Romer resigns!
Unfortunate events are occurring at the
Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP). The chair, Christian Jensen Romer (known as
CJ), has resigned, along with the treasurer, Dr Becky Smith, plus a number of
executive committee members. Becky
remains as treasurer on paper to satisfy legal requirements and to hand over to
her successor, when appointed, in an orderly manner. Meanwhile, the organisation ties itself in
knots as factions snipe at each other on ASSAP’s Facebook page – a forum open
to non-members as well as members. As a
member myself I have naturally followed events with interest.
The circumstances of this rift were
initially murky. Gradually it transpired
that a faction of five individuals on the executive, pretentiously calling
themselves ‘The Fellowship’ (a soubriquet they seemed a little embarrassed by
once it had been made public), set up a private Messenger group bypassing
ASSAP’s three directors: the chair, the treasurer and the secretary (Claire
Davy). On the face of it the problem
seemed to be a simple oversight in informing the Charity Commission of a change
to the Articles of Association, something that, while awkward, could surely be
easily rectified.
Articles of Association confusion
What was the nature of this oversight? An email was circulated to members on 3 July
by Dr Hugh Pincott, ASSAP vice-president and company secretary (who has not
otherwise been involved in the situation).
This contained a motion to be put to an EGM to be held on 25 July: ‘That
the illegal Articles of Association agreed in 2010 be rescinded, and replaced
by the previous ones of 2007. The latter are agreed to be valid by the Charity
Commission and deemed by it to be our governing document.’
His explanatory notes amplify how this state
of affairs had come about. Essentially,
ASSAP’s original 1981 Articles of Association were updated in 2007, then
further updated in 2010 and passed by the membership at that year’s AGM. But one change was that ASSAP should have
only three directors – chair, secretary and treasurer. The Charity Commission had stated that all
trustees are directors, and an organisation should not have only three. The 2007 version allowed all trustees to be
directors.
The EGM motion over Pincott’s name
therefore invited members to discard the 2010 Articles, which would not be
approved by the Commission, thereby reinstating the 2007 ones. Further, it would ‘protect our present and
future Directors (doubtless acting through ignorance of the Law) from criminal
prosecution by the Commission and Companies House.’ Such a proposal is wise, looking at past
history.
No doubt if the 2010 Articles had been
sent to the Charity Commission this problem would have been swiftly pointed
out, but they were not, through an oversight of the then chair (not CJ) and
secretary. So not knowing of this
update, the Charity Commission assumed the 2007 Articles were in operation,
while the ASSAP executive assumed the 2010 version was valid. Once this anomalous situation had become
apparent, realisation dawned that something needed to be done. Consequently, CJ spent hours on the phone to
the Charity Commission to check that the 2010 articles complied with the law
and were valid.
The Fellowship rings in
Unfortunately a subset of executive
members managed to blow up an administrative problem into chaos. Whether rightly or wrongly, the three
directors CJ, Becky and (apparently) Claire understood The Fellowship intended
to remove them, using the confusion over the Articles as ammunition, even
though none of the three had been involved in the 2010 error. This involved The Fellowship contacting the
Charity Commission direct, without the chair’s knowledge, rather than through
the official organisational channel, in order to confirm the accuracy of CJ’s
statements. The result was seen as
circumventing and undermining the directors.
This was what led to CJ and Becky’s resignation, followed by several other
members of the 13-strong executive (CJ’s announcement on Facebook of his
departure has since been deleted). The
major responsibility for sorting out the mess has fallen to Claire.
Parsons speaks
Naturally once the news of CJ’s departure
broke there was alarm and despondency among the members, and a great deal of
criticism was levelled at The Fellowship.
Initially there was little appetite by the Fellows to put their side of
the story, but first Bill Eyre placed a defence on Facebook, then Steve
Parsons, followed by a formal statement signed by all five. In his commentary, Parsons noted the
difficult personal circumstances CJ and Becky faced at the time the problem
with the Articles came to light – Becky had suffered a bereavement in March,
affecting both of them deeply – and while the fellows were conscious of the
risk of losing Becky and CJ (presumably by undermining their authority, though
Parsons is not specific on the point), it was felt action was required.
While nobody would disagree with that aim,
the methods adopted are open to question.
