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The regrettable actions of the
Executive of the Scottish Beef Council towards the National Beef
Association
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie,
Perthshire
Filed 30th Mar 06
©www.land-care.org.uk
It was sad to read the front page
of The Scottish Farmer, 25th March 2006
"Only Scot on NBA board
is ousted".
It was particularly sad because
it is quite right that he should be ousted.
The good news is that there is
now an opportunity for him to be replaced by someone who has a more
constructive agenda.
This was no repeat of Jim Walker's
ousting from the chairmanship of Quality Meat Scotland. Whatever
the rights or wrongs of that debacle, the ousting of Keith Redpath
from the National Beef Association Board as its Scottish representative
is well founded.
The Scottish Beef Council (SBC)
is the Scottish branch of the National Beef Association (NBA). I
am a member of the committee of the SBC and I believe I have attended
every meeting of that committee during the past 11 months. It has
become increasingly apparent that a group among the current and
previous office bearers have been following an agenda of their own
to cause trouble with, and disruption of, relationships between
the SBC and the NBA HQ, with the intention of forming a separate
group of their own. This is distinctly unhelpful at a time when
it is essential that the UK beef industry holds together, pooling
what resources it has to get the beef industry back on track, both
at home and abroad.
Members of the SBC committee were
repeatedly asked by the chairman of SBC to respect the confidentiality
of committee business. It was therefore disappointing that Keith
Redpath and others allegedly talked directly to the press, making
statements that I for one do not recall being the consensus of those
present at the relevant committee meetings. What was also clear
was the lack of any significant attempt to inform the Scottish membership
of the NBA what was going on, although committee members asked them
to do so. The letter sent by the chairman of SBC to Scottish members
encouraging them not to pay their NBA subscriptions to the NBA,
but to a separate bank account, and stating that the SBC was withholding
support for the NBA, did not have the formal approval of the committee,
as I recall. The reason given by the executive for such an action
was alleged mismanagement of the NBA finances of which there is,
as far as I can ascertain, no real substance.
This small group, drawn from present
and past office bearers of the SBC, have recently gone much further
in breaking their own rules regarding confidentiality of committee
or board room business. They issued a press release dated 24th March
2006 about the board meeting of the NBA (1), and
would appear to have talked to the Scottish Farmer before that to
enable it to carry the story on its front page on the next day.
The NBA responded with a newsletter
dated 27th March addressed to all the Scottish members of the NBA.
Permission from the NBA has been granted to this website to reproduce
the relevant part (2).
In the recent Scottish Farmer article,
Keith Redpath is quoted as saying
"We are ready to do our
thing in Scotland. We have had enough and are sick of all the
aggro and hassle"
But truth to tell, it is Keith
Redpath and his cronies that are causing very damaging disruption.
"Our thing" appears to be an ambition to run
a separate organisation themselves. Indeed, we read in the press
that they have now come up with a name for it, all without the agreement
of the SBC committee, let alone consulting the Scottish NBA members.
There should be no reason why the
Scottish members of the NBA cannot work in conjunction with NBA
members in other parts of the UK, thereby achieving the ability
to lobby the Scottish Executive while others lobby DEFRA and Brussels
with pooled resources. The structure of the NBA recognises the different
needs of the different countries that make up the UK. In Robert
Forster, the NBA has a Chief Executive who is a first class communicator
and lobbyist with the interests of the beef industry throughout
the UK at heart. We need a separate Scottish body like a hole in
the head.
Well, it is a free country. If
Redpath and his associates will not co-operate constructively with
the NBA as a UK organisation (or indeed with the SBC committee),
then they are at liberty to set up whatever other organisation they
like. Hopefully, few will follow them. The rest of us can get on
and repair the damage they have been doing. On admittedly scant
resources, the NBA HQ continues to do a tremendous amount of good
work on behalf of the beef industry in the UK, including Scotland.
The next committee meeting of the
SBC is on 6th April at 6.00 pm at United Auctions Perth. I understand
that any Scottish member of the NBA is entitled to attend as an
observer, but this should be checked with the chairman.
Don't knock the NBA, join it.
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