Transcription of Landscape Institute EGM 27th June

The EGM was chaired by Tim Gale  Past President of the Landscape Institute (PPLI)

Helen Tranter (former LI Honorary Secretary and Board Member)  introduced the meeting

Welcome to the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Landscape Institute members. Thank you very much for attending and particular thanks to requisitioners and supporters. Before we carry on, for those in the room, the fire escape is through that door there and up to Cow Cross Street. For everybody on the Zoom, could you please mute your Zoom, and we will be recording this meeting. My name is Helen Tranter. Oh, and the meeting is quorate. We do have enough people here to make the meeting quorate.

My name is Helen Tranter. I’m a former Vice President and honorary secretary. I’m jointly chairing the meeting with Tim Gale, a past President of the Landscape Institute, and Tim will introduce himself in a minute.

Order of Events and Initial Statements The order of events for the evening is as follows. There will be two short presentations from eminent past Presidents, Merrick Denton-Thompson and Hal Moggridge. Then you will have the chance to hear Brody McAllister speak openly for the first time on his experience and his lost ambitions. I will then look back at the history of conduct complaints. We have provided an opportunity for a trustee to speak but, as far as we know, no one is turning up.

We’ll then have questions and comments, and then we will explain the procedures for voting on the motion tonight. While the votes are being counted, we’ll have some refreshments, and the meeting will close at 8:30 at the latest to allow us to clear the room. I hope this meeting gives you all a chance to hear alternative views, to listen, to speak freely, and to be better informed about what is happening at the Landscape Institute.

Validity of the EGM Before we proceed, I’d like to explain why we think this is a valid EGM. We are a member-led organisation, and our constitution is based on democratic principles, and it has safeguards built in to ensure accountability. One of these safeguards is the power for members to call an EGM if they’re not happy with what’s going on.

The threshold is quite high in the Institute. It’s 139 members, which is higher than a lot of institutes, but we have managed to—we have found 145 people who signed a requisition, so that indicates a lot of people who are not happy with what’s happening. The Board have refused to recognise this EGM. They’ve used lawyers—what I think is they’ve played with words—because I think the spirit of our EGM is that this is valid. They’ve picked away at various words and found excuses not to recognise it. So we are of the view it’s valid, and the motion should be accepted, whichever way it goes.

Just a little bit more on the 145 members who’ve signed in. It’s a very broad group: heads of practices, leading academics, authors, winning designers, public sector people, small practice people. And we do wonder if some of them are feeling quite marginalised. The group that’s a bit missing from the list is the large practices, and in the long run, if the Institute is to thrive, it needs to appeal to all the different sectors. If it wants to expand the membership, it needs to have a broad base.

And I’ve talked about the spirit of our Constitution, but the next slide has got the detailed wording as to why we think it’s an EGM. Now some of it’s about times, which I’m sure is quite boring and you don’t want to know that, but in the middle it says an EGM may be convened by the requisitioners or by the majority of them for such purposes only as should be specified in the requisition, in the same manner as nearly as possible as that which an EGM would be if it convened by the Board. So we have tried as best we can to stick to the formalities of an EGM. Clearly, we haven’t had the resources of the central office to help us, but we think that it is valid. At which point, I will hand over to Tim.

Tim Gale: Reading the Motion Thank you, Helen. My name is Tim Gale. I’m a past president of the Landscape Institute, and I’m chairing the meeting here at the Alan Baxter Gallery, provided without cost through the Alan Baxter Charitable Foundation.

I’m now going to read out the motion, which is simple and is at the core of this meeting. We move that steps are taken towards establishing the truth and proper reconciliation with regard to matters of governance leading to the removal of the President-Elect in June 2022. Thus, within 30 days of this EGM, the process and evidence resultant in his removal would be examined by an independent reviewer. The independent reviewer would be appointed by mutual agreement, for instance, through the Institute of Arbitrators process.

So that’s the motion, and I’d ask, when we come to questions, that you keep this at the forefront of your minds.

Introducing Merrick Denton-Thompson So next, I’m introducing our first speaker, who is Merrick Denton-Thompson OBE. He was president of the Landscape Institute from 2016 to 2018, giving him recent first-hand knowledge of the Institute’s workings. Merrick was assistant director of Hampshire’s Environment Department, a founding trustee of Learning Through Landscapes, and is still active on policy work with the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), IFLA and the EU. Thank you. Merrick, if you could come to the lectern.

