What Was WIRES Hiding?
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 19 September 2012 04:00
It has been 11 months since the WIRES 2011 AGM. In all this time WIRES has not released to its members the 2010-2011 Annual Report. The WIRES Board has been asked repeatedly to do so but they have not been forthcoming. So, rw.com will oblige.
We cannot access the Annual Report but we have obtained something possibly better: The official financial returns submitted to the NSW Department of Fair Trading for that year, and 2009-2010 and 2007-2008. WIRES did not submit a return to Fair Trading in 2008-2009.
The Fair Trading returns do not give a detailed breakdown of spending and income. The categories are very broad and it is difficult to determine exactly what items make up the amounts for expenses and revenue. Never fear, rw.com has obtained another document which tops even the Fair Trading returns: a copy of the WIRES Administration Office’s internal profit & loss statement for 2010-2011. This statement was presented to the WIRES State Council (WSC) in July 2011. This statement has a detailed break down of the income and expenditure of the Administration Office.
These reports are available for download from rw.com. Included with these is the 2009-2010 WIRES Annual Report just to show you what one looks like when WIRES makes one available.
WIRES Administration Office Profit & Loss Statement - 2010-2011
WIRES Annual Return - Fair Trading - 2010-2011
WIRES Annual Return - Fair Trading - 2009-2010
WIRES Annual Return - Fair Trading - 2007-2008
WIRES Annual Report - 2009-2010
Not as Big as They Claim
The first thing to note in the Fair Trading return is on the cover page: The number of members WIRES really has. WIRES often claims it has over 3,000 members, or over 2,000 members, etc. At different times of the year this may be true due to the influx of members gained through WIRES very lucrative training sessions. WIRES raised $160,784 through training in 2010-2011 alone. However, the real test is how many members renew at the end of the year.
In 2010-2011 WIRES lost 504 members or 23% of its volunteers, dropping from 2193 in 2009-2010 to a shameful 1689.
At the end of the 2010-2011 reporting period the number of WIRES members remaining was pitiful at less than 1700. In 2010-2011 WIRES lost 504 members or 23% of its volunteers, dropping from 2193 in 2009-2010 to a shameful 1689. This is a shocking result considering the amount of new members WIRES ropes in each year.
That number, 504, is the net loss; WIRES lost all the gains it made in membership that year too. If WIRES ran 20 intake courses (RICCs) in 2010-11 with 25 new members from each course (and from the advice we have this is a reasonable assumption), that would add an aditional 500 members to the total membership at renewal time or 2693 members. This would bring the decimation closer to 1004 members lost or 37%. There are no figures for years prior to 2009-2010. WIRES likes to tout itself as a monolith in wildlife rehabilitation with a membership in size that dwarfs all the other groups combined. This is obviously a myth as their declared numbers prove.
Another point to note is on page 1. In previous years’ returns WIRES listed the whole WSC as members of the committee running WIRES. In the 2010-2011 return, only the Board members are listed. This speaks to the Board’s contempt for the WSC and democracy.
Only Stopped When They Were Noticed
Since our article “Donors’ Money - Who Gets It?” was published by rw.com in December 2011, WIRES has made some changes to the way it raises funds. WIRES’ website is a significant source of donations and WIRES Administration Office guards it jealously. No WIRES branch is allowed to have an online donations facility.
This situation has troubled many WIRES branches for many years. The WIRES Board made an attempt to put these concerns to rest in a letter sent to the treasurers of local branches. This letter was from Margaret Clinton, the WIRES Treasurer. In typical WIRES fashion the letter is undated but rw.com believes it was distributed around February 2009.
Letter from WIRES Treasurer - February 2009
In this letter from the Board it explains, although not very clearly, how donated money is distributed. It states: “At the end of each month the Trustees [of the WIRES Public Gift Fund (WPGF)] disburse the donations to the Branches.”
This implies online donations are distributed equally to the local branches and this is how some have viewed the situation. However, “the donations” disbursed to the branches are only those made directly to the branches - money the branch collected itself - money collected online makes up no part of these disbursments. Donations the branches collect themselves - through donation-tins and the like - are placed into the WPGF to attract a tax deduction and then given back to the individual branch. These disbursments are not online donations being equally distributed to branches. WIRES Administration Office collects all online donations.
