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Paul Morrish

Edward

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Joined
Dec 2, 2010
Messages
756
So being hypothetical here......

So club board has 8 members, 4 of which are trust board members

The CB decide they want Paul M to continue on.. Fair play

So at the TB meeting there is a vote about keeping him on and lets say there are 10 TB members at the meeting.

The 4 TB who sit on the CB will vote yes and I guess the rest of the TB vote no which means 4 yes and 6 no...

So 6 part timers over rule the 8 CB members that include 4 TB members ...


Cracking piece of democracy that.. Just like a room of 150 people vote on Removal of Paul Tisdale Contract when we have 4000 in the trust..

In regards to Paul Morrish... How did you vote Doug and Pete....?? Just asking for transparency seeing some of the Exeweb massive voted for you.....
It is routine to portray a kinder version of events when folks are dismissed but I am not sure it is wise to wander so far from the truth that the reality is ignored.

Mind you, I have no idea whether Mr Morrish intended to stand for re-election or what may have happened at the meeting. That said, I do know that best practice corporate governance advises that non-executive directors should not remain on any board for more than nine years: Morrish served for ten. A key part of a non-executive’s role is to challenge the executive directors: it is presumed their independence (and questioning nature) might reduce over time. Freshening a board is typically helpful.

Of course, the board at ECFC has never come close to resembling decent corporate practice as it is dominated by non-executives (seven, six after Morrish's departure) with a single executive director, Mr Tagg. The Trust might have had its reasons for bolstering its board presence but none of them would trump the logic in having a strong non-executive Chairman, another experienced non-executive and an executive board comprising the CEO, Finance Director and Operations Director. If the Trust thought it needed board parity to thwart the will of the club directors, it should have removed those directors. The present set-up is absurd and I would defy anybody to find another similar turnover company in Devon operating in this way.
 

Red Bill

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To respond to Lez's hypotheticals from a general governance / best practice perspective, in my opinion:


No - from a governance perspective, the Trust membership elected a number of Trustees to serve on the Trust Board. Those Trust Board members then vote on matters impacting the Trust at Trust Board meetings and decisions are reached. None of the TB members are any more or less "full" or "part" time than the others.

Equally, the Trust Board members nominate 4 of the Trustees to also serve on the Club Board. That is a different role to that of the Trust Board. From a governance perspective, one aspect of the role of TB members that also serve on the CB, is to ensure that the decisions reached by democratic vote in the TB are appropriately brought to, and considered by, the CB.

Within that framework each individual is entitled to (and one could even say obliged to) stay true to their own personal moral and ethical compass; to vote on matters as they see fit based on their own understanding and interpretation of the matter at hand; and to maintain professional distance between their CB activity and TB activity in terms of ensuring the integrity of the governance model (this last part being perhaps the hardest).
This is an interesting point and one that to some extent I struggle with.

As I understand it, under company law, all directors including those appointed by the Trust are obliged to act according to their own conscience in the best interests of in this case the club and are specifically prohibited from representing or acting as agent for any outside body or individual, which would include the Trust. Now you would hope that their conscience would dictate that they act in accordance with the known wishes of the TB who appointed them and its been suggested to me that were a TB appointed director consistently act in a way that goes against the policy of the TB, the TB could and probably would remove them. However once these people become club directors, they will be bound in all matters discussed at CB meetings by the club's confidentiality policy not the trust's ,which can and I'm told does prevent them from reporting back on CB business to their colleagues on the TB. So if we don't know what's been discussed and don't know how they voted on matters arising, how do we know they are acting with the best interests and policies of the TB foremost in their minds and ultimately what is the point of having Trust appointments to the TB?

And just a further comment on Lez's post re democracy. The year before last, both Terry and I stood as candidates for election to the TB, as some of you remember we stood in a loose alliance with Clive Harrison and Matt Philips under what was roughly speaking a 'change ticket". Both Terry and I were unsuccessful meaning that not enough like minded people were elected to the TB at that time to affect that change. That year the turnout for the election was only about 20% (a bumper turnout I believe), but I don't remember any of the people questioning the validity of the Tisdale vote now complaining about democracy then. It seems democracy is only ok if you win!
 

Terryhall

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It is unusual Bill. In my mind I think of it in tiers, e.g.

Trust membership elects Trust Board - Trust Board discusses matters at their meetings; some of which can be shared with the membership (and goes in Part A of the minutes); and some of which cannot (and goes in Part B of the minutes).
Trust Board elects individual TB members to also be their representatives on the Club Board - Club Board discusses matters at their meetings; some of which can be shared with the TB; and some of which cannot

So those individuals that sit on both the TB and CB have a tricky job to say the least - regardless of their personal opinion on a topic, they have to properly represent the decisions reached by the TB in CB meetings. To stay hypothetical, you could easily see a situation where an individual on both boards might vote for/against a particular measure in the TB meeting; but the overall decision goes the other way - they are then required to present that to the CB in terms of the overall TB decision (which may go against how they personally voted on that issue) - if that then comes to a vote on the CB, they might (and some might say should) once again vote in line with their own beliefs (which would perhaps go against the TB's own democratic decision.)