Merrick Denton-Thompson’s Address Well, thank you very much indeed, everybody, for coming this evening and for those online. I hope that they can all hear me very clearly. I’ve actually been very active with the Institute. I looked it up, and it was exactly 50 years ago that I joined, and I’ve done a great deal of work with the Landscape Institute. I’m passionate about the Institute and about the profession.

There are very simple purposes, just to follow up with what Tim said. We are really asking for a review of a process that basically undermined our democratic structure, and that’s a critical point. Without democracy, the Landscape Institute does not work. So we believe there is evidence of a miscarriage of natural justice in overturning the election results. I’ve got two more slides just to illustrate the point.

So you might well indeed ask why, you know, what’s happened? What was behind all this? And we believe that it’s become apparent that the President-Elect was subject to a personal vendetta based upon a clash of personalities and settling old scores. And you might want to say, “Oh, that’s all speculation.” So where is the evidence?

The evidence is there, and I will just give you a small number of specific examples.

So Brodie, if you recall, there was a review of the Landscape Institute, and Brodie put his hat in the ring and said, “I would really like to recommend and enact the recommendations of that review to modernise essentially the Landscape Institute.” He had just started with marketing himself, which of course he’s able to do, when a board member immediately challenged him, and that was investigated quite fully, and he was found he had no case to answer.

The Vice President, as soon as the election results were announced—I wrote to the Vice President congratulating him, as I did with the President-Elect. I had an email back from Noel Farrer, who was the Vice President, saying, “I don’t agree with the member’s choice. I don’t agree with the member’s choice,” and if you want to see evidence of that, I will provide it.

And then, as soon as the election results were announced that Brodie was going to be the President-Elect, an immediate past board member and now the newly appointed President-Elect complained about Brodie’s role in the removal of the previous chief executive officer. That complaint was looked at and scrutinized by a members’ panel over a number of months, and you can put yourself in Brodie’s position, being attacked when he was prepared to give up four years of his life to service at the Institute and its members. The members’ panel scrutinized every nook and cranny of that complaint from Carolin Göhler and concluded there was no case to answer. As soon as that result came out, the Board commissioned solicitors to construct a prosecution case. No question in my mind, that’s actually what happened. And the rest is really behind closed doors. We have no idea what that process took place. We don’t know much about it because it was all shrouded in confidentiality, which the whistle-blowing issue requires, apparently.

Next image please. So we have actually made—I have personally made—a challenge to the Board of Trustees, and I just want you to look at one or two of these rather closely. So the first point I would make in removing Brodie, the basis of it was that Brodie might bring the Institute into disrepute. But there was no threat to the reputation of the Institute, as most of the accusations—and that is apart from one—were drawn from internal communications with highly restricted circulation to very senior people. In other words, his colleagues on the Board or the Chief Executive—people that you should be able to have frank and open conversations with. All the accusations are denied, and you just examine them: they’re all open to interpretation anyway.

Now the process has been looked at very carefully by our next speaker, Hal Moggridge, and I take my hat off to you, Hal, for the work you’ve done on this. Some of us were feeling a bit edgy, and we decided to take counsel’s opinion because we were pretty emotional. Were there real objective reasons to be concerned about the process? So we did appoint a barrister, and the barrister looked very closely indeed and concluded that Hal’s points that you’re just about to hear were valid.

Now any professional organisation should have some process of mediation and arbitration, not go straight to the firing squad. Well, our modern organisation ought to be doing exactly that, should have done that exactly: met Brodie, talked to him about their concern. None of that happened. And indeed, the Charity Commission recommends it, so there’s a process that was not adopted by the Landscape Institute. And then the Board spent £170,000 of charitable funds attacking its own members. What is going on?

The Board, as I’ve already implied, were deeply immersed—not as a Board itself, but members of the Board were deeply immersed—in every stage of Brodie’s removal. They have openly denied that to the members. They have said the Board were not involved at all. Well, that’s a deception. That is frankly not true.

Now Brodie, as many of us, has given a lot of his life to the Landscape Institute and the profession, but none of that was mentioned at all in the process of his dismissal.

So I think, just in conclusion, we believe that all aspects of this intervention are disproportionate with the alleged issues. You’ve been very patient. I want you to examine what I’ve said and ask me questions, because I need to be accountable to the membership and to those present today. Thank you very much.