The letter goes on to say: “There is no demand placed on the Branch as to how these donations are to be spent (as long as it is within the aims and policies of WIRES) and the donor did not specify how it was to be used.”
It is true that donations made directly to a branch can be spent by that branch in whatever way the branch determines. After all, the donation was given directly to a branch and it is therefore assumed it was made for the use of that branch. It is equally true that the Administration Office can spend any donations it collects in any way it likes. It is the last part of this sentence that is important: “and the donor did not specify how it was to be used.” Once the donor indicates how the money is to be spent there is nothing anyone can do to alter this decision. This is at the heart of the Board's tactics as pointed out by the rw.com article in December 2011.
WIRES website was very cleverly crafted to force all donations into administration and away from front-line services. They did this by splitting donations up into two types: appeals and ordinary donations.
by forcing the donor to use the "appeals" button the Board locks this money for the exclusive use by adminsitration only
Appeals are for specific causes and being a specific cause any money raised this way must by law be used for that cause. What was not disclosed by WIRES to the donor is any donation made to an “appeal” divertes that money to administration. They discouraged donors from using the ordinary donations form by firstly not explaining there were alternatives and by not displaying links to the general donations form with any prominence. Not that this really matters as in practice ALL online donations are diverted to administration. But, by forcing the donor to use the "appeals" button the Board locks this money for the exclusive use by adminsitration only - no branch can access these donations, even if the trustees of the WPGF are requested to release the money to a branch.
The second device used to direct donors to the appeals form was by prominently displaying in great number the orange donate buttons. An example of which appears above. These buttons led to the appeals page and away from the ordinary donations page. At the same time links to the ordinary donations page were obscured, being usually a small text-link at the bottom of a page. These orange buttons have reduced in number since the rw.com article about them appeared.
The other way WIRES gave prominence to the appeals was by linking the appeals form to the display banners. Almost every WIRES webpage has a banner across the top of it which changes every few seconds to show a new image of a cute animal. These banners begged for donations and directed the donor to the appeals page. Donors were not made aware that by clicking these banner images they were directing their donation to administration. These banners have also been toned down recently with the begging text removed from most.
The most noticeable and radical change to the WIRES website is the complete removal of any trace of the once perennial appeals page. Every season a new one used to bloom into life – winter, spring, summer, or fall. But not since we pointed out for what they were being used. If you look at the WIRES website now you will see no evidence of them. Once we revealed why WIRES was using them they quickly stopped using them. In case you have forgotten what they looked like we present a collage of them for your perusal.
It is difficult to know how much money this arrangement forced into direct support of administration at the cost of native animals in need. The evidence suggests WIRES makes no, or very little, distribution payments to the branches. From this one must assume their scheme worked well. Neither the profit & loss statements nor the official returns submitted to Fair Trading separate appeals from ordinary donations. They are merged together into one WIRES Public Gift Fund (WFGF) distribution. The two amounts are however very different things as WIRES own accounts demonstrate.
On page 20 of the 2010-2011 Fair Trading return under note 19 a), WIRES lists the “types of fundraising revenues” it received. The top listed is “Appeals”, with “Donations” second. Donations and appeals are very different things and distributed in very different ways. For a long time the WIRES Board made this categorisation work to the advantage of the Administration Office and to the disadvantage of branches, volunteers, and ultimately the disadvantage of sick and injured native animals. But one big question remains: Who decides how the money is spent?
The letter of February 2009 states: “At regular meetings with the Trustees WIRES Inc presents a request for disbursement of funds...” Who are these trustees of the WPGF and what decisions are they making?
To simplify the matter and recap:
Ordinary donations - donations pooled together into the WPGF - can be released by the trustee for any purpose within the aims of WIRES.
Appeals - donations that are made for a specified use, in this case administration - the trustees can only release these funds to administration.
There is still no way on the WIRES website for a donor to specify for what purpose they make an online-donation or to which branch they would like for the money to go. They are still not given the option of directing their donation to a specific cause of their choice, or of placing any caveat on the donation, like “Only to be spent on the direct care of animals” or “Not to be spent on administration”. The donor cannot give the money to a local branch where most of the actual care of animals occurs. Once they have made the donation they have no way of directing how it is spent.
