Monday, July 14, 2008

Volunteer Meeting Called by Dismissed Management is Illegitimate

Former and dismissed interim station manager Mike Phillips and interim program director Tony Barnes have called for an Volunteer Meeting this Wednesday, July 16. A major item on the agenda for this meeting is "volunteer elections". However, volunteer rep positions were filled at a volunteer meeting held on April 29 of this year (which was called by Mike Phillips himself) where a majority of over 70 volunteers in attendance voted in favour of Heather Douglas and Ron Nelson as their reps and selected Conrad Collaco to the former core staff seat. Community representatives Arnold Minors and Geoff MacDonald were also elected by a unanimous vote on May 3.

We (a large group of volunteer, donor, community and student supporters) do not recognize this meeting as legitimate since those who have called the meeting and proposed the agenda for said meeting were democratically dismissed from their positions at a Special Meeting of the CKLN membership on Feb 23, 2008. Furthermore, any elections that take place at the proposed meeting this Wednesday are INVALID.

Phillips and Barnes have made explicit that attendance at this meeting "will be restricted to current volunteer & staff members (including Ryerson students) as verified by the 2008 volunteer contracts and id cards". Voting at this meeting will be restricted to those participants they feel, according to their interpretation of the CKLN Bylaws and Volunteer Handbook, are "volunteer" members of the station. We believe this is an attempt to shut out voices of dissent at the meeting.

This meeting is INVALID, and any elections or decisions made at this meeting are ILLEGITIMATE.

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