Reasons for resigning

by Roger Lawrence

When the secretary and treasurer of any organisation such as VUWSA resign it should be food for some serious thought by the parties concerned.

By virtue of their position, and not from any skill they may have, they are the only two people who know the day-to-day running of the association business, and as such, the rest of the executive, lacking this knowledge, must accept for the most part the word of the secretary and treasurer where the basic running of the association is concerned.

Unfortunately, the executive did not accept this viewpoint.

Mr. Boldt's comments on the resignation of Mr. Tate and myself are almost hysterically subjective, which in the light of Mr. Boldt's supposed maturity have surprised me very greatly.

I regard as irresponsible the dalliance over payment of the Extrav and Tournament accounts, a problem which could have been solved by removing the respective treasurers.

This is no reflection on them— they struggled manfully under difficult conditions—but the situation became such that a qualified accountant was necessary to sort out the mess.

I also regret the insistence of Mr. Boldt and Mr. Hassed, the Sports Officer, of placing sport above the general association welfare.

This is reflected both by the NZUSU affair, and by the passing of regulations giving Sports Committee the right to bypass the Finance Committee on sports club finance.

One of the basic aims of Mr. Tate and myself was to have a centralised finance system to avoid the fiascos such as Tournament.

To this end the association finance regulations were drafted and a new system for office staffing and finance of special activities was passed.

These have been either negatived or rescinded after our resignations.

I believe that as the treasurer is democratically elected for the purpose of governing association finance, he should have the final word on financial decisions.

He is usually the only person on the executive with the qualifications necessary to cope with the finance of such a large body.

If my press release is read it will be found that I do not say all students possess inherent financial irresponsibility.

I can only assume that Mr. Boldt is being humorous here.

Mr. Boldt criticises the timing of my resignation, yet he well knows (and it is recorded in executive minutes) that I offered to stay on as acting secretary after I resigned until a replacement was found.

This offer was rejected on the grounds that the executive would look foolish if they accepted.

Mr. Boldt can only blame himself if the running of the association was upset.

As long ago as September I warned the president that the association would have legal proceedings to face over Tournament but I understand his attitude was that the Tournament controller, Mr. Alister Taylor, would take the blame.

I believe that with proper leadership at that stage instead of a petty feud, the legal entanglement would never have ensued.

My resignation was not calculated to cause embarrassment. It was the only path left open to me without creating further unpleasantness. The executive (in which I include Mr. Tate and myself) failed to attain a spirit of co-operation which was vitally necessary, and this caused the resignations.