Take What You Want – OEH Won’t Stop You.
On page 25 of the 2010-2011 Fair Trading return there appears a profit & loss summary for WIRES Mudgee Branch. Strange thing, as there is no WIRES Mudgee Branch. That is obvious from the return itself which shows the “Mudgee Branch” had absolutely no income whatsoever. From this account “WIRES Mudgee” has no members and no funds. Mudgee WIRES was closed many years ago when the entire membership walked out in dispute with the Board and then established their own group.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage has a map available online showing the boundaries of all wildlife rehabilitation groups in NSW. The image (left) was taken from this map.
The entire coloured area (green and gold) is the territory of the Wildlife Carers Mudgee Region (WCMR). It is a large area stretching from near Coonabarabran in the north, south past Dunedoo to Bathurst, across to Lithgow in the east and back north through the Upper Hunter.
The area coloured green is that allocated to Cudgegong Wildlife Carers, the group that abandoned WIRES in Mudgee. This area overlaps the middle area of that held by the WCMR.
The black line shows the boundary of the non-existent “Mudgee WIRES” branch. This is an area of around 17,000 square kilometres.
The NPWS is still recognising “WIRES Mudgee” as a group even though they have no income, no members, no meetings, no local management and no local presence. WIRES is still declaring to government as if the branch exists even though their own returns shows it clearly does not.
OEH Wildlife Rehabilitation Map
An online search for “WIRES Mudgee” returned a Yellow Pages listing. When the telephone number given in this reference is dialled, the call is diverted to the WIRES Central West branch. The address listed in the Yellow Pages is the address of a local vet in Mudgee. We contacted that vet clinic and were told that WIRES Mudgee had closed down in around 2007. WIRES Central West now takes all enquiries for WIRES in the Mudgee area. The reason the vet’s address was listed is because WIRES Mudgee used to house their answering machine at the clinic. The vet clinic did offer to put the caller in contact with the two established groups active in the area: Wildlife Carers Mudgee and Cudgegong Carers.
WIRES own website acknowledges Mudgee branch no longer exists. It lists the Mudgee area as being covered by Central West branch.
rw.com would like to know exactly when WIRES was given permission to annex the Mudgee region into the territory of the Central West Branch: a region it had failed in the past to directly service and a region already serviced by two well supported groups.
The NSW Rehabilitation of Protected Fauna Policy states in clauses 42 - 44 that a group failing to maintain a viable presence in an area will undergo a process of deregulation, with the whole process taking no more than 6 months. Circumstances that would trigger this deregulation include: “the effectiveness of local fauna rehabilitators at responding to fauna incidents... emerging gaps in service provision with respect to particular groups of species... the ability of groups to train, monitor and co-ordinate their members”.
Since “WIRES Mudgee” has no members, no governance, no money and has been non-existent for over 5 years, it is plain that the NPWS should: “consider removing the area from the local group’s licence” as provisioned in clause 44 of the policy.
WIRES was allowed to simply annex the 17,000 square kilometre Mudgee area
At a time when other groups are being inspected for their compliance, and duplication of service is being prevented by the new policy (see clause 8), it has to be wondered as to why WIRES was allowed to simply annex the 17,000 square kilometre Mudgee area, especially when WIRES has proved to be locally unpopular in the past. Is this more favouritism of WIRES from the bureaucrats at EOH and NPWS? Is there a bigger agenda yet to manifest itself?
NSW Rehabilitation of Protected Fauna Policy
The Money
As pointed out earlier, it is difficult to draw conclusions from the reports given to Fair Trading as they declare the revenue and expenditure in broad categories. However, by comparing and incorporating the Administration Office internal profit & loss statement, things become clearer. The Administration Office profit & loss statement was issued in July 2011 to the WSC and is the last time the membership was supplied with a statement of WIRES financial position.
Note the pie-chart left: This represents all revenue for the entirety of WIRES in 2010-2011, including all the branches and sub-committees. The total revenue was $2,591,821.
The grey slice is the amount left unspent at the end of year.
The green slice is all money spent by branches. Included here is the money Administration Office spends on direct assistance to members.
The orange slice is the amount spent by Administration Office alone. WIRES Administration spends a whopping 70% of all the money coming into WIRES from all sources.
