Update 12: Good riddance to bad rubbish Part I – The Directors resign en masse

Well, well, well… we didn’t see that coming. What an extraordinary, but fantastic, turn of events.

Having, over the past two years, stood by in passive acceptance of the appalling catalogue of damage inflicted by the several Briars-led committees against certain individuals, and on the club, the membership appear to have, at last, come to the realisation that the directors’ oftentimes illegal activities would lead only to the club’s demise.

At Thursday’s AGM (8 December 2022) the membership, to our genuine astonishment, gave the Briars-led committee its first ever bloody nose by:

1. Rejecting a committee instigated resolution in respect of asset transfer should the Company be wound up.
2. Accepting three member-instigated resolutions in respect of installing checks and balances to ensure that any significant decisions surrounding the club are referred back to the membership.

The following day the committee issued a resignation statement confirming that they had all resigned their directorships.

In typical Briars style the statement misleadingly portrayed their resignations as being their only option — that members’ acceptance of the three member-instigated resolutions precluded their fulfilling their statutory obligations as directors. Of course this is complete nonsense on so many levels.

How ironic it is that these same directors who have so casually and deliberately breached their statutory obligations on so many occasions, as is well documented throughout this website, now attempt to justify their resignation by arguing that the outcome of the AGM precludes their fulfilling those same statutory obligations. Quite pathetic.

The reality, contrary to their portrayal, is that their resignations are a consequence of their intolerance of any challenge. They have, metaphorically speaking, thrown their toys out of the pram and spat out their dummies at the same time.

The only element of truth in their resignation statement is in respect of their acknowledgement of a breakdown in trust between them and the membership. No shit Sherlock.

Having on so many occasions misled the membership, concealed information from the membership, acted contrary to promoting the success of the Company and acted illegally to achieve their ends did they really expect the membership to trust them forever? Such arrogance.

In the final paragraph of our Update 11: Top secret land development plan… “Keep the faith with your new committee and you will [not] be kept well informed” we said, “We wouldn’t trust these directors with the financial management of the contents of a child’s piggy bank let alone with the club’s assets — which run into the millions of pounds — would you?

It appears that the membership now agrees.

The committee expresses the, wholly insincere, platitude of wishing the club “the best in the future” whilst simultaneously, in their final act of resigning en masse, rendering the Company in breach of the Companies Act in respect of the obligation to have at least one director in post.

It’s worth noting that under the Company’s constitution they could have, prior to resigning, delegated any of its powers — including imposing any necessary constraints — to any committee consisting of any persons. Instead they chose to leave the Company rudderless and without a helmsman.

This final, utterly cynical, act alone betrays the primary motivation of Gawain Briars — that of personal control, not the success of the Company. The minute he perceived he no longer had full control he bailed out, dragging his lapdog fellow directors with him, leaving the damage they’ve wrought on the club to be cleaned up by the membership.

Some might believe the title of this update to be unacceptably harsh and inappropriate. However, the catalogue of damaging actions perpetrated by the several Briars-led committees, as chronicled throughout this website, demonstrates otherwise.

We’re happy to repeat — good riddance to bad rubbish.