out-voted

I was sitting in "the little park", (the one with the pirate ship), at about 4pm today, having a conversation with a 39-week pregnant mother of two, about the merits of pacing oneself so there is enough energy left for the childrens' bedtime. I can relate to this, as so often have I had a lull of energy round about that time. I didn't manage it today. I was in bed at 7pm, and called to the boys at 8 telling them it was bedtime and they took themselves off to bed. Joy called me to ask if she could stay a bit later to see a new pony and I said that was fine, as long as she had a lift back before bedtime. I just sent her off to bed, slightly disgruntled, explaining that I was tired and stressed and needed some time on my own, after lying in bed too wound up to go to sleep. I then relented, on finding the jeans I had bought her in Oxfam, and took them up to her, apologising. The tiredness could have had a lot to do with the two miles I walked, to school and back this afternoon, which seems to be more than my ME-induced exercise intolerance can take. (More on this another time, I think.) The stress was a lot to do with the meeting that broke in half the first mile of my walk...

The meeting took place today, which was to decide on whether to allow the take-over of the ailing playgroup by a private business, to turn the Arts Centre into a preschool for 4 mornings a week. Despite my bringing in a recently dormant member of the committee, who someone had conveniently forgotten to inform me (as secretary of arts centre), had expressed the desire to remain on the committee and continue to receive emails, I was outvoted, in what can only be described as a fiasco or foregone conclusion. The chair had phoned round the older members of the committee, who had all agreed on the decision. The chair was patiently listened to while he spouted his misinformed, misjudged opinions. His only reasons for allowing the takeover, were that it was a "continuum" of the playgroup, and that it would help the centre apply for funding (which is not necessarily true). The older committee members nodded in agreement. I waited for my turn to comment on what he had said, whilst taking minutes.

Next came my returned committee member full of lots of creative ideas for filling the centre with community-led, family based activities, which all complied with the vision we had all agreed on a year ago, including a community cafe, activities for young children alongside their parents, also things for teenagers and old people. Home-educators who are already active in the centre voluntarily running crafts markets and cafes, when they can get a rare slot, were cited as people who had expressed an interest in managing these activities. This was all accompanied with impatient sighs from the older committee members. (When I say older, I am referring to old hippies who ran wholefood co-ops and went to art college in the 1970's and 80's).

I think I had a minute or possibly two before I was shouted down, by all of the older members in turn. By the time I had the chance to make some points, referring to the minutes of the meeting with the playgroup, (trying to remain calm there) after several attempts, one of the members left (20 minutes into the meeting) saying she had already made her vote. One of the other members actually agreed with everything I said about government moves to force single parents to work and place children in childcare. I didn't actually use such emotive words as that, I was trying to focus on the positive of the alternative, ie, community based, inclusive local facilities, but she was aware of my opinions. The Chair actually was shouting at me and got personal, asking me where my money came from, which I refused to answer, as it is irrelevant. I was trying to remain calm, get my points across, whilst keeping minutes. It was impossible.

I had not been informed that this meeting had a time limit, but after half an hour we were hustled into a vote, which wasn't done officially, just everyone knew where everyone else stood.
The chair mentioned something about a consensus, which he obviously doesn't know the meaning of ("Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement, and the process of getting to such agreement.") I pointed out that a vote of 2:3, where there are wildly differing opinions, and no resolution of these differences has been attempted, is not a consensus decision. Somewhere in the constitution it is probably stated that decisions are to be made my vote, although this has never happened in the last few years that I have been on the committee.

The Chair even asked me if I was doing taichi tomorrow, to which I shook my head and said I wasn't speaking to him. Not because I didn't get my own way, which I could just about handle, but the process by which it was achieved... did anyone hear the Archers the other day?

It was all a bit of a blur, and I cannot bring myself to look at my notes, but I do remember when the issue was raised of children being better off with their families, indeed families needing the support to be able to do things together, the government line of children being better off in pre-school childcare seemed to be actually believed by some of the members! "Well, they have done lots of research into it and have statistics... it's just your opinion that it's not true..." Which is when I pointed out that me and F were the only people on the committee that had young children of out own, and are therefore in touch with that part of the community, as well as having trained and worked in education. We were not listened to. The younger, newer members of the committee, the ones who have put in hours of unpaid work, even though we don't have much time on our hands. The old hippies got their status quo.

I haven't lost faith in humanity. There is an AGM next month... I wonder who I will be voting in for Chair. This may take years. But I am still quite young! I have obviously considered resigning. This whole fiasco has cost me quite a lot of stress and precious energy. ME doesn't respond very well to stress. And come September I will be voluntarily running a centre which houses a privately run preschool. I'm not sure if I can cope. But my inner determination says that all is not lost, not yet...

Anyway, I have to clear my mind of such soul-destroying thoughts before tomorrow. While I was de-stressing in the sunshine I received a text, a nice text from a nice person, and I have a date. Yes, I said date, and this time, this time, I have a feeling...