The total revenue of WIRES Administration Office, as last reported to the WSC, is on page 1 of the profit & loss statement. That amount is $1,831,468.
WIRES Administration Office total revenue as declared to government can be found on page 21 of the Fair Trading return. That amount is $1,878,038.
This means WIRES declared $46,570 more income to Fair Trading than was declared to the WSC. The profit & loss statement was issued to the WSC six weeks after the close of the 2010-2011 financial year and 8 weeks before the Fair Trading return was submitted. It took over six weeks for WIRES to incorporate this $46,000 into its accounts. Between the July WSC Meeting and September when the official return was made they found this extra $46,570. There are often adjustments during auditing and the profit & loss statement carries a disclaimer to this effect. However, adjustments during auditing usually move money from one category to another without altering the overall totals. If there are any changes in the total revenues or expenses these are usually minimal. An amount close to $50,000 is a large adjustment and not one of which the WSC was ever made aware.
$306,000.00?
More alarmingly, in the same 8 week period between the profit & loss statement in July 2011 and Fair Trading return in September, WIRES Administration Office declared an extra $306,748 in expenses. The total expenses on page 2 of the profit & loss statement show Administration Office expenditure as $1,492,529; but only 8 weeks later that amount has blown out to $1,799,277 at page 21 of the official return. This is a massive discrepancy never made known to the WSC and therefore never made known to the membership. On what did Administration Office and the Board spend this money? Why wasn't it in the profit & loss statement? And why were the WSC not updated about this extra spending? Is anyone on the Board paying attention to these massive discrepancies?
The Things That Money CAN Buy
WIRES’ spending priorities become clear when the profit & loss statement is combined with the Fair Trading return, incorporating the unaccounted $306,000 and the unspent amount. The graph (left) gives a breakdown of the spending across all of WIRES. The total income is represented by the orange column on the far left. Following that are the spending categories in descending order of proportion.
Across all of WIRES as a whole, the biggest item of expenditure is employed staff and contractors, representing nearly double that spent by all the branches combined. Since branches do all the direct animal care it is clear from WIRES own figures that it prioritises employing administration staff, some of whom are Board members, over spending money on assisting sick and injured wildlife. WIRES Administration spending on support to animals and volunteers is the smallest category on the far right.
(See this graph with the branches itemised at the end of this article.)
On page 2 of the profit & loss statement the amount of $55,875 is described as “consultancy fees”. The WIRES Board keeps secret the details of these “consultants”. We know a proportion of this amount was for the private investigator hired to drive out Mr Chris Lloyd. The amount handed over to the PI has been reported as $20,000 plus; but just how much "plus" was there?
Taking the total income for WIRES Administration Office, $1,878,038 as declared on page 21 of the Fair Trading return, and then adding in the breakdown from the profit & loss statement, it is obvious what are the spending priorities of WIRES Administration Office. The pie-chart below represents this situation with the total Administration Office revenue broken into proportions of spending.
Administration Office is the only employer of staff and consultants in WIRES. Staff and consultants make up the largest slice of the pie representing 58% of Administration Office spending. As previously shown, this amount is so large it dwarfs all other spending, even for the accounts across WIRES as a whole. The black slice is the unaccounted expenditure of $306,748 as pointed out above: This means a massive 16% of all WIRES Administration Office spending was not declared to the WIRES State Council and therefore not made known to the membership. Note the yellow slice: WIRES Administration Office spent nearly double on the Board and Committees (entertainment & travel, etc.) than it did on direct assistance to animals and the carers who look after them (dark-green slice). The amount spent by Administration Office on direct assistance is only a miniscule 2%.
All the figures above come from WIRES’ own documents and official returns. WIRES spending priorities are very clear from their own declarations. Usually no one pays much attention but lately members have been taking an interest in these things and we think this is why WIRES, true to form, has been suppressing the information. Read these reports and think for yourself – you have a right to see them and a right to question them too.
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Comments
LAST YEAR.
HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.
NO NEED TO WORRY IT WAS PROBABLY ONLY SOME BODY'S GRANDMAS LIFE SAVINGS. MORE FOOL HER.
THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS BREECH OF TRUST. TIME TO CALL IN THE POLICE.
