Thursday 8 September 2016

BIGOT-JOHNSON FINALLY CALLS IT A DAY.........

Sadly , this blog has completed its journey because in essence it was a story , which like any other story comes to an inevitable conclusion.
The motivation behind this blog was to expose ignorance and injustice , and the harrowing tale of two parties locked in a bitter legal dispute wasting huge sums of money on legal fees without resolution. Such stupidity , such insanity.
The story kicked off with the flying bridge mate incident which triggered an all out witch hunt by the club committee to get rid of the pilot member,  who had over the years been involved in other skirmishes with club officials. The disciplinary process that took place breached every known rule of natural justice , which the committee vehemently denied. The fact the accused never had an initial hearing was never considered to be a major issue , let alone the presence of blatant bias which bordered on blinkered lynch mob mentality.
With the club committee spurning the offer of early mediation to right the wrongs of the internal appeal debacle , the rocky road of expensive litigation was soon embarked upon. Six years on,  but a few weeks before the scheduled trial each side was now out of pocket to the tune of £130,000 plus. Then , out of the blue , a reality eventually sunk in that the judge was almost certainly going rule that each party would have to pay their own costs irrespective of the outcome. This of course made the trial a pointless and futile exercise as the recovery of costs had ultimately taken over from the question " had there been a wrongful expulsion ". Why therefore waste any more money ?
However , what really galled me was that the committee members were never at risk of being made personal liable for the legal fees , having secured the backing of nearly all the members to fight the action using club money. Needless to say the these members were never given the full facts at any time about the dispute, or the financial implications of proceeding to court ,  having to vote on resolutions in ignorance of the committee's inexplicable errors of judgement.
When at last the plaintiff's hands down offer was accepted by the committee, the new chairman declared that a line needed to be drawn, and that this sad and sorry affair should be confined to the history books and left alone. Nobody was held to account and certain individuals who were ultimately responsible for wasting and squandering club funds on a lost cause were allowed to remain on committee , never prepared to acknowledge or apologise for their failings. 
As a blogger I wanted to tell this story if only to warn all other bridge clubs to avoid making the same mistakes this club did over a 6 year period. Hindsight may be a wonderful thing but foresight is so much better........and far less costly. 



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