Parsons asserts they were in fact doing CJ a favour by trying to ease
his workload as they were obliged to ensure ASSAP’s good governance, and the
extra pressure might have caused CJ to quit, something they were keen to avoid
(even though in fact he was busy dealing with the Charity Commission to sort
the problem out). So they weren’t really
going behind his back as conspirators, just being helpful by trying to clarify
the situation prior to an executive meeting.
Parsons stresses there was no secrecy, but it’s hard to see quite how
this process was transparent with the chair and treasurer excluded, plus other
executive members missing. He makes no
reference to the secretary, who should have been included in such discussions,
as she made clear in a Facebook comment.
There was in fact no legitimacy to The Fellowship’s actions.
And the name? Group chats require a title according to
Parsons, so The Fellowship was used off the cuff, with no deep meaning. My understanding is the group was using
Messenger, not WhatsApp as originally stated, and it isn’t necessary to give a
Messenger group a name, so I don’t know what Parsons is referring to here. He feels it was unfortunate this desire to
help had the opposite effect of pushing CJ to resign, leading to hostility
towards The Fellowship. And finally, he
says, if the entire executive were to resign, as has been mooted by some
members, then ASSAP would cease to function.
That is true if they were not replaced, but there may be members willing
to take on the challenge, and be team players.
The Fellowship puts its side
There followed a ‘Statement of facts
relating to the governance of ASSAP’, dated 15 July, signed by the gang of five
and sent to members, which at least finally made clear all the names of those
involved. This picked up many of the
points in the statements released by Eyre and Parsons on Facebook. Noting they now formed the majority of those
left on the executive (five out of eight), the rest having resigned, they put
forward their version ‘to clarify events.’
They refer to statements made by CJ at executive meetings during 2024
about governance which concerned the signatories and of which they claimed to
have been previously unaware. A group
held ‘offline’ discussions (i.e. not in meetings of the executive) ‘to identify
their concerns and consider how these could be raised with C J without causing
upset or offence or seeming to make any false accusations.’
They could have said to CJ they were
worried about the issues he had highlighted and suggested they seek to resolve
them collectively. I’m sure he would not
have been upset or offended, quite the contrary. Yet the Fellows refer to ‘accusations’
because bizarrely ‘we had gained the impression that CJ was perhaps ‘inventing’
rules as he went along and thought that he had produced a ‘new version of the A
of A [Articles of Association]’. One can
see why CJ might have been offended by the suggestion, but they could have been
put right easily enough had they only asked.
Reading the Articles would have helped comprehension. Either CJ was spectacularly opaque in his
presentation or the clique was being disingenuous.
What to do? Well, they continue, they were going to talk
to CJ, but before they had a chance, they say Stu Neville informed him of these
secret discussions, at which point CJ resigned, making allegations that there
was a ‘secretive coup to overthrow him.’
It should be noted that Neville, who resigned from the executive when
the scandal broke, was said by CJ not
to be the source, rather he was told by three separate individuals, one of whom
had signed this very statement – it sounds as though members of The Fellowship
were not being candid with each other.
But they claim there was no coup, secret or otherwise, so CJ was wrong. As ‘concerned trustees’ they were merely
trying to work out the correct rules, adding it is not unusual for subsets of
executive members to discuss items such as events or training privately before
bringing them to the attention of the full executive.
All blown out of proportion then. But these constitutional matters are more
fundamental than training or events, which would be handled by the executive
member responsible before discussion by the full executive. Furthermore, CJ had brought these items to
their attention, so it seemed odd to exclude both him and the secretary from
the Messenger chat when CJ was operating normally despite Becky’s bereavement,
and Claire would have been perfectly able to contribute. Yet the directors were conspicuous by their
absence from the group, despite the key role they would need to play in
rectifying past mistakes.
The regrettable misunderstandings
The Fellowship claim they acted with the
best of intentions, and CJ’s resignation arose from two misunderstandings, one
on either side. The first was their
assumption that the 2010 Articles had been ‘the work of CJ,’ whereas they had
been the responsibility of a previous chair.
They were told this by CJ after he resigned, and they say that had they
known beforehand, there would have been no need to have the ‘offline’
conversation. They do not concede that this
is what you get when you cut a key player out of the loop and act on incomplete
information. The second was CJ’s
assumption that there was a plot to unseat him and seize the leadership of
ASSAP. It was never contemplated ‘owing
to it being an onerous, time consuming, yet unpaid, role.’
