was made, just before she was due to have a much-needed holiday. The Director found the new arrangements unacceptable, as I could well understand. They were divisive in terms of the other staff, who didn’t enjoy such benefits, and they implied errors of judgment and failures of the Director’s ability that were neither deserved nor accurate. They seemed like a personal slight, a humiliation, especially when she had just led the Society to an extraordinary result with the Arts Council.
I was not the only member of staff to feel like this. We asked for a meeting with the Trustees to gain an understanding of what was happening. That meeting (on 15th April) began with the Chair noting that ACE had “no concerns” with recent developments, and a warning that all staff attending should avoid personal remarks in case they constituted a “grievance” – a baffling and aggressive thing to say. The Chair then informed us of the Editor’s new working arrangements. The Staff raised some concerns, particularly: (1) that Trustee intervention in management issues so soon after announcement of the Arts Council award seemed ill-timed – we had a plan to work to which would involve significant changes, why not implement that plan rather than some ad hoc arrangement? (2) there were several practical difficulties involved in Poetry Review being produced by an Editor working from home, when the Production Manager undertook print management from the office supposedly in partnership with the Editor – we did not think these difficulties had been properly thought through.
We were also uncomfortable, as Staff, to be discussing the personal employment terms of one of our members, especially when those terms seemed unfairly favourable. For example, one Trustee said that the Editor “wastes a lot of time travelling to and from the office”, which seemed a tactless remark to staff who spent their own time and money in travel. Our concerns were transmitted to the Board in writing on 9 May 2011. We received no substantive response until 3rd July after complaining at its lack.
May
Discussions continued with the Director on her return from holiday. I attended some of them as a non-participating note-taker for the Director.
On the 10th May, I attended a meeting between the Chair, another Trustee and the Director. Here, the Director was informed that there was a need for “some shift in the culture of the Poetry Society”. But no investigation had been carried out into the existing “culture” in the office. So this seemed like odd management practice.
On the 19th of May, the Director resigned. On May 20th, the Chair and another Trustee visited the office and informed us that: (1) the Director was to be excluded from the office, her keys returned and her personal items collected by her during one accompanied visit out of hours; (2) that her email account was to be closed, and access to the computer system was to be denied immediately; (3) that there would be no handover of the information held by the Director; and (4) that here was to be no further contact with the Director.
We were shocked by these grim arrangements, which left us effectively rudderless. I asked one question – had any attempt been made to consult with any member of the Staff in the room at the time (all senior staff except the Editor were present) before taking the action that had led to the Director’s resignation, or which related to the necessity for such an abrupt departure? The answer was given by a Trustee – “I don’t know why you think that would be appropriate.”
I was so appalled by these actions of the Trustees and these arrangements, and their effect on the staff, that I tendered my resignation to the Board on May 22nd. I have since been working out my notice. During this time, the behaviour of the Trustees worried me more and more.
June
Staff were informed about the resignation of Jo Shapcott, the Society’s President, on 10th June, one full week after the event, via our own website (which had been updated by a member of staff, remotely while on holiday, on instruction from the Trustees). Trustees treated staff protests about this in a wholly dismissive manner. Members would not wish their Trustees to act in this way.
At a Board Meeting on 8th June, the Arts Council had made the following statement:
“In our view, there are some doubts about whether the Poetry Society is currently able to meet the terms of its Funding Agreement – in the areas of governance, management, leadership, reputational risk and reasonable care.” (Very similar concerns have since been disclosed to Kate Clanchy in correspondence from the Arts Council.) The Arts Council then went on to require assurances from the Board concerning all these areas in a document to be delivered by 6th July in order to “release the next grant payment” which was due in early July.
This was (and remains) highly alarming news. What shocked me even more, however, was subsequent communication from the Trustees. On 13 June, for example, the Trustees wrote to a group of enquiring concerned members saying “we can assure members that the Arts Council is fully informed of developments in recent weeks and has assured the Board of its continued commitment to both the Society and the Poetry Review, which it sees as an excellent and integral part of the Society’s funding” (We never did find out why Poetry Review came into that discussion.) Directly to staff, on 29th June (3 weeks after the Arts Council concerns had been received) a Trustee denied knowing whether ACE had any concerns which might result in the grant being deferred. Staff were finally informed about the suspension of the grant on the 1st of July (thank you, John Simmons). It is not easy to understand how these documents and actions reconcile with each other.
To the date of the EGM, that funding grant of £78,000 (due to be received in early July) has still not been received and appropriate assurances requested by the Arts Council remain undelivered.
July
As Finance Manager, I became increasingly worried about one other issue: the willingness of the Trustees to disburse the Society’s money on legal activity in defence of a potential action for constructive dismissal taken by the Director. In April, this bill was £1,500, in May it was £5,000 – in June it was £16,500. That totals £24,000 so far, and counting – we do not have the bill for July. In any event, that is an awful lot of legal advice for an action that has not yet commenced. PR advice cost a further £3,000.
I also became concerned about the potential settlement costs if the Director did sue for constructive dismissal. Constructive dismissal is not easy to prove, but I had seen for myself and understood from the Director that her union had advised that she had a strong case. The whole thing – lawyers and settlement – might add up to £50,000 or £70,000 or even £90,000+ in total. The total free reserves of the Society as last reported, built up over 100 years, was in the region of only £120,000.
This recklessness worried me more and more, and I believe members will find it truly shocking. All I could see was the Poetry Society being significantly damaged for no good reason that could be explained to me.
I wish to assure Members that I have beseeched this Board, as individuals, in my resignation letter of 22 May and in long emails since then, to consider their positions and not to continue to imperil the Society’s standing with the Arts Council. I have been met with stubborn refusal from the previous Chair and the Acting Chair to accept that these are truly urgent issues. My concerns have treated dismissively – and occasionally condescendingly. At last, after my most recent attempt failed last week (14th July), I determined to put these concerns to the Members at this meeting and allow them to consider the matter and decide on whether they had confidence in this Board. I must tell you that I do not. Over to you.
Paul Ranford FCA MSc BA(Hons)
21 July 2011
“We are the members: you are the Trustees. Your authority comes from our trust. We need you to tell us what you have done, and why, in order for us to continue to trust you. That is why we are requiring you to have an extraordinary meeting.” – Kate Clanchy.
As a result of news of the recent requisition of an Extraordinary General Meeting by over 400 Members of the Poetry Society, delivered today (Tuesday 5th July) to the Betterton Street office (in a wheelbarrow), the Board anticipated the requisition by calling a General Meeting for the 22nd July. We assume that the General Meeting will be upgraded to an Extraordinary one following the requisition. The Board’s announcement is appended below.
Proxies
Some members will be unable to attend, and will need to have a proxy in the event of any motions being put to a vote.
Go to the Poetry Society’s Facebook page to volunteer or to find a proxy. You’ll need to be a member of Facebook to do this.
Alternatively, please click on the Proxies link under the chimney above if you’d like to offer to be a proxy or to get in touch with one.
Meeting
Here’s the announcement from the Board:
“NOTICE OF GENERAL MEETING
The Poetry Society (Incorporated)
Company Number 01557657
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a General Meeting of the above-named company will be held in Lecture Theatre 1, The Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE on Friday 22 July 2011 at 2.00pm for the following purpose:
To outline the future strategy of The Poetry Society and to receive members’ input.”
Location and directions
Click on the Events link at the top of the page for details on how to get to the meeting.
