MINUTES OF TRUSTEES MEETING 2nd OCTOBER

David
For someone who was adamant you didn’t want the world to see the Residents’ Committee minutes and was severely stressed when they were posted on the website you seem quite happy to turn into a keyboard warrior.
You are now getting stressed as your queries are not answered. At the moment time is constrained in answering the many emails regarding legitimate questions including Equal Contributions, house sales and alterations, insurance, utilities and all the other duties involved in the role of Secretary of the Trustees.
There are also spurious timewasting enquiries encouraged by the WhatsApp Group, ‘The Club Concerns’ with which, I believe, you have an association.
Very interesting, that you wonder why we ignore your advice which is always delivered authoritatively, is ignored.
It is because it is often inaccurate and usually unreliable.
Do you remember when, after Bob and Ken left, my wife and I were delivering the flyers to announce the Extra Ordinary meeting elect new Trustees? As we passed by your house, you invited us into your kitchen to meet with your wife, Sue and Vicki and Tim Davis. All members of the Residents Committee. You said, then, very authoritatively, that Trustees could not just announce a meeting as, in your opinion, 30 signatures were needed to call a meeting and we should cancel it. Your colleagues agreed with you. You also said we must vet the candidates in case we got the wrong ones and you further suggested we could just co-opt you. We ignored your advice and continued to distribute the flyers.

We had, in a subsequent meeting of the Residents Committee and Trustees, to ask you to read and reread section 24 of the Declaration of Trust – the document detailing the role of Trustees and how Roman Park Management Ltd is governed – ‘A Special General Meeting may be called at any time by the Trustees and shall be called by them on receipt of a notice in writing requesting the same and signed by at least thirty plot owners or a person owning at least forty plots on the Estate,’ until you eventually agreed that the Trustees had acted according to the D o T.
Roman Park Residents’ Club – Constitution
5. DEFINITION OF MEMBERSHIP
The Members of the Club will be those for the time being plot owners and/or residents of property on Blue Bridge and Bancroft Park and who are not in breach of the Deed of Covenant entered into with Roman Park Management Limited in respect of contribution payable and the Constitution and Rules of the Club and any By-laws made there under.

Equal Contribution invoices are usually sent out in late December / early January and are always payable on January 31st. In a conversation in the Summer concerning a long standing plotholder and regular user of the facilities you contended, as Membership Secretary, that although he hadn’t at that point paid his Equal Contribution, he was still a member. Can you explain this?

I believe this forms the crux of your personal opposition to the swipe card system as it would clearly differentiate between those who had paid the EC and were entitled to use the facilities and those who had not. You conducted a vigorous campaign under the guise of the Residents Committee opposing the implementation of the swipe cards. By using the Residents’ Committee email address and signing your emails as Secretary, Roman Park Residents Club despite there being no minutes recording and supporting such decisions you, and others, were misleading and possibly committing Fraud by Mis-Representation.
An instance of Residents’ Committee advice is contained in this email of 12th September.
From: Roman Park Residents Club
Sent: 12 September 2023 07:58
To: admin@romanpark.co.uk; manager@romanpark.co.uk
Cc: ‘Eddie Fisher’ ; ‘James Sloan’
Subject: Re: Roman Park Residents Club Club Premises Certificate
Response to Brian Kite email 30/8/23
Introduction
Thank you for your email. As a plot holder, resident and paying member of 32 years standing as well as the current Secretary of the Residents Committee I would comment as follows
As was pointed out quite graphically to you at the OGM on Sunday……
You seem to have largely ignored the various verbal and documented contributions and advice of the Residents Committee………….

Kind Regards
David Timms On behalf of the Roman Park Residents Committee
The so-called documented contributions are as only as Sue Timms has said, ‘in the emails’.
Please provide minutes of the previously held meeting which authorised the then Secretary of the Residents Committee to send this email ‘on behalf of the Residents Committee’ and in particular to the Licensing Officer, just two days after the Trustees’ AGM on which you comment. Please also include the invitation to members to this ‘extra’ meeting (which would be needed to authorise the sending of the Residents’ Committee opinions) in accordance with the Constitution.
When the Trustees placed an AOB question to the Residents Committee AGM held on Sunday 24th September 2023, ‘The Club agrees to occupy premises provided by the Company on the terms offered by it and subject to its terms and conditions,’ why have the Chair and Secretary of the Res Com actively opposed the introduction of the secure swipe system using the email address and name of the Res Com? Why has this policy not appeared in their published minutes.
You tried to cover this up by writing:
‘We would draw your attention to point 7 of our 24/07/2023 Residents Committee Minutes that are currently pinned to the Residents Committee notice board and have been for well over a week now. We would advise you that these minutes may be circulated to club members at the AGM to disprove your words if required.’
The extract you refer to says;
Meeting 24.07.23
Point 7 Electronic Swipe Card Entry System:
‘Despite our prior documented concerns, the Trustees went ahead and announced their plans to all households to introduce the electronic card swipe system without the agreement of the Residents Committee or any proper consultation with the club membership. Importantly we have established through direct and indirect communication with Milton Keynes Licensing Office that this is definitely not an expected or necessary licensing requirement to have an electronic card entry system and we have asked the trustees to withdraw their current license variation notice and rethink their strategy. In addition, we have made a Representation to the Council, highlighting our concerns.
This does not explain the series of emails sent in previous months with no mention of discussion, decisions made or even an explanation of your reasons for opposition to the swipe cards. Clearly such discussions had not taken place in the monthly Residents Committee meetings prior to that of 24.07.23 and were not, therefore, official Residents Committee policy.

