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Remembered Today:

Butte de Warlencourt sold?


Skipman

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I suspect Mrs May (and I'm not being political here) is pretty glad she doesn't have to sort this imbroglio out as well as everything else.

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4 hours ago, keithmroberts said:

I think you were unfortunate in your contact.

I suspect I was, though he was the man the local branch chose for their "meet and greet stand".  From what you and Gareth say I should give them another look.

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The other potential benefit from WFA membership is going to be access to the Pension records on Fold 3 that a few of our members including myself have been testing out. They  are only partially uploaded at present, and I don't like the search system particularly, but for those who don't want to take out a Fold 3 subscription the WFA membership seems like a good deal.

(I get no commission for making that point).

 

Keith

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32 minutes ago, keithmroberts said:

The other potential benefit from WFA membership is going to be access to the Pension records on Fold 3 that a few of our members including myself have been testing out. They  are only partially uploaded at present, and I don't like the search system particularly, but for those who don't want to take out a Fold 3 subscription the WFA membership seems like a good deal.

(I get no commission for making that point).

 

Keith

They are certainly a good resource although I've not had much time in the last couple of weeks to login and test.


Craig

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47 minutes ago, keithmroberts said:

potential benefit from WFA membership is going to be access to the Pension records

That is certainly going to produce some distortion to membersip stats!

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2 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

I suspect Mrs May (and I'm not being political here) is pretty glad she doesn't have to sort this imbroglio out as well as everything else.

😂😂

 

Bernard

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It will only be  a WFA imbroglio if members of the WFA decide they wish it to be so - as some on this thread have indicated they appear to. 

Edited by David Filsell
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  • 2 months later...
On 01/11/2018 at 13:48, Blincodave said:

Her resignation statement on Facebook is a real indictment of the EC's role in this unsavoury process

 

New to this thread. I thought I read that the Charity Commission was doing an inquiry into the sale of the Butte? 

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Interested members will probably have to wait until the AGM or a related mailing for any further news. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend as the date clashes with our own conference in Birmingham which was booked about 11 months ago. Its an unfortunate clash, but can't be avoided.  So far as Peter's post above is concerned there was a report of an enquiry from the charity Commission. Whether that escalated beyond a polite letter seeking information is unlikely to be known before the AGM.

 

Keith

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Mr P,

If you are a member of the WFA, I would have thought your question would be more appropriately addressed to the chairman or secretary - rather than the forum

regards

David 

 

Edited by David Filsell
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I think it's an entirely appropriate question to ask on the GWF.

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5 hours ago, David Filsell said:

Mr P,

If you are a member of the WFA, I would have thought your question would be more appropriately addressed to the chairman or secretary - rather than the forum

regards

David 

 

Or the Charity Commissioners perhaps?

 

However I see no reason why the WFA [of which I am a very long-serving member] should not be subject to critical scrutiny. At my most charitable, the B de W saga might be seen as a PR disaster. 

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Sorry, no intention to cause a debate. I only asked because I heard there was going to be an inquiry and I had not heard anything further. I made a working assumption that the trustees has done what they did for good reason and I was then surprised by the stuff I saw on social media/GWF etc.

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Peter,

No problem with with a debate. But factually  accurate information, rather than rumour was the very reason I suggested you should speak to the organ grinders rather than an axe grinder. 

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Who is the axe grinder David?

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I cannot for the life of me follow these noises off.

Are these encyphered messages from Gillingham and the WFA and the Charity Commissioners?

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On 15/03/2019 at 17:52, David Filsell said:

Mr P,

If you are a member of the WFA, I would have thought your question would be more appropriately addressed to the chairman or secretary - rather than the forum

regards

 David 

 

That's OK if you want a private conversation with the chair or the secretary - but where do you go if you want an open discussion on the issues, where everyone who wishes can make a contribution and we can learn from the debate? Certainly not the WFA website. All we know is that there is a working party at ... work - but looking at what? Who are they (why don't we know their names?), who appointed them, what was their remit, and why can't we see their discussions, interim conclusions? What's the secret?

