[hackerspaces] Leadership abusing powers. Bullying. Extraordinary General Meetings.
Dan Schmidt
dandaman9000 at hotmail.com
Wed Feb 25 16:08:52 CET 2015
> But can a banned member call an EGM?
Looks like LHS leadership made this option available to him three weeks ago in accordance with UK law:
"According to the Companies Act 2006 s303 as amended by the Companies
(Shareholders' Rights Regulations) 2009, you are entitled to call a
general meeting if 5% of the membership consents. "
If he hasn't called one yet it's probably because he hasn't gotten 5% consent which means he's out of luck.
________________________________
> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 15:42:28 +0100
> From: baconzombie at gmail.com
> To: discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Leadership abusing powers. Bullying.
> Extraordinary General Meetings.
>
>
> But can a banned member call an EGM?
>
> On 25 Feb 2015 07:56, "David Cake"
> <dave at difference.com.au<mailto:dave at difference.com.au>> wrote:
> If there is a documented grievance procedure that has been agreed on by
> the membership, and the leadership followed it, then they have done the
> right thing. It may well be that some people have, in the course of
> that, behaved in ways you disagree with, or made judgements you
> disagree with, but that can happen in a well run organisation for a
> variety of reasons. Not everyone has the same views, or wishes to run a
> shared space the same way. Barring higher level legislation, if a
> majority of people sufficiently disagrees with you about what is
> socially acceptable and the rules are being followed, you should abide
> by it or leave the joint space.
>
> The only remaining option is an EGM or a motion at an AGM.
>
> David
>
> On 21 Feb 2015, at 9:22 am, Brendan Halliday
> <wodann at gmail.com<mailto:wodann at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Peter,
>
> The tone you took combined with your cherrypicked examples of your
> interpretation of 'good' behaviour set several red flags.
>
> I've been helping out and organising at many community organisations
> over the years and it's been a constant that the members that are the
> most toxic and most dangerous to the community are the ones who:
> 1. Must always have the last word. Always.
> 2. Disagree with the stated (or sometimes poorly communicated) expected
> conduct of the group
> 3. Generally agitate for their own goals (which usually do not match up
> with the organisations') while attempting to remain buddies with the
> rest of the membership.
>
> So I spent less than a minute reading your links and came across this:
>> /On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 10:23:53 AM UTC, Peter Meadows wrote:/
>>
>> /I don't have time to go around asking everyone which pronouns they
>> prefer!
>>
>> I think it's funny to call people 'it'. If it upsets them, it can come
>> and talk to me and I'll try to help it develop a sense of humour. (and
>> if it really can't do this, I'll stop calling it 'it' in public). /
>
> To me, the links you have provided have indicated that the LHS
> executive have acted very clearly and with considerable cohesion on
> this matter. It's also clear that they are familiar with the Geek
> Social Fallacies and do not wish them to rule their space.
>
> From all indications you have provided, I can't see any actions as
> bullying or seeming to be motivated by hidden reasons.
>
> If anything, you should move on and perhaps re-evaluate how you handle
> social interactions - because if you're not the unconstructive member
> that you're portraying, then you need to work on communicating it
> clearer.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 10:27 AM, Edward L Platt
> <ed at elplatt.com<mailto:ed at elplatt.com>> wrote:
> From the outside, this looks like a pretty good example of how leaders
> *should* respond to a complaint. Members complained, and they responded
> by:
>
> - taking the member complaint seriously
> - issuing clear warnings
> - giving specifics about what the problem was
> - following agreed-upon procedures
>
> Some questions to ask in cases like this:
> - Why are people complaining about your behavior?
> - Do you disagree with the code of conduct, or do you disagree with how
> it's being applied?
> - Is the leadership applying policies unevenly? If so, how?
>
> It sounds like you have a disagreement with a majority of the
> leadership, and at least some of the members about what types of
> behavior are acceptable. If this is really an abuse of power, there are
> probably a lot of bystanders who are just going along with things
> because they don't want to make a fuss. I second the suggestion of
> finding them privately. Otherwise, you have to decide what's more
> important to you: being a part of that community, or not having to
> follow their norms.