Introducing Hal Moggridge Thank you, Merrick. Our second speaker is Hal Moggridge OBE. Hal was president of the Landscape Institute from 1979 to 1981. He’s one of only eight people to have been awarded the Landscape Institute Medal, sometimes known as the Gold Medal. He was also awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society for his work at Wisley. Hal.

Hal Moggridge’s Address 

Good evening.Democracy requires that the elected Landscape Institute president should assume the presidency, unless a convicted criminal, and this was respected in 2014 when the elected president assumed office in spite of the Court of Appeal having just found him professionally negligent. In contrast, Brodie McAllister, after being elected president by the membership, has been removed from trusteeship and then presidency following an internal process with continuous board involvement, though our regulations give only Council the power to dismiss a trustee.

Having analysed the 227-page Advisory Council Committee of Inquiry report—which I’ve printed out—and having analysed it, I am convinced the process adopted was completely illegitimate.

For instance—and I can only give a few instances—this process commenced in February 2022 after McAllister attended an internal meeting to which someone else sought anonymous entry using a homophobic screen name. The then president implausibly attributed this to McAllister, which he denies, but the matter was followed up wrongly as a secret whistle-blowing disclosure. It’s not possible for whistle-blowing to be between two trustees.

The Board then, instead of referring the matter to Council as our by-law and regulations require—and I quote, and that I quote from this document—”always agreed that solicitors should carry out a formal investigation to provide a report for the Board,” an expensive but incorrect procedure. Only after six weeks did the Board refer the matter to Council, having decided against the options of taking no action, mediation, or a disciplinary complaint, in favor of whether the Council should remove McAllister as a trustee. It’s all written in this document.

Council’s Committee of Inquiry later sought evidence from an IT specialist about this incident but declined his offer to undertake a forensic examination of the subject’s computer. One supposes because this might have conclusively confirmed McAllister’s denial.

Significantly, from the 11th of February 2022, the Board was improperly constituted, having internally reappointed two of their members who had exceeded their permissible terms of office. Fresh applicants had responded to an advertisement for new board members but were denied possible appointment after Council interview, which is the correct procedure, I quote, “due to unforeseen circumstances.”

On April the 22nd, 2022, five past presidents concerned by fragments of information about what was going on wrote to the Board urging that the membership be consulted before a decision is taken but were rebuffed. The Board appointed their whistle-blowing trustee, neither a landscape professional nor a member of Advisory Council, and.five past presidents concerned by fragments of information about what was going on wrote to the Board urging that the membership be consulted before a decision is taken but were rebuffed. The Board appointed their whistleblowing trustee, neither a landscape professional nor a member of Advisory Council, and I suggest acting as a hostile prosecution advocate throughout as Secretary of Advisory Council Committee of Inquiry.

She improperly, as a board not a council member, attended every committee meeting and the two subsequent council meetings. She wrote all communications with McAllister including on April 8th, and I quote, “the committee have directed that all communication should be made through me and you should not communicate with the committee members directly or outside of this process.” Thus, astonishingly, it seems that Council representatives never had any personal discussion with McAllister about the allegations against him.

On May the 31st, 2022, Council met to consider the Committee of Inquiry’s 227-page confidential report prosecution which I understand they had received only two days earlier—far too little time for them to absorb the contents of this lengthy, expensive document prepared with external legal advice.

Shockingly, McAllister was denied legal support and not even shown the report till after this meeting and never given an official opportunity to respond, nor were his many earlier contributions to the institute mentioned. He was then removed from trusteeship, although all the issues discussed were internal and confidential. But according to the regulations, a trustee may only be removed if, and I quote, their “behavior has damaged or is likely to damage the reputation of the institute,” impossible in this case.

Next, the Board retrospectively introduced a new regulation 21.5 that if a trustee is removed by the council, the trustee shall also cease to be an officer until the Board resolve otherwise. I think that last little clause is helpful because the Board is in a position where it can resolve otherwise now without difficulty, which excluded McAllister from the presidency to which the membership had elected him.

The procedure against McAllister appears faulty, secretive, and unworthy of our membership organization, incorrect in many respects as well as those I have mentioned. Therefore, the concept of natural justice and the well-being of our institute now require an independent review leading to establishment of the truth and then proper reconciliation.

Please vote for the motion.

Brodie McAllister’s Address (President-Elect, 2022)

Hello, I’m Brodie McAllister. As previous speakers have correctly said, this is the first time I’ve been heard or seen during this case. The case lasted five months during my President-Elect period, preceded immediately by a previous complaint that lasted four months for which there was no case to answer. Okay, so almost my entire President-Elect period was taken up with attacks against me.

