Jason,

The email you sent on the evening of 6th February 2012 requesting a special General Meeting of the Association was not valid. I am sure you will understand that the members of the Association would expect the committee to undertake due diligence before spending significant amounts of the Association’s funds on a meeting called by a tiny proportion of the membership. We did, however, offer to talk to any individual members who had any concerns over our actions and have indeed done so.

Whilst performing the necessary due diligence on the names listed in your email (and I should point out that we did not go through every single one of them), we discovered that around 25% of all the people listed had signed a petition generally supporting the nursery, but had not signed a request of a Special General Meeting of the Association, still less a vote of confidence in the Committee. Those we asked had told us that the people who were collecting signatures made no mention at all of the Association. Therefore, as far as I was concerned, some peoples’ names were used for a purpose that they had not given consent for.

We accept that a number of members, including yourself, have now called a meeting in accordance with our Constitution. We are keen to ensure that it will be held at a time convenient for those calling it which is why, as you know, we contacted the lead name on the petition. We could not arrange a meeting without their reply and are now arranging for it to be held as soon as possible within the constraints of the Constitution and the dates offered.