>
> -Ed
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 3:56 PM, peter
> <phm at riseup.net<mailto:phm at riseup.net>> wrote:
>
> Does anyone have advice/experience with the leadership abusing their
> powers, doing unconstitutional/unethical things? (specifically:
> bullying members with mental 'abnormalities').
>
> What happened? Did anyone try to stop it? Has anyone ever called an EGM
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_general_meeting) about it?
>
> I'm attempting to do this at London Hackspace.
>
>
> Grievance Procedure Update - Peter Meadows banned for one year:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/Io8vDQvaT84<https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/Io8vDQvaT84>
>
> Notification of a second formal warning for Peter Meadows:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/7WE1zuRWKbk<https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/7WE1zuRWKbk>
>
> Fwd: Re: Your first formal warning:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/bDlpFC6Lg2o<https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/bDlpFC6Lg2o>
>
> Fwd: Re: Your behaviour in IRC:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/uNFjdFI7tmY<https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/uNFjdFI7tmY>
>
>
> Thread about my food getting chucked in the bin:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/E4Gom_ave4c<https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/E4Gom_ave4c>
>
> (I suspect this was done by a 'trustee' as revenge for me suggesting
> 'doorbot' should
> not be blaring out loud music into the space every 5 minutes. (although
> nobody has owned up to doing it, (despite other members insisting that
> it was not a mistake, and it was done with the best interests of the
> space at heart)):
>
>
> Thread in which I'm accused of 'de-humanising' the cleaner by calling
> it 'it':
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/gFJpT3zPj3c<https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/gFJpT3zPj3c>
>
>
>
> I think they invented the stuff about IRL harassment because they would
> look silly banning me just for supposed 'trolling'. (I was NOT
> 'trolling').
>
> There is CCTV in the space, so we can determine very easily if I was
> 'following' people around. They refuse to give any details about what
> the CCTV shows.
> They refuse to give any details about the nature of the real life
> harassment. I can provide many witnesses that spent time with me day to
> day in the space, and that will testify that I have not harassed
> anyone.
>
> David Potocnik writes:
>
> " Anyway, I've been linked to this discussion and I can't see a very
> descriptive account of what actually happened. "Harassment" can be a
> number of things and it is also perceived/felt (right?), so I suggest
> being more expressive."
>
> And:
>
> " This is the second example of somebody being banned for other people
> finding them "annoying". With anonymity, the trustees become an
> arbiter of good taste (TM) at their own discretion, possibly backed up
> by howling wolves. Fine. I'm sure the Trustees are aware of the
> problems in both historic examples of various annoyances to
> "civility", and on the other side a modern trend in false harassment
> accusations. (Even if this is not the case here).
>
> This was actually apparent in the linked "it" email on cleaning. Peter
> was accused of "dehumanizing" (morally bad!) a cleaner. But when I
> read into it, what I saw was him/it playing an (annoying) semantic
> game: idea of doing away with normal conception of "human person". As
> I read it, this is only "insulting" if you read it through your own
> moral lens, the proper one. He/it wasn't being selectively
> "dehumanizing" either.
> For me it was an example of this person's somewhat annoying and
> non-constructive behaviour, as much as general cultural hegemony."
>
> And:
>
> "Guys, restating, I am not - or was not - agitating on anyone's behalf.
> Related, nothing is being put "up for debate", though things are
> freely debated. (Etc. A careful reader might have found more worrying
> cues in follow up responses to my last one.)"
>
>
> Then they accuse him of 'agitating' on my behalf.
>
> So clearly anyone that speaks up in my favour is going to get bullied
> like this.
>
>
>
> They are now censoring my list posts, so I have no way to respond to
> the false allegations.
>
>
>
> London Hackspace Ltd Articles of Association:
> https://london.hackspace.org.uk/organisation/docs/articles.pdf
>
>
> https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Organisation
>
>
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>
>
> --
> Edward L. Platt
> http://elplatt.com<http://elplatt.com/>
> http://civic.mit.edu/users/elplatt
> http://i3detroit.com<http://i3detroit.com/>
> @elplatt<http://twitter.com/elplatt>
>
> This electronic mail message was sent from my desktop personal
> computer. Please forgive any long-winded, overly-prosaic ramblings.
>
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