 

Irrespective and the rights and wrongs of the BW sale, how it was managed has created a big problem of trust between the WFA EC and the members, who have been treated by the EC variously as the enemy within and wayward children. The first steps back to a healthy relationship would be openness, a willingness to listen, a discussion of alternatives and an agreed route forward. How these issues have been managed so far does not encourage any confidence - and  neither does what is going to happen in the future. I assume that this issue will be aired at the AGM - but when and for how long?

 

There is a half a day devoted to the AGM when presumably this issue will have to be shoe-horned into a slot between all the other AGM related business. The morning session which could have been devoted exclusively to BW and member relations has been given over to talks about POWs and shell-shock. Really important - but not here and not now. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Spring Conference organisers want to bat this problem into the long grass in the hope that it will crawl away and die. The EC is behaving like the Bourbons - they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

 

I write this as a WFA member of 30 years standing and a participant in this Forum since its inception in 2002.

 

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Hedley,

 

Very many thanks. I heartily concur with every word. My first WFA issue is number 6 so I do go back a long way, and I have not been a lurker but a contributor within my few and narrow fields of sketchy knowledge. 

I have written this before but will repeat:

at best the BW matter was and is a PR disaster, at worst something deserving legal scrutiny. The episode beggars belief with its ineptitude.

I am not optimistic about a positive outcome, or openness, or even an explanation, and my implicit trust in the leadership [for want of a better word] is severely damaged.

 

I am not holding my breath.

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Thank you Hedley, I fully agree with your post. I can offer a tiny sliver of light on the working group and the secrecy. I am a member but I couldn’t attend the initial meeting and so my input has been by email. I argued strongly ahead of the meeting that the WG needed to be transparent. Another WG member argued the same at the meeting. 

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On 30/10/2018 at 08:11, Grovetown said:

 

I've wondered what the WFA is for for some time. The publications used to keep me paying, yet the content now is generally either incredibly niche (NCOs of C Bty, CLXXV Brigade RFA in Italy, November 22nd to 30th 1917) or glorified genealogy (or both): there's only so many 'My Great-Uncle on The Somme' articles you can take*.

 

I've needed a definite reason - less the sale itself per se, but absolutely the handling of it - not to renew and shan't.

 

 

Further to the above in October, I cancelled my subscription and diverted the the monies to increase my long-standing monthly DD to the Army Benevolent Fund - a laudable organisation engaged in 'practical' remembrance.

 

Not that the WFA has noticed - I'm still getting the publications!

 

Cheers,

 

GT.

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For what it is worth, I do not think anyone will learn from the debate - or not much; opinions have been, piu o meno, decided.

 

So far as I can see the best option is to vote for an EC of your choice, which is (I suppose?) the main purpose of an AGM. More or less everything else will be the deaf not listening to the deaf (a bit like Brexit debates .... ). Start of with a new EC and take it from there.

 

More or less casually last week, I looked back through some STs and Bulletins from the last few years when in Tabot House and with some relatively idle evenings on my hands and was quite startled to realise what I had inadvertently missed when I first received them and did not pay enough attention at the time.

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I suspect that you may well be right Nigel.  But I am trying to do my bit to make some changes - but there is a huge amount if inertia.

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On ‎16‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 01:57, Peter 1914 said:

Sorry, no intention to cause a debate. I only asked because I heard there was going to be an inquiry and I had not heard anything further. I made a working assumption that the trustees has done what they did for good reason and I was then surprised by the stuff I saw on social media/GWF etc.

The trustees may have had a good reason for what they did but they may still have been in breach of their duties. Charity Commission enquiries often take several years so it may be a while yet before they report.

Edited by Heid the Ba
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In recent years I have generally impressed by the trustees and, given they are all volunteers, they seem to have done pretty good job. Hard to think they would have acted without thought. No one more committed to the Butte than Bob P though so it’s good it has gone to someone like that.

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