I’m off to Scotland tomorrow and so, as Thursday sees the AGM of the Cadwgan Building Preservation Trust aka the Gang of Four + One, I have decided to put up a few of the many and varied documents that have come my way from all manner of sources (some very surprising!). They might help you better understand how this secretive and subversive grouping operates. A little light reading while I’m away, as it were.<\/p>\n
As I possess neither smart phone nor iPad I am almost cut off from the world of the internet when I’m away from home, and my old steam-powered computer, unless, that is, I can get to a library or an internet cafe. So please bear with me if I’m slow to approve comments. (Though I might be able to persuade someone to do it for me).<\/p>\n
However, I have arranged for someone to post news here if anything of note happens before, during or after the AGM. As I explained it to my stand-in, “I’m thinking now of some dramatic development like Dame Tucker eloping with Gareth Gregory or Sue ‘English!<\/em>‘ Lewis announcing that she’s joined the FWA.” (I wonder how the Cambrian News<\/em> would report that?) That’s enough light-hearted banter.<\/p>\n The obvious document with which to start is the Articles of Incorporation<\/a>. There’s not a lot here to excite any suspicion, apart perhaps, from the following:<\/p>\n 3<\/strong><\/span> Reminds us of my long-standing question as to why the Trust’s remit covers any building in and around the town of Cardigan. I could understand if it said ‘in and around the castle’, but the way it’s worded suggests that the trustees could take on other projects. A cheering thought!<\/p>\n 5.3<\/strong><\/span> Goods and Services. Has any trustee benefited from this? I see no mention of a tendering process.<\/p>\n More generally, I am concerned that the document has been amended. By which I mean, the document is ‘topped’ and ‘tailed’ by the date 21st of March 2000 yet the body of the document has clearly seen changes because there are references to the Charities Act 2011. (Unless of course the trustees were employing a seer back in 2000. And if so, then I hope the vacancy was better advertised than was the job created for Sue Lewis.)<\/p>\n If the document is being updated, as it clearly is, then surely we are entitled to know when, why, and on whose authority those changes were made. As things stand we can see that some changes have been made, but we may be unaware of others.<\/p>\n It would have been clearer if the original document had been kept pristine, and another, working version maintained for updates, with all updates and changes highlighted and explained. This hybrid version we now see is both unsatisfactory and misleading as it is no longer the document that was signed in March 2000 and is, therefore, of questionable status.<\/p>\n Next up is the Collaboration Agreement<\/a> between the trustees and Ceredigion County Council dated October 30th 2014. This substantiates the rumours saying that by the autumn of 2014, with the project falling behind schedule and needing to go to the Heritage Lottery Fund for an extra \u00a31.5m, the local councils – both county and town – were becoming a tad concerned with the running of the whole thing. As the owner of the Castle the county council seems to have insisted on greater involvement.<\/p>\n This ‘collaboration’ is made manifest in the minutes of the meeting of the Joint Project Management Board held on on Wednesday 26th of November 2014<\/a> . (Despite this co-operation coming about at the insistence of Ceredigion County Council three of the council’s representatives couldn’t be bothered to turn up). What caught my eye:<\/p>\n 6.01.14<\/strong><\/span> Note reference to “staff restructuring”. This is said to have been planned a long time before, but I have yet to see evidence for this. Which raises the suspicion that the ‘restructuring’ was part and parcel of the ploy to create a job for Sue Lewis.<\/p>\n That said, doing away with the post of Education Officer and creating the post of Facilities Officer gives us a clear indication of how the project has now been subverted into something purely and crassly commercial.<\/p>\n 6.05.2<\/strong><\/span> “Equinox has been appointed as the marketing company”. There was, presumably, a transparent tendering process before the contract was won by a company run by a friend of Gareth Gregory, the Heritage Lottery Fund’s man on the job.<\/p>\n The next document is the minutes of the December 2014<\/a> trustee meeting. I found these interesting for the following reasons:<\/p>\n 12.03<\/strong><\/span> ” . . . the meeting prior to the Full Trustee Meeting . . . “<\/strong>. There have been persistent rumours of the Gang of Four (+ One) holding secret and unminuted meetings, often conducted with Timms on the telephone from Kent. Is this a reference to such a meeting?<\/p>\n 20.02<\/strong><\/span> Under Any Other Business, almost as an afterthought, we find reference to the new post of Facilities Officer. This is the job referred to above, created for Sue Lewis by her friends Jann Tucker, Hedydd Jones and Sandra Davies once she ceased working for the Tivy-Side Advertiser<\/em>. Which probably explains why the three I’ve just named avoid being mentioned in 20.02.<\/p>\n The job was advertised, online only<\/a> between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n Other documents that might interest you are the Minutes of the 2014 AGM<\/a>. Note 5.01<\/strong>, this links with the aforementioned squeaky bum time in local council chambers regarding over-runs and appeals for more funding. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A little light is shone on this by a letter from the town council<\/a>. No doubt the town council was happy to put money into a project employing local people, but the council clearly believes the trustees have a cheek coming back asking for more money after sacking five locals. Note in paragraph three the reference to the change from “project to operational phase” which the trustees use, in part, to justify the sacking. The final paragraph is a clear reference to the devious and secretive way in which Lady Tucker and her gang operate.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Here are some figures to get your teeth into from the Project Completion Programme<\/a> dated December 17th 2014. And some more recent accounts<\/a> where you will see, under ‘Generated Income’, ‘Car Raffle’. This refers to a car donated by B V Rees of Llandudoch, to be raffled off with all proceeds going to the project. A few weeks ago, totally out of the blue, and from a source I would not have expected, I was told that the Castle had made only very feeble attempts to sell those raffle tickets. The figure shown on this sheet is just \u00a31007 – for a brand new car! What was the final figure?<\/p>\n*<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
*<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
*<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
*<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
*<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n