RSGB Abandons 2010 Board Election

A few days ago, the RSGB made the following announcement:

"Governance of the RSGB is regulated by the Memorandum and Articles of Association (M&A) of the Society, a copy of which may be found on the Members’ only section of the website.

"An irregularity has been identified in the nomination of the two candidates to stand for election as nationally elected members of the Board. Unfortunately, it was not noticed until after RadCom had gone to press that both candidates shared two nominators. This is not in accordance with the M&A and therefore the candidates were not properly nominated.

"The Board has considered its options under the M&A and has determined that the only course of action open to it is to declare the election for nationally elected members of the Board invalid. Given other requirements of the M&A, the Board will now co‐opt both candidates as Board members for a twelve month period until the next election (late 2011) when the candidates may stand for election again.

"The Society very much regrets this error, but believes that the best interests of the membership are served by acting as set out above."

This simple apology, without a description of how the error occurred or what steps have been taken to ensure that it does not recur, belittles a serious breach in the process by which members have their only input on important aspects of the operation of the society.

The structure of the RSGB is that the members elect the Board. The board directly appoint the chairman of committees, and the chairman of the committees appoint the committee members and define the mode of operation of the committee. The operation of these committees has a major impact on the amateur radio in the United Kingdom.

A number of us in CARC already have grave concerns at the lack of accountability, lack of transparency, lack of openness, and unwillingness to take member input into their decision making, of RSGB committees. This is particularly the case with the ETCC which directs Ofcom in the allocation of spectrum to major amateur radio systems such as repeaters.

Thus the RSGB Board has this year denied the membership of the society any input into the only part of the process that it can use to affect decisions that have major impact on the regulation and operation of amateur radio in the United Kingdom.

Given that in some aspects of its the work the RSGB acts as an agent for the elected UK government, the absence of a proper Board Election in 2010 is, in my view, an affront to democracy and therefore unacceptable behavior by the body that represents amateur radio in the United Kingdom.

Stewart/G3YSX