With reference to the forwarded email of the 13th November from Mr Renwick, please see below and note that it has not been answered and it is two and a half weeks since it was sent and it can be confirmed that I have not received a registered delivery since I received the email of that date. It is also highly likely that Mr Renwick will know my address in Amble as it was known to Martin Wilson over 5 years ago when he wrote to me as the treasurer of NFHT.
The decision to remove me from the membership of NEMT was taken at what seems to be a secret meeting of a very select few on the 30th April and it is reasonable to assume that Mr Wilson’s membership was taken away by a similar process five years ago. Apart from Mr Renwick himself, the attendees were Mr Lund, the NEMT treasurer, Dr Sue Griffiths and possibly Mr Barnard.
I say possibly Mr Barnard because I was not informed of their decision until the 7th July or seven weeks after the meeting:-
Micheal,
You will have received a recorded delivery letter regarding the immediate deletion of your NEMT membership.
Please acknowledge receipt of this email.
Regards
Like the email of the 13th November it was not acknowledged, but by that time I had been informed by Dave Parker on the day of the failed relaunch of the Henry Frederick Swan that Mr Barnard and NEMT had parted company. The relaunch failed because of the misalignment of the slipway rails about halfway between the shed and river at low water. It had caused trouble for years and the fix was for someone to lever the bogie onto the lower stretch of that rail with the aid of a six foot scaffolding pole.
It is very easy and rather satisfying and I have done it a couple of times over the years but it needs three working together because the winchman cannot accurately gauge where the bogie is on the slipway once it has left the shed and it needs someone to stand in the middle of the shed/slipway to communicate with the winchman and their team mate keeping the bogie on track. I have taken the trouble got through this in detail to because Mr Renwick said of the Launch Day Event in his Summer Newsletter:-
This was going to be early April but unfortunately very strong winds and a big swell stopped us from launching from the NEMT boatshed.
It was not very windy and there was certainly no swell otherwise they would not have bothered to attempt a launch that day but far more reaching was his misinformation about the website nemaritimetrust.co.uk:-*
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.
That the Website belonged to NEMT or Mr Renwick was an outright lie, it had belonged to me for over ten years. The other lie was that it was still offline. It had been working sufficiently well over the couple of months since the rebuild had begun with its new provider in Mid April an that it has attracted the interest of a couple of hundred of souls who shared the interest in preserving fishing boats such as the Favourite.
In the last few days the post views for nemaritimetrust.co.uk which as I’ve said, represents both the Trusts based in Wapping Street, South Shields, passed 50,000, which I find rather pleasing.
I digress, on the morning of the failed attempt to launch the HFS I was wondering whether it was worth bothering to explain some of this to Dave when our conversation was interrupted by Mr Renwick asking to have a word with me and I simply told him to put his request in writing but he made very obvious that he was not pleased with my request so I made my apologies to Dave and left to go and get the Shields Ferry and I while I did not go into detail I gave Dave a gist of why I wanted any dialogue with Mr Renwick to be in writing. Mr Renwick’s version of the event is somewhat different:-
As you know I offered to talk to you sometime, but you refused.
You also stated in passing “that I would know why”
While I understand your reticence about this, I certainly don’t know why.
Except to say that with past experience, email communications can be dangerous in cases like this and difficult to control. That is why my offer to discuss face to face was made in the best way possible manner.
It is especially dangerous for the likes of Messrs Renwick and Barnard but not for those that seek the truth and statements made in writing, about what was said at meetings than becomes libel rather than slander.
Here I will take the opportunity to take all those interested, back a year to the excuse made by Mr Renwick, 6-Jan-23, for not releasing a copy of the minutes of the AGM held in November 2022:-
In reference to you request for the November minutes.
There is currently a concern about the accuracy of the transcript. . . .
Further to your slanderous accusations.
Please supply the evidence you use to form these beliefs.
Two days later Mr Barnard also falsely accused me of slander and it looks like Sue and Alex were given the stark choice of believing Messrs Renwick and Barnard or myself:-
Subject: Slanderous Accusations
Dear Sir, I am a trustee of NEMT and as such am one of the people against whom you are making the grounds less, mindless accusations.
Fifteen months later and still no let up from Mr Barnard and while he no longer accused me of making slanderous accusations he claimed I could not see the minutes because I was not a member of NEMT on the 17th March 2024 in response to my email to the former Chair of NEMT on the 16th March. He wrote under the title of Consider Urgent:-
I note that you are not a member of NEMT but are a director of nfht whom, I assume you speak for.
I am an ellected member of NEMT and was ellected by the membership because they wished me to take that position. It’s called democracy.
The reason you have not seen the minutes is because you are not a member, just thought I would clear that question up for you
This time, he was no doubt referring to the NEMT AGM of the 9th of March in his email of the 17th. I did not respond to his email but wrote to Mr Renwick saying:-
First: I want to dispel the rumour going around that Peter Weightman as one of NFHT, had anything to do with the alterations made by me to the NEMT website. In fact he asked me to remove the most contentious of them and I was in the process of doing that when it appears the provider, TSOHOST was told I was not a member of NEMT and I was excluded from nemaritimetrust.co.uk and was not able to complete Peter’s request.
More to the point I add in my email of the 19th:-
Secondly: in his email dated 17-Mar-24, Mr Barnard says that I am not a member of NEMT which both, you and I, know to be untrue.
To force the second point home about being a member of NEMT, I attached a copy of the image of my two standing orders with the bank, one for the CKS and one for NEMT and while there were Trustees acting for NFHT there was never any need for any need for a separate subscription to NFHT because one had to be a member of NEMT in order to be one of its Trustees. There is no restriction of any member of NEMT being a Trustee of both Trusts.
Before I close I’m rather curious to know why he wishes me to acknowledge his email of 7th July:-
“Michael,
You will have received a recorded delivery letter regarding the immediate deletion of your NEMT membership. Please acknowledge receipt of this email.” and 13th November, please see below.
Perhaps the attendees of the meeting of April 30th may know why?
Mick Dawson
2-Dec-24
* the original Summer Newsletter was watermarked and about 10 times the size of the one shown in the reference above!