TIME FOR WIRES TO GET A PRIVATE DETECTIVE TO TRACK IT DOWN. $360.000.00 IS AS MUCH A CRIME AS A SPOT OF BLOOD.
SOUNDS LIKE A SCENE FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.
The fact is Inner West paid $20K for the PI without the branch member's even noticing.!
Members should ask who paid for the PI, after all it was their hard earned funds that paid for it.
Those inner west members must be a dozy lot to have $ 20,000 snatched from under their noses! Would you like to enlighten us with your evidence for this expenditure by IW branch? otherwise its just obfuscation
I have a feeling that because WIRES knows rw will gain access to it, they won't be submitting a 2011-12 report to Fair Trading this year. That's fine - they'll have to eventually even if it takes until 2013-14, and we will still be here waiting.
Quote:The good news is the computor says YES. The staff and BMC can afford their Xmas party Sorry no animals allowed!
Oh! yes. No volunteers are invited.
IF I FOUND THAT I WAS MISSING $306.000.00 I WOULD BE CALLING IN THE POLICE.
Unless the fancy donors annual report is done members know nothing of the accounts of the organisation.
They showed me an email confirming that a deposit was paid for a hall on 3 occasions in 2009, each amounting to $500. (Mr Wood was cc'd in this email - that always makes me cautious!) The branch accounts however showed nearly $1000 for hall hire costs in expenses for 2009 they further state. If the hall was free why then the expense?
In response to that I would ask another question: Standard practice would be to requisition the deposit as an expense, pay for the hall, then after its been used process the refund back through revenue; so was that done? If so there would be an amount recorded against expenses and against revenues.
This person further claims that the branch spent less than $1000 for an event, but the branch records show $3000 was claimed as the expense for that event and training costs combined. The allegation made is: there was no training so why the discrepancy?
At the same time as "the money disappeared", they further claim, a member had been signing blank "chits' (I assume these are requestion/expenses claims).
This person also states they were told there would be an independent audit of the branch but they doubt one actually happened. I have to ask here: When did PI's become auditors? And I think one was done but I am willing to stand corrected on that.
This person states they no longer receive minutes of meetings and indicate they are being excluded.
And more...
Quote:Any comments are welcome.
You have now made your allegations public on this website and defamed hardworking Inner West members even though you know that they are not true.
It is not rational to say that Inner West funds should be around the same as East Branch and I don't know how you would know what East Branch finances are anyway.
What proof do you have to say the branch overstates the number of animals in care? Are you also saying they make false call sheets?
I just published them. :o
East branch for years has been a failing branch. In 2008 - 2009 there was talk about joining the two branches, it was decided that instead IW would help East to rebuild. Also at this time IW paid East branch costs for GHFF for microchipping, release aviary and crehe fees. To this day East branch has not paid IW anything for their GHFF. IW has also financed some vet costs for East branch animals.
Fundraising capacities are ment to be there for fundraising for the payment for vet bills and animal cost nothing more. So you should be able to compare two branches. Quanties of animals can be manipulated. It's easy, just log two, one dies, one survives. What you need to look at is who logs them. If they are logged by the call centre then it is more likely to be correct, You need to look at number logged by the call centre, verses the individual.
Inner west has had a larger increase in animals coming into care versus the neighbouring branches, Why ? How ? Who ?
Regardless of how many animals come in you still can't compare costs. Different animals have different needs in respect to vet fees, medications, and powdered food. Some branches charge for the powdered food others do not.
The minutes don't separate branch animals try checking East branch minutes for payments made for FF, fruit, microchipping there are none.
You are suggesting that IW is making up animals into care. What would be the purpose of this and where are you getting your figures?
Your previous posts accused IW BMC of stealing $14000 from the branch, however when challenged to provide the evidence you have for this you didn't do so. Now you say the branch is making up animals, can you please provide the evidence you have for this, I am sure the readers would be very interested in your information
I stated Inner West payed for the PI and others confirmed this, stating not only Stan Wood but also Caroline Enfield help out by contributing $500 each. (neither has denied this fact)
Why don't members asked who payed for the PI, then they can find out for themselves.
I did NOT state IW BMC of stealing $14,000. Your the only one stating this. Read the posts.
As for branch animals, members can see the statistics for themselves.