Who am I? Well, I was elected—in contrast to the current last month’s non-elections where you saw democracy collapse—I was elected on a 23% popular vote for a mandate that was about delivering outwardness, moving away from petty inward bureaucracy, and establishing a member-led body that was broad and inclusive.

My question is, are we going to get that now because we are now leaderless. We have no permanent chief executive. We have not got an elected president. We haven’t had a president last year or for the coming year. That is a breach of charter.

I’ve definitely got the experience, and I would argue because I was made a Fellow, I’ve definitely got the integrity and fitness for purpose. So the Institute needs to make their mind up in classifying me as lacking in integrity. Why did they make me a Fellow? I’ve made a special contribution to the Institute.

Now I’ll come later to who you can trust as being more honest in this case, and I will show you evidence that I believe the Institute has acted dishonestly. Now, if that’s true and we move through a review and it’s found out to be true, then that’s very serious. Okay, and we’ll come to that in a minute.

But I do believe that we should stop attacking each other, and that from the very start, we made it clear that we’d rather meet and mediate rather than escalate this dispute. And as previous speakers have said, the obvious path is mediation. Now I truly believe that by rejecting that path, they have escalated an avoidable dispute. Now that is not good management practice. That’s a dire situation, particularly with the expenditure involved.

But I still believe we’ve got more in common than divides us. Okay, we’re not a destructive force. We are here in an EGM acting constructively within the Landscape Institute processes. If we really wanted to destroy, we wouldn’t be doing that. Okay, the barrister advises to move straight away to litigation for a clear cut win. Okay, I’ve also been libeled. I was advised by a lawyer to move straight away to litigation in the High Courts for libel. Now that would have dire consequences for the Institute. Instead, we’ve gone through the lawful processes of the Institute to be constructed.

The Institute is a membership-led body, and yet the lawyer who was charged with the prosecution was told the Institute doesn’t include the membership. It’s just the governance.

How did we get here? Well, it’s a history of not accepting mediation, of democracy collapse last month, leaderless, not focusing on our cause. We’ve got a charitable cause. You can’t blame us for not focusing on it. All we want is justice. Unwise spending four years in a row beyond budget. Now you can’t argue the accounts were audited. Auditing just means the numbers are correct. It makes no comment on the quality of management. We are not allowing the members to hold the board to account. That’s why we’ve gone wrong. We are controlling free speech. We are locking down the branches. We are overspending. We are escalating disputes, but it’s not us, it’s the Board.

So an unrepresentative minority within the Board is not accepting the results of previous disciplinary outcomes. They’re reinventing it constantly and vexatiously.

So the people might be asking what are the charges? Well Hal has spoken briefly about them, but when we had a barrister look at them, they said the whistleblower was only based on the imposter instance in an internal meeting, and that she was very surprised that they seemed to have inflated volume and bolted on extra accusations, and that one of them was just a reinvention of the previous complaint which had been dismissed. The rest was minor stuff, unproven, inflated.

Now even the Institute’s lawyers who were charged with prosecution, they were directed to prosecute, they said that the whistleblowing issue had not been proven. It was not conclusive. It had not been admitted to. They still went ahead. The lawyers told the Institute that if you proceed, you will damage your own reputation. They still went ahead.

During the case, the Institute did not adhere to disciplinary procedure. It was all internal. There was no exceptional damage. Nothing was proven, and yet they continue to defame me that it was proven.

So why is the review needed? What’s the purpose of the motion? The motion is not asking anyone to take sides. It’s just asking if you’ve got a concern, if you’re not sure, if you don’t know what the facts are, a review is needed. And yet there is a faction within the Institute who have been asked to take sides based on secondhand information. My supporters are not taking sides on secondhand information. They’re just saying, “We’re a bit confused. We want to know the facts.” This is important to the integrity of the Institute. We want to learn lessons. We want the truth. We want to be able to trust the Institute again. Ultimately, we want reconciliation.

So despite the claim that all was proper, there are serious unanswered concerns.

Examples of Serious Unanswered Concerns

Now those serious concerns go on for pages and pages and pages, but here are just a few examples. Now what I’m saying is that if a reviewer finds that even half of these are true, the Institute is in trouble because this amounts to more serious wrongdoing than I was ever accused of. Okay. These accusations are based on fact and hard evidence.

