Whilst many often prefer the comfort of the status quo and others that may feel the structure works, the current system demonstrably lacks balance and can be unfair. In our opinion a reappraisal of the Management Structure is needed, at least in part.

The Board's own ‘Director Guidelines’ highlights the need for new blood in its ranks but in reality the Board appears to carefully select new candidates from either a pool of friends or others maybe without relevant experience, that are willing to follow the Board’s status quo. This chosen group is recycled over the years. David Jones, for example, has been a Board director on three occasions over three decades, Mukti Jain Campion previously a Chairwoman is back and Leon Bernard Charalambides also a blast from the past. Yan Tordoff stayed on the Board for over eight years and took the helm, stewarding CSL during the period of Case Study 1.

We count 8 Staithe Directors that have held repeated stints at some point over the years, not including spouses and other family members replacing them.

New (or recycled) board members are quietly co-opted to the committee without consultation and the co-option presented as a fait accompli at the next AGM meeting. The system is reliant on general shareholder indifference but any interested attendee at the AGM would find it difficult to reject a new appointment at that moment without a pre-organised rebellion. We do not see how such a circumstance could be considered acceptable, but encourage your thoughts either way.

A Starter for Ten

In this brave new internet world, why not take some advantage of the electronic systems available to enable ALL ideas and Community Decisions to be voted for confidentially online? It is our view that a Board elected by groups of residents may (in our view has) lead to the clique mentality that we have seen evidenced on the other web pages of this site. Why not employ a single professional Director (with no connection to the Staithe or its residents), whose only power is to implement changes voted for online, one vote per freehold, by a truly democratic estate.

These new ideas can be tested on the Forum, without first having to be filtered through a select few in a committee.

Safeguards in Place

You will make you own minds up how fair or unfair the current company mechanisms can be, and if there is to be change we would urge safeguards to be put in place to protect every (wo)man and their own home. Why not introduce a simple rule enabling any freehold shareholder to have a deciding vote on change to the status quo that he/she can demonstrate directly impacts on the "quiet enjoyment" - in the legal sense - and/or value of their home. This would be to avoid groups forming to introduce changes negatively affecting one particular resident, whether through personal animus, indifference or otherwise.

These are initial ideas.

The Staithe belongs to and should be controlled by the Shareholders.

We welcome any thoughts you may have on these matters.