Do you really think that Stan Wood and Caroline Enfield would answer you via this site? And even if they did do it they would most likely decline to answer. I have no idea why they would put there own money in when WIRES donors were paying the bill.
I did as you suggested and looked at the IW statics and they are entered by the SRO. If you think something is wrong why don't you write a complaint to the GM or new volunteer support Manager and get them to look into it.
Quote:
What are they paid for....
How are member's meant to know that there is an animal around the corner that is in need of a carer, if they don't bother calling.....
It's all about image.....
Anyway, this person claims they were bullied by... - (I won’t name them – lets just call them “bird of prey”) - and it was also when “bird of prey” arrived that membership in the branch declined. And this person only contacted Stan Wood because “bird of prey” forced them to do so (through circumstance I assume).
The allegations this person made included:
> cards and calendars sold, but profit was not recorded (an amount between $600-$900 roughly).
> $1,000 was claimed for equipment, but nothing about this appears in the minutes.
> The minutes show $4,000 for food and equipment combined which appears excessive for a one month period in a branch that should run for around $10,000 - $12,000 per annum.
> $1,400 for catering (chicken & rice) at a RICC of 30 people - $46.66/head (was it Kashmir Rice? I love Kashmir Rice) - the catering was done in-house. The previous year (bought sandwiches) only cost $1,200 for 70 people - $17.14/head.
This person questions the expenditure of $37,596 for Inner West in 2010-2011, believing that fund-raising wouldn’t cover this amount. They ask if the fraud is being covered by other branches.
I can help out with that question: On page 24 of the Fair Trading return it shows Inner West took in $37,347 leaving a loss of $249 for the year.
I’m off to put my head in a bucket after I put my fingers in my ears.
I have correspondence showing clearly that the Board was linking this "investigation" with a broader inquiry into the IW Branch. How did these two subjects get bundled together? There's no immediately logical connection. Itchy backs need scratching if you get my meaning. And if you know what I'm talking about then...
Any information from you lot would be gratefully accepted and kept in confidence... if you get my meaning.
There are alot more of these circumstances going around still today. Its about the only time they think outside the box!
Keep going spartacus we commend you!
I am a member of other charities and I always recieve the annual report. I find this management is lost and ineifficient in everything they do and can't even get the basic things done.
Oeh bias to wires is loud and clear.
Does anyone ever question where they get their information from - no - you just believe it!
One word for you Jade: READ! Read the attached documents, do the calculations, check my work - it is all TRUE! Actually, if you had done that a bit earlier you might have figured out what they were doing and I wouldn't have to do it for you. You care for WIRES so much you don't even bother to check what those running it are doing with it.
You are a typical Board apologist - no matter the evidence and the volume thereof, you will always claim its just bitter people out to get you - victim victim victim. That is classic passive-aggressive bullying.
It is all true Jade!
There is a dispute policy.
There is a respectful workplace policy.
There is governance.
There is transparency - you just don't like the outcomes. Get over it.
You sound like Thatcher who loved to go to Europe, disagree with everyone, then come back and claim she was in a majority of one.
'no government department asks questions'
Yes. Yes, they do, because the same people who feel they have to resort to this cowardly website have written to them all, over and over again, and every time WIRES has been investigated it has been found to be compliant, that is why it is still in business despite your best efforts.
If you have your way licensing will be deregulated, anyone can do what they like to any animal they pick up and we'll have put the clock back 50 years for native animal welfare.
Now stop this constant inward spiral of self-destructive denial and do something useful about real animal welfare issues - here's one to start with:
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/18/badger-cull-shot-in-the-dark?intcmp=239
or go for the live cattle export industry, or battery hens, or intensive piggeries, or the kangaroo cull, or support efforts for captive breeding - do something CONSTRUCTIVE for once in your sad, small, miserable, hate-filled lives.
Now slag me off because my only reason for joining WIRES was to learn about and help educate people about the amazing wildlife we are lucky to have in this country and I see nothing, NOTHING that has been posted on this pathetic site that shares that vision.
Every nasty comment you make will only strengthen my case.
Reading between the lines... you are insinuating that rw.com is a Liberal/conservative attack against the Labor stronghold of WIRES (You drag out Thatcher!). Sorry, no - that's your delusion.
