To those who follow the Website nemaritimetrust.co.uk, here is a criticism of the conduct of Mr A Renwick:-
Dear All
I received a copy of the NEMT Newsletter for the Autumn of 2024 but unfortunately filed it under Publication rather than Newsletter and discovered my error just a few weeks ago and anyone who has any concerns about the improper behaviour of the Trust’s Chairman they can now view a copy.
One must bear in mind when reading this copy, it was not the first newsletter to carry a personal grudge against a fellow member of NEMT, it was in the Newsletter of Summer 2024 which declared:-
Headline News – Due to unforeseen circumstances our Website is currently still offline. We apologise if you have been affected by this or for any inconvenience caused. But be assured that we are trying to sort this out, in the meantime please be patient. However, our new Website below will replace and be much better than the original which was very unreliable anyway.
Once this horrible little gremlin has been removed we hope to be back on-line very soon with our new improved Website address as follows – www.nemaritimetrust.org.uk
‘Our Website’ was neither his nor offline when the Newsletter was published. It had been offline for a week of so from mid March 2024 but was definitely up and running before the end of April i.e. online, well before the Summer 24 Newsletter appeared. Let us now examine what the Chair of NEMT has reported in the Autumn of 2024:-
The section: Through The Porthole – a new feature—looking back:-
Update: unfortunately, the planned launching of our lifeboat Henry Frederick Swan could not take place as hoped due to some incredibly wild weather (late April). It was later dis- covered that a rather awkward to fix leak was found onboard which took some extra time to repair, just to make sure everything was good and safe to go.
There may have been a leak but anyone who attended the planned launch would have noted that the weather was not wild at all and the cradle in which the Henry Frederick Swan sat became stuck halfway down the slipway because of the misalignment of the track that guided the cradle towards the river.
For years, while I was volunteering with the repair of the boats when the shed/slipway was in the care of Fred Crowell, one of my tasks was often to guide the cradle over the misalignment of the rails of the slipway and it was done with the aid of a six foot scaffolding pole to lever the cradle onto the lower section of the track and I’d like to add that it was rather satisfying to be an active participant in a successful launch.
In the second section: Thief now locked up:-
The first part says that the stolen items were not recovered and while it is a bit sad, it is not relevant to my tale but the second part is yet a personal attack on my integrity by its author, Mr Alec Renwick:-
Sorry to say, a former member of NEMT and now a former Trustee of NFHT has know-ingly taken over and abused our old Website for his own ends and personal opinions. We have spent a great deal of time and effort to try and rectify this ridiculous situation. At an NEMT Trustee meeting we were left with no option but to follow our protocol and sent a letter to him indicating our intentions. He is now permanently deleted as a member of NEMT.
As I said at the beginning of this post the ‘old Website’ was never his and technically one could not be a member of the NFHT without being a member of NEMT.
I have been told that the two other members of the Trustees meeting where its Chair Mr decided to take my membership off me , were K Lund and Sue Griffiths. K Lund, under the direction of the Chair Mr Alec Renwick, had willingly overwritten the minutes of the AGM for 2023 and the Treasurer, Sue Griffiths, against the wishes of the deceased divided his legacy almost entirely for benefit of the NEMT Trustees rather than the Trust who looked after the vessels once they had been repaired and made seaworthy by NEMT.
It appears that one is unlikely to get a straightforward answer if those two are asked why they had decided to back Mr Renwick at their meeting on April 30th and help him to tear up my membership of NEMT.
NEMT may have been paying for the so called Website but it was never theirs and they had lost any control over its content when I discovered that its NEMT’s Chairman had been deleting swaths of it, effectively to alter the Trust’s history to disadvantage of the NFHT, which folded in the Autumn 2024. It started a new life as Northumbrian Fishing Heritage on 17 September 2024 and by June 2025 the funds that had been the NFHT’s had been transferred over to the new charity.
Since the death of the Chair of NEMT in March 2020 the posts on the nemaritimetrust.co.uk, have been mainly devoted to challenging the false accusations of the Chairman who replaced him although some of the work done by North East Maritime Trust does get mentioned by reference to the Newsletters published by the current Chair.
Re: Latest News and Workshop News:-
I see no need to comment on these or any the following sections. See pages 3-8:-
Boat Build for South Shields Sea Cadets (The Kernic)
Other Workshop Activities
Visitors and Bistro
Events
2024 Blyth Old Gaffers
Bridlington Coble Festival
Members Fishing Trip to St Mary’s Island
Membership
Health and Safety
Exterior Works
Administration
If any member of NEMT wishes to comment on the above, they can address them to nemaritime2020@gmail.com or call 0191 4478814.