Dysfunction, disharmony, disarray - the Poetry Society EGM

When I left the Poetry Society Extraordinary General Meeting yesterday I would have expressed my feelings in several more dismal alliterations – depressed, dispirited, disillusioned. Having since had time to reflect, and to read Jane Holland’s very positive blog post on the meeting, I do feel differently and hope along with her, and many others who attended I’m sure, that this is an opportunity for the Poetry Society to sort its management out and move forward.

If it doesn’t, the work of Kate Clanchy and the Requisitioners, who called for the EGM, will be in vain, the work of the Poetry Society itself will be in jeopardy and the members – including those newer ones like myself, who are just beginning to appreciate what a valuable resource it is – will have every right to feel let down and short-changed.

I suspect that the trustees would rather not have had yesterday’s meeting at all; the acting Chair’s surprise announcement that they would all be resigning in September certainly looked like an attempt either to avoid debate, or to obviate the need for the vote of no confidence, which they no doubt felt would further damage the Society’s reputation with the Arts Council and the wider world.

If the trustees had made their decision known to the Requisitioners sooner, it might have been possible to turn the EGM into an election of a new board. As it was, the meeting could only agree to have three members co-opted onto the board for the period until the results of a full election, involving all members, are known. This followed the vote of no confidence, which was held and duly carried by a large majority.

More questions than answers

Up to this point, the mood of the meeting had been to ask for answers to the many questions arising from the resignations of six senior figures in the Society, including its executive director, and the concerns expressed by the Arts Council about the Society’s governance and other issues, which had led the Council to suspend a grant of £78,000 secured by a bid largely put together by the former director.

Did we get answers to these questions? Yes and no. It became clear that the board of trustees had badly mismanaged a human resources issue within the Society – namely, a difficult working relationship between the Society’s director and the editor of the magazine. In awarding its grant, the Arts Council had singled out the magazine for praise; yet the director was universally credited with winning the money.

What to do if two key people in an organisation don’t get on? The trustees decided to ‘give the situation some space’ by removing the editor from the director’s line management and asking her temporarily to report to the trustees instead. The director felt this undermined her position and resigned. In so doing she apparently made a verbal threat to sue the Society, which the trustees say she has not formally withdrawn, although she has said she would like to return to her post.

At this point, as several members informed the trustees, there were many options open to them to obtain specialist legal advice at low or no cost. The trustees’ approach was to appoint the top-dollar firm Harbottle & Lewis, incurring £24,000 in bills – before any verbal threat had been carried through into an actual claim. (It still has not).

Difficult decisions

It could be said that all the trustees’ decisions were made in a bid to limit gossip that was apparently circulating about dysfunctional relationships at the Society, and not to jeopardise the Arts Council grant or other funding. Instead, their handling of the matter has led to an extremely embarrassing public washing of grubby linen, a question mark over the grant, and a huge bill.

Also, the trustees seem to have lost confidence in themselves; they did not even appear to have the confidence to run the EGM, having appointed a ‘facilitator’ to try to moderate members’ questions. This was a bit like attending a funeral where the vicar clearly did not know the deceased; the facilitator was well- meaning and competent, but completely irrelevant. There has clearly been more than one dysfunctional working relationship in the Society; I did not know the meaning of the words ‘basilisk stare’ until I saw the look on the Chair’s face when Paul Ranford, the finance manager who is working his notice, got up to speak. There was even a moment of farce, when it was revealed that the Society was live tweeting from the meeting, while the members could not because of lack of wifi in the hall.

Proceed with caution

For all these reasons I had no hesitation in voting for the motion of no confidence and believe the trustees did the right thing in tendering their resignations. I agree with Jane Holland that the job for members now is to remain (or become) fully involved and support the new board; they will not have an easy task, and this would be the worst time to be cancelling subscriptions.

The remarkable thing is that despite all the controversy, Poetry Society staff have continued working diligently for members – so much so that many will have had no idea that there was such trouble at t’ mill.

Now that we do know, I’m sure members will be taking a closer interest in the Society’s affairs, but hopefully in the spirit of mutual support and co-operation, so that the next meeting is a lot more positive and enjoyable than yesterday’s.

As well as Jane Holland's blog, brilliant summaries and thoughts on the EGM have been written by Katy Evans-Bush, George Szirtes, Polly Clark, Richard Fair, Jon Stone, Kate Fox and Phil Brown