Quote:Yes but none of them are applied with any fairness - that's our point. They might as well not exist if they are used to drive out those you don't like and protect only your friends.
Quote:So transparent WIRES wouldn't even hand over the annual report. I can't see it - some transparency. You don't like that we were the one's to produce it - get over it!
Quote:I'm in Central America!
All the causes you raise are very worthy ones - sincerely. And so is getting WIRES to spend some money on animals, and volunteers. To not waste the millions it begs from the public. To have it treat its members with respect.
It is the Board, Sir, and their conduct, that transforms the dream of WIRES into the filthy pit of nastiness that it is - an ego-salon for the pathetic.
Quote:Anyone can do what they like now - WIRES has no respect within its own ranks or in the broader rehabilitation area. That happened well before I got here, mate! And if you are a back-stabbing filthy liar you can do what you want and get caught because you'll have friends near the top who will ignore your misdeeds. If this is progress then lets go back. Deregulation would mean personal responsibility (I do sound like Howard/Thatcher now) - it would be more of the same sans WIRES pointless, venal and wasteful interference - I call that: progress.
I rest my case.
[p.s. Is that you Stan?]
Hello everyone.
1. Dispute and respectful work place are the same policy, yes they exist but are not followed and there is no policy for a against the Board or Board member which I understand is what most complaints are about.
2. I wrote "good governance" which is not what WIRES has at the moment - it doesn't have all policies available for members to follow, policies that are on the intranet are incorrect and not updated, minutes for WSC meetings are not put onto the intranet for months, Board minutes are secret, problems with animal welfare, management micro-manages, bullies it members, uses private investigators to investigate it's members, ignors complaints by members, changes the rules to suit themselves, discriminates agaisnt joining members and stacks the WSC through its management teams.
3. Transparency - can't or won't release an annual report, won't release Board minutes, closes down discussion pages, won't advise management team contacts, closed meetings with no minutes, alledged grievances not given to each party, also donors are now not invited to the AGM.
4. Most Government departments that have jurisiction over WIRES have had many complaints over many different branches and over many years it's not just one person its many.
5. Deregulation doesn't mean people can do what they like, it just means WIRES would have to work to gain their membership, service their members, take care of their members.
I'm not slagging you off (unlike you to me) I'm stating the facts.
No credibility Im afraid
You can't rubbish those that want change by saying they are not involved in fighting real animal welfare issues as you don't know what they do to fight other issues as you probably don't talk to them. Those I know are committed to fight all animal welfare and the reform of WIRES to get a better result for the volunteers and wildlife care is one of the important fights. I will not slag you and will not attack anyone personally. People on both sides on reformwires have name called and that is unfortunate but I know many who want reform have been treated very badly and there is no way of getting help and that might explain their anger.
Everyone writing on this site would agree with your point about wildlife. If all was well in WIRES and members respected the Board and Council and were confident their interests and the wildlife were being protected, then this site would have no momentum and would not have continued on for 11 months.
Quote:I was censured because the manager did not like my TONE in a discrete and frank private letter to her. I was not given a right of reply. I was processing over 400 animals a year at the time. Bill Thompson ignored my correspondence despite him asking in writing for a response to them censuring me. by doing so I was denied all my entitlements as a member. Bill Thompson failed to abide by the constitution. I was silly enough to point out that animals were dying unnecessarily due to the incompetence of staff and the decline in membership due to the belligerence of management. The problems were never addressed or acknowledged hence the need for Reformwires to save our organisation and save wildlife. Blind Freddy can even see how It is becoming derelict. I resigned rather than be tarnished and implicit with misuse of donations and bequests and animal neglect. My time efforts and money are now being used more resourcefully and I find myself able rescue animals that wires cannot provide for without the wires 2% subsidy. In fact Jade I have saved myself in excess of 11,000 dollars and recently have been offered sponsorship for all wildlife care expenses. I.e. there is no waste and I have the freedom from the board of wires while rescuing and caring for animals reported to them and not rescued with the knowledge that wires are happy for me to care for their animals and do not have to part with their 2%. and Quote: Jade There is Life after wires. It is such a shame to see it so badly managed. I wish you well.
The members were not informed, they just did all the fundraising to pay for it all.
Brigette Sharp
Chair, IW Branch