RSGB and Facebook - bun fight.

Facebook isn't something I use very much, other than to keep up with a very few, generally educational sites.

I do tend to quietly follow the posts that appear on the RSGB's Facebook page, and was interested to see a photo there of a few people in RSGB 'uniform', attending the Dayton 'Hamvention'.

This prompted a small number of comments as to whether this attendance was a financially sensible decision.  The RSGB has, in essence, membership and books to sell.

The RSGB responded, clearly rather irritated by the scrutiny, that the sales at Dayton covered the cost of the trip there.  It later claimed the sales "more than" cover the costs.  We might be forgiven for wondering which of those two is correct, and by how much more than the costs do the sales exceed?  Asking isn't very welcome, it seems.

Such concern about how the RSGB goes about spending its money is entirely justified, because it suffered very serious problems of both financial control and accountability, which were not resolved until as recently as May 2013.  It involved the repaying of an amount, called a 'debt' and a 'financial irregulairty' by the RSGB, believed to have been around £41,000, to the society by its then General Manager, Peter Kirby.

There was also a lot of unpalatable activity concerning the purchase, prior to gaining planning consent, of a large and fabulously expensive Luso tower, which some influential people at the RSGB thought would be a great addition to their new National Radio Centre site at Bletchley Park.

Bletchley, though, is very obviously an incredibly important and sensitive site of global significance, with many listed (protected) buildings.  So it was clear to anyone that there was the very highest hurdle - higher even than the Luso's 12m minimum height setting - to jump before any planning authority would approve a steel lattice tower on this site, no matter how related it was to radio, computing and communication.

Of course, the RSGB eventually found itself in the utterly ludicrous position of having already bought the £31,000 tower, but planning permission for it refused.  The RSGB later advertised the tower (copy text retained here) for "just £13,500", or less than half what they paid for it not very much earlier. 

This kind of activity may well be seen as something the society would like to forget.  It does, of course, need to move on, and has.  Quite drastic changes of upper staff and procedures have taken place since.

But the membership should not easily forget what has gone before, not least because the society dealt with much of this under the cloak of 'minimal comment due to legal reasons', which also conveniently allowed avoidance of further scrutiny, not least how an entire Board of Directors lost control of the ship.

That 'say nothing much' approach may have been legally necessary.  But that is not to say that the RSGB didn't owe its fee-paying members a better, more transparent explanation for how things came to be the way they were around 2011.

How did the RSGB's structure allow £31,000 to be spent before planning consent was secured?  Why was such a gargantuan tower necessary anyway?  Were they the same kinds of structures and attitudes that also led to the financial troubles?  The detail is, for the most part, still unknown - at least to its members.  So they can't meaningfully be learned from.

So, RSGB, before you take offence at people scrutinising your activities, take a good slice of humble pie, and remember how badly things got just a few short years ago.  Better still, make a promise to us all that you welcome constructive scrutiny and criticism - and act on it.