It's certainly not an easy tightrope to walk in my opinion, sadly its much easier to criticise than it is to really try to understand the situation people are put in. For our part at least we can say that we put our money where our mouth was (so to speak), and that the electorate very democratically told us that either (a) we couldn't motivate them to even be bothered to vote, or (b) they were more persuaded by what others had to say / offer.

I'm not sure everyone who is critical of the Trust / Club structure could say the same.
 

Edward

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Dec 2, 2010
Messages
756
It is unusual Bill. In my mind I think of it in tiers, e.g.

Trust membership elects Trust Board - Trust Board discusses matters at their meetings; some of which can be shared with the membership (and goes in Part A of the minutes); and some of which cannot (and goes in Part B of the minutes).
Trust Board elects individual TB members to also be their representatives on the Club Board - Club Board discusses matters at their meetings; some of which can be shared with the TB; and some of which cannot

So those individuals that sit on both the TB and CB have a tricky job to say the least - regardless of their personal opinion on a topic, they have to properly represent the decisions reached by the TB in CB meetings. To stay hypothetical, you could easily see a situation where an individual on both boards might vote for/against a particular measure in the TB meeting; but the overall decision goes the other way - they are then required to present that to the CB in terms of the overall TB decision (which may go against how they personally voted on that issue) - if that then comes to a vote on the CB, they might (and some might say should) once again vote in line with their own beliefs (which would perhaps go against the TB's own democratic decision.)

It's certainly not an easy tightrope to walk in my opinion, sadly its much easier to criticise than it is to really try to understand the situation people are put in. For our part at least we can say that we put our money where our mouth was (so to speak), and that the electorate very democratically told us that either (a) we couldn't motivate them to even be bothered to vote, or (b) they were more persuaded by what others had to say / offer.

I'm not sure everyone who is critical of the Trust / Club structure could say the same.
Which is exactly why the current club board structure is absurd.
 

cityregular

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Feb 22, 2010
Messages
141
Steve Perryman's comments to the press --'NOt a nice place to be inany more' etc on his retirement from the club
and the ongoing Paul Tisdale's contract & last week on Radio Devon Taggy would not be drawn on the subject.

Dave----- am I anywhere near?
 

Terryhall

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Which is exactly why the current club board structure is absurd.
I'd describe it more as unusual than absurd, but it certainly does create an inherent conflict of interest that I can only imagine to be very difficult to manage for those impacted.

My failed attempt at being elected to the TB included a position of voluntarily adopting governance best practice from industry - the fact I didn't get elected told me that not many / enough people shared the same thinking.
 

Red Bill

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I'd describe it more as unusual than absurd, but it certainly does create an inherent conflict of interest that I can only imagine to be very difficult to manage for those impacted.

My failed attempt at being elected to the TB included a position of voluntarily adopting governance best practice from industry - the fact I didn't get elected told me that not many / enough people shared the same thinking.
I'm not sure I agree with you there Terry, although like me you didn't get enough votes to get you elected, I think the size of the vote you did get illustrated that there is a significant number of people who would like to see your proposals adopted. Of the four of us who issued the joint statement before that election, Matt Philips poled by far the highest, from what I hear he is also working on adopting governance best practice. I'm also convinced that had you lived in this country you would have been successful. But that's the problem with democracy, it allows the wishes of 49% to be ignored!
 

GrecianLez

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Apr 7, 2004
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The copy of the letter that I have suggests that he did wish to remain as a Director. Boyo's post 94 does seem to deserve an answer of some sort from the currently totally mute Trust Board. Don't hold your breathe.
Was the letter good? Did he come across well? Are we allowed to see it or is there a reason why we can’t?
 

GrecianLez

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The copy of the letter that I have suggests that he did wish to remain as a Director. Boyo's post 94 does seem to deserve an answer of some sort from the currently totally mute Trust Board. Don't hold your breathe.
Also will the Trust explain why they voted no and what they are looking for in a director that Paul didn’t fit the bill?
 

Northern Red

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Apr 27, 2017
Messages
139
So the last few weeks

Paul Morrish Resigned as a Director of Exeter City Fc

Steve Perryman Resigned as Director of OTR

Julian Tagg Resigned as Company Director of Laser Adventure Holidays ltd (after 27 years)

Terry Falcoa resigned as associated director of Exeter City Fc

Paul Tisdale Not yet interested in Resigning his contract

Anyone else due to resign or depart
 
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