Open Letter to the NCMD
The following letter has been written by the Chairmen of the Yorkshire, Western, Midland and Southern regions of the NCMD to the General Secretary of the NCMD, Kevin Gorman
Dear Kevin.
Following your post of an Open Letter on the NCMD website and associated Social Media accounts on the 17th July 2021 we note the following statement “To help clear the air and assure you of our commitment to finding an amicable way forward, the Executive Officers and the 5 other regions would like to make it clear that they would welcome independent binding mediation if that was something the Yorkshire, Western, Midland and Southern regions would consider.”
In response the Yorkshire, Midlands, Western and Southern region’s Chairmen would welcome a face-to-face meeting with the Chairman of the NCMD, the Executive Officers and the other four Regions Chairmen or a representative of each, as per clause 12 of the Constitution, +1 (Scotland, North West, North East, Anglia and a properly elected member from the Central Register).
Throughout our discussions we have insisted that meetings held to address the serious issues identified should be face-to-face rather than utilising electronic media, in fact our only “fault” is that we have not attended electronic meetings. The proposed meeting should be held under the chairmanship of an agreed independent arbitrator, preferably with a legal qualification, to achieve legally binding mediation between all parties.
Can you please place this on your website and Facebook accounts so that the membership can see that we are trying to resolve the issue. This will ensure that the forward direction and control of our great organisation will once more be where it belongs, in accordance with the Constitution and within the full control of its members.
On behalf of:
Midland Region / Southern Region / Western Region / Yorkshire Region
I have only just read with interest Steve C’s comments. While he is completely entitled to his opinion surly he is the same Steve Critchley who said at the end of May that he hadn’t been involved with the NCMD for over a year, was very much out of the loop and didn’t know who the acting Secretary was? I think it is and he knows very well who the Chairmen of the regions are so come on STEVE, you attended executive meetings for years according to the minutes and I doubt many people know who you are or represent
Thank you for informing me of the present situation,I need to point out that I have ncmd membership but aren’t in a club mainly because I am a farmer with land to detect of my own ,however I do sympathsise with the midlands views ,their hard work over the past 40 odd years for little financial reward and devotion to the members rights is to be commended ,but it seems to me that not doing the zoom meetings as let the ncmd take control and introduce measures that undermine all the hard work done by the regions in the past ,I like you all ,disagree with what’s happening and the need to get meetings to resolve it as soon as possible otherwise there’s a real threat to membership cover in that your reserve pot will be disappearing, kind Regards.
IMHO the executive is in no position and has no authority to “not recognise” officers of specific regions.
The officers of those regions are … officers for those regions and represent those specific areas.
I fully endorse and support the request for mediation.
I hope you realise that this sorry episode is playing right into the hands of Keith Westcott and his IOD program.
No update on the original article after publication of the NCMD response? Disappointed in that Peter, it looks like you are presenting a very one-sided story.
When the original article was written, we did say that both parties could state their case on the website. The 4 “Opposition” regions subsequently sent us an open letter with permission to publish. The NCMD didn’t send their statement to us for publication on the website. Because this statement already appeared to have wide publicity by the time we became aware of it and because we had difficulty embedding it on the website, we didn’t update the article for it. I think you are right that this made us appear one-sided. We have now published an article on the NCMD’s statement: https://detectingfinds.co.uk/statement-from-ncmd
Our hope had been, by publicising the split, that both sides may have felt some pressure to find a way to work together. It is very welcome to see the NCMD’s offer of arbitration and the “Opposition” regions acceptance of that offer
Thank you Paul.
I disagree. The Executive of NCMD held an EGM on 10 July 2021 at which decided they would “no longer recognise” the chosen representatives of 4 of the 8 regional bodies. Taking this step to effectively disenfranchise 4 regions means that a large number of NCMD members are no longer represented. This is one of the most serious courses of action that a membership organisation can take. The Executive of the NCMD should have immediately announced that is what they had done and the reasons why. It was only after the publication of our article, 6 days later, that the NCMD issued a statement.