As Sue Timms said at the AGM it’s not in the minutes because, ‘it’s all in the emails.’
How are your alleged 900 members going to know what the committee is thinking and doing if the minutes are not a complete and accurate record of meetings?
Even when Residents Committee minutes are published they are in a dark part of the bar where only those who visit the premises can see them. We know from recent meetings most members don’t visit the premises. So, how did the then Residents Committee inform all their members? No wonder at recent meetings residents complained they were not well informed.
In efforts to gain the requisite number of signatures to attempt have me removed from the Trustees it was said on doorsteps that I had DEMANDED the Petanque Club be given white cards. You repeated this allegation in the Club Coffee Shop in the week before Christmas. Could you explain how you placed this interpretation on my email? (see below)
From: admin@romanpark.co.uk
Sent: 16 July 2023 11:29
To: ‘Roman Park Residents Club’
Cc: admin@romanpark.co.uk
Subject: Petanque Club
Dear David
In conversation with the Petanque Club this morning, it appears they don’t, in fact, have any white membership cards.
Could you leave 50 suitable colour cards with Mandy please, for me to validate. I will collect names when the cards are issued.
Many thanks
Brian
Brian Kite
Secretary Roman Park Management Ltd
At the same time, which was in the week after you failed to obtain the requisite 315 votes needed to have me removed, Tim Davis, having previously ignored requests from the Trustees to explain in which ways I had, ‘exceeded my authority as a Trustee / Director of Roman Park Management,’ informed me it was because I had signed the Licence Variation Form. Were the signatories told on their doorstep that this was the real reason for the petition and that I had in fact signed it when authorised by the Trustees and in my capacity as Secretary to Roman Park Management Ltd?

Or were some told it was because I had DEMANDED the white cards for the Petanque Club and other fictitious reasons. One signatory even volunteered the information that he signed because he was told of the way the conservatory roof had been insulated – well before my time as a Trustee.
More than two weeks before the OGM, both you and Tim Davis had been given legal advice that you needed 315 votes in support of the motion which was totally unrealistic yet against this advice, Tim Davis, as seconder, went ahead. Truly a case when advice should be listened to.
On 22nd October you queried the necessity for the EGM on 19th November which was called because, ‘Without a Committee the Club can’t have a liquor licence,’ by posting on the http://www.romanparkclub.co.uk website, ‘All licencing responsibilities passed to the Centre Manager in January 2023 and the last time I checked there was no requirement to have a Wine Committee in the Club Premises Certificate, so our licence is not depend on it.

You also included the sentence, ‘Interestingly the Trustees are specifically excluded from product choice and pricing.’ Which was irrelevant to the topic and typical of comments throughout Residents Committee minutes.
You continued to insist that the Centre Manager could fulfil all the requirements.
In the final post you were referred to the Licensing Act of 2004 which stipulates all Private Members Clubs (we are such a club) must have a committee and by extension the Constitution of Roman Park Residents Club stipulates the Committee shall have a Wine Committee.
Sadly, you did not record a further comment but yet again your advice was severely flawed with, in this case, serious consequences had it been followed.
Can you, David explain how you reasoned that the proposal KR4 to the Residents Club AGM held on Sunday 24th September which asked for clarification of the Constitution to regularise the Gold, Silver and Red card system could possibly be amended by you (proposer) and Owen Jones (Seconder) to ‘Suspend Article Point 7 of the Constitution, “The Club agrees to occupy the premises provided by the Company on the terms offered by it and subject to its terms and conditions” for a period of 12 months from 24/9/23 to 23/9/24” .
What is the possible link between the two motions. Again, in your Reasons you quote advice of the Residents Committee. There has been no advice detailed in the Residents’ Committee minutes.
This motion failed as it required changes to the Constitution as the motion was not included in the original notice of the meeting.
Constitution of the Roman Park Residents Club 10b) Notice of the Annual General Meeting shall be displayed at the Club Premises in a prominent position not later than twenty-eight days prior to the date fixed for the Meeting. Such notice shall specify the time of the Meeting and business to be transacted.
On 7th August ‘The Residents Committee’ wrote, ‘We are further disappointed to read your minutes from your 15th July 2023 meeting where you have now awarded yourself the power to exclude paid up plot holders from the club if they have not “validated” their cards with you.

We believe you are continually overstepping your authority as Trustees and we thought you might be interested in some legal advice we received recently:’
There followed four paragraphs of text. When we queried the source of this ‘legal advice’ we received this response,
‘ We do not consider that the source of our advice should be important or relevant to you. It is the advice itself that you should be concentrated on.
As Trustees everything you do should be in the best interests of the 420 plot owners and decisions beyond your specific remit can only be made in proper consultation with them. Your latest self given dictate to banish paid up plot owners from the club because they have not “validated” their cards is way beyond your pay grade and can only be granted at a General Meeting with the appropriate consent of the owners.
The Residents Committee’
As with all advice the source is all important – who says so, what are their credentials, when was it written are all important components of the message and whether it should be taken seriously, or not.
All of the above would appear to be hyper critical of the Trustees and of little relevance.
So, all in all not a good track record on advice.
In conclusion I would agree with you that
First to go Brian Kite who joined in September 22 (but may be re-elected if he wishes to stand)
Followed by either Kim Bond or Mark Leggett (decided) by lot and then the others who both joined in April 23
Followed by Brian Southern or Lee Muncey to (be decided) by lot.