A fair assessment, yet they still undermined
the chair, and presumably the notion didn’t pop into CJ’s head from nowhere,
unless The Fellowship want to add a charge of paranoia. They conclude that the business could have
been avoided by having an executive meeting before CJ resigned, though they
could easily have requested one by approaching the secretary. They maintain that ‘CJ’s decision to become
petulant, resign and involve the whole of the ASSAP membership in these matters
has undoubtedly brought ASSAP into disrepute,’ a sentiment a contributor on
Facebook characterised as a textbook example of gaslighting.
The Fellowship said they had initially
refrained from commenting to avoid further argument, but had no choice because CJ’s
‘distorted account’ had resulted in ‘malicious accusations’ against The
Fellowship, though actually their silence had stoked annoyance as it looked as
though they had no adequate response. When
CJ resigned there was an outpouring of affection for him on the Facebook page,
with many positive comments about his various activities for ASSAP, and a
marked feeling he had been hard done by, but criticisms were measured, not
malicious.
While they thought CJ was a good
researcher and speaker, The Fellowship believed ‘his petulant nature and
periodic outbursts when dealing with other members of the Executive does make
us doubt his suitability for the Chairman’s role.’ They had previously said they had no plans to
oust him and couldn’t think who else might take on this ‘onerous,
time-consuming’ position anyway, now he is unsuitable for the job. The thought processes appear confused. An indignant Hayley Stevens took exception to
the repeated use of petulant and wrote a blog post titled ‘ASSAP Exec. Loses Plot, Call (sic) CJ Romer “Petulant”’.
Romer bites back
Not only Hayley Stevens took exception. The Fellows’ self-justification evoked an
email to members from the man himself, a clearly annoyed CJ setting out his
‘final statement’ following his earlier Facebook interventions. Beginning by highlighting the lack of
communication leading to this outcome, he exonerates Neville from the charge of
having dobbed The Fellowship to him. He
also mentions in passing an allegation by The Fellowship that he had changed
passwords when they had not been changed, indicating a worrying lack of
competence on their part. He alludes to
complaints made about a talk he had given, though no details have been
aired. Naturally he is vexed by the reference
to petulance because naturally he sees his action as proportionate and
considered.
He says he and Becky were planning to
stand down at the 2024 AGM in October anyway, but wanted an orderly transition,
a long way from what has happened. Not
only has he stepped down from the executive, he has left ASSAP, although
finishing off some jobs. Other
outstanding business will fall to what remains of the executive, not least the Journal
and magazine, currently being proofread.
Normally CJ and Becky would oversee production and dispatch, but he has
passed the task on to the no doubt chuffed publications officer.
Next steps
The Fellowship contends CJ overreacted,
but I would say his response has been entirely reasonable. I’m sure I would have felt much the same had
I discovered a group of executive members were going behind my back and
doubting what I was saying, however they dressed it up. I’ve known him thirty years, and whatever the
merits of the Fellowship’s case he is an honourable, hardworking, highly
intelligent individual who has given a great deal of service to ASSAP over many
years, as chair, editor of its publications, talk organiser and presenter, as
well as the administration that goes with committee work. Looked at objectively, it is hard to disagree
he has been shabbily treated, even if one charitably characterises the actions
of The Fellowship as merely inept.
The Fellowship sign off their 15 July
statement by acknowledging that several executive members had resigned because
of the stress (though there are other explanations), express the wish that the
remaining ones will carry on trying to provide services, and welcome new
members who decide to stand at the 2024 AGM in the autumn. Whether the executive can carry on so
severely understaffed for the next three months is debatable. In particular, the resignations of executive
members have created a great deal of work for the secretary.
Unsurprisingly there have been numerous calls to hold elections
for all executive posts immediately, and if they are, The Fellowship will
discover how convincing their arguments and justifications have been (the one
Fellow who may feel he is safe is Steve Parsons, because he is so deeply
embedded in the ASSAP training programme). When the elections are
held the membership will face hard choices, not least whether it wants
individuals whose judgement has been so lacking to continue in positions of
responsibility. The EGM to be held on 25 July may present a way
forward, and allow the Association to rebuild. The Fellowship
members will be a key aspect of the debate, I’m sure.
Acknowledgement: The image was generated
at OpenArt AI, using the prompt ‘crisis in psychical research’.