When the Institute came to a conclusion via their inquiry, they were directed to downgrade it to “speculative likelihood” to commit me, even though that is completely in contradiction of government guidance that if you are taking out a whistleblowing case of this seriousness, it has to be based on fact and hard evidence. They were instructed to downgrade the level of evidence to likelihood. Before that downgrading, even the inquiry themselves were unable to prove the case against me.

So examples of the concerns we have:

• Members of Council were blocked from performing their representative function.
• Council, contrary to the Institute claim, were given no choice. They were not given the choice of mediation or disciplinary action. They were told to invoke regulation 21 removal, and that was at an unlawfully constituted meeting.
• When I supplied a solicitor’s letter explaining why that meeting was unlawfully constituted, I was told the Council had been shown it. I’ve got a friend who was on Council. They weren’t shown it.
• In lack of impartial investigation throughout, the guiding principles of the whole case is I was told that the board had decided that they were going to be fair, consider welfare, and make a thorough and impartial investigation that left staff out of it. All four were breached. All four were not delivered.
• Members have been deceived. I’m willing to stand up in a court of law and testify that. Are they willing to be accountable themselves?
• I was slandered and that was then turned into libel in the Architect’s Journal. I asked the Architect’s Journal to remove the libel, and they said, “Where’s your evidence?” I showed them proof that it was libel, and they then admitted they removed it, they removed it, and admitted the slander had come from the Landscape Institute staff.
• The Landscape Institute staff were told by their own lawyers that I had not admitted to the claims, and yet they still proceeded to slander.
• I had no disclosure on the case. I had less disclosure than members of Council or people who weren’t even members of Council.
• My representatives and observers were barred from Council meetings even though the other sides were welcomed.
• Boards had conflicts of interest all the way through.
• By not being heard or seen, it is a breach of English law of natural justice which makes the case against me null and void. They’re not even interested in abiding by the law.
• Incorrect advice was accepted by the inquiry in contradiction of the government and biased directing of membership-paid lawyers.

Why Does This Matter?

Because I’ve heard some members, particularly large practice heads, say, “Well, it doesn’t really matter. The profession is flourishing whether Brodie was treated justly or unjustly. Well, he’s expendable.” Well, I don’t think that’s a moral stance. If you want an institute, it has to be an honest institute.

Without this case, without this case is not closed, it will hamper the Institute’s reputation and ability to be trusted and be a stain on its conscience for decades. We’re supposed to be a caring profession, an ethical profession, an honest profession, and a moral profession. Okay. It will rub off, it will stop us from promoting our cause. Okay. So we need to respect democracy and we need a well-run institute.

So the other point of view I’ve heard from the membership is, “Well, is this all just about one person? Shouldn’t we be focusing instead on the climate issue?” No, because this is the tip of the iceberg. You know, this case goes deeper, the dysfunction goes deeper. Okay. So it’s not just about me, it’s just coincidence that I was in the firing line.

It’s leadless, it’s currently unelected, it’s not being well managed, and it’s part of an epidemic across other institutes. It’s in denial of the crisis. You must not ignore this. It should be member-led, or you will hamper the pursuit of our cause and the ability to promote a profession we should flourish. It is not even in any commercial interest of the practice so to not listen to what I’m saying or the interest of those who care.

So what’s the essential ingredient to limit further damage? It has to involve Institute cooperation, treating elected officers with duty of care, fairness, and loyalty and respect.

As one branch chair commented, I’ve been treated brutally, and another branch chair commented that they find it hard now to trust the Institute and particularly the tone and volume of the propaganda that’s been pumping out of the Institute the last three days. Is this what members want? Do they have faith in how I was treated or do they harbor unanswered concerns?

Summary

So in summary, no one is above scrutiny and being held to account—me nor them—but proportionality, trust, and natural justice must reign. This is a baseline if we want a valued Institute to build on. Deviation from the principles of fairness, duty of care, natural justice, the need for a thorough and independent investigation, and the need to keep staff apart were all broken pledges that took an extraordinary toll on me and damaged my career. As a volunteer, I paid the Institute, and yet they used that money against me.

You’ve provided a large block of transcribed speech, including time stamps and speaker changes. I will compile this into a cohesive transcript, preserving the content and indicating speaker transitions. The text appears to be from a discussion or meeting, likely concerning an organization referred to as the “Institute” (LI) and the case of an individual named Brodie (or Brodie McAllister).

Transcript of Discussion Brodie (Speaker 1): I had tremendously good reputation that reputation has been damaged undeservedly. The case was marred by defamation of me, and now my supporters claiming, “Oh, the legal expenditure was your fault.” Well, I wasn’t afforded any defense, how could it be their fault? It was all one-sided.

The right or duty to inform members was badly exceeded. The Institute allowed a duty to inform members of matters, okay? But it succeeded when they go over into defamation, unproven things. That has been exceeded. The process was weaponized. We need to restore trust, resolve the dispute, and reconcile through truth. Because of Institute self-harm, we need to learn lessons. How can we learn lessons if there’s no review, if we’re just being told by the Institute it was all proper, “We’re perfect, it’s all well run.” How can we learn lessons and ensure implementation of the last Catherine Brown report?

Now that Catherine Brown report was commissioned to reduce dispute, okay? Two and a half years later, that has not been delivered because the people who were part of the problem were put in charge of the delivery, the implementation. You can’t blame us for that, we wanted that report, we wanted that review.

If this weren’t enough, the Institute is not consistently not delivering its strategy anyway. [You] can’t claim that it’s a well-run institute and we’ve interfered with that; it just wasn’t delivering anyway. So, we need to restore trust, we need to resolve dispute. They need to come clean and come to the negotiating table. Thank you.

Chair/Host (Speaker 2): Thank you. Brodie, thank you for that powerful witness. Our fourth speaker is Helen Tranter, FLI. Helen was honorary secretary and vice president of the Institute 2017 to 2019. She’s been a trustee of greenspace and the Ramblers Association. Helen.

Helen Tranter, FLI (Speaker 3): Thank you. Well, that’s difficult to follow on from Brodie, but can I just say I’ve been following the Brodie case right through and just want to collaborate what he’s been saying about the process and all the sorted goings on. But I’d just like to talk briefly about the history of conduct complaints involving trustees, as I think there is a recurring pattern of behavior. I suggest there’s an endemic problem that needs to be dealt with, and that the recent complaint against Brodie is a symptom of this problem. I suggest the LI needs to address the underlying cause of complaints, not just deal with symptoms.

My first involvement with the Landscape Institute (LI) was in 2009 when I joined advisory council as southeast branch rep. My very first meeting was very stormy and a surprising introduction to the inner workings of the LI. An organization that had emphasized the importance of good professional conduct—indeed, we’re all made to pass exams before we’re allowed to join the Institute about how we should exercise good professional conduct. It was obvious at that early stage that there were tensions. So that was back in 2009.

In 2011, I was elected as honorary secretary, which is on the board, and that role involved overseeing staff matters and dealing with conduct complaints. As Tim has already said, I was back on the board in 2017 as vice president. So I’ve been watching what’s going on for over a 10-year period.

And during that time, two presidents have been reprimanded or involved in complaints over really quite minor matters. I’ve seen two honorary treasurers resign. Why have two honorary treasurers resigned? They’ve been asking various questions about the finances. Were their lives being made uncomfortable for them? I think there were some reasons behind those resignations.

Two vice presidents were provoked. One was myself. I was shouted at by a very senior member of staff and it was extremely unpleasant. I could have complained but I chose not to. But subsequently, that member of staff made life very difficult for me and obstructed anything I wanted to do. The other vice president was reprimanded without being given a chance to defend himself, which is sort of what’s happened to Brodie. They’ve attacked him and not really given him a proper chance to defend himself. Later, an apology was issued to the other vice president, but it’s left a lot of ill feeling and it does cause such bad feeling between members.

Two president-elects have been subject to conduct complaints. The first was 2013, and Howell’s mentioned this already. He’d been found guilty of negligence in a civil court, which at the time disqualified him from becoming a trustee. But they amended the rules and regulations to allow him to take up office. The second case was Brodie, who’d had no involvement in court cases at all, and they amended the rules to stop him taking up office. Why the different treatment between the two different presidents-elect?

There are other complaints involving senior board members and fellows that I’m not going to go into detail, but there does seem to have been a lot of minor problems that have escalated in these last few years. Many of these incidents should have been screened out at the very start. If they did proceed, there should have been some mediation. But in each case, they’ve been taking a sledgehammer to crack an op [nut]. They’ve been escalating these things out of all proportion.

All these people I’ve talked about who’ve been involved in these complaints, I regard them as very decent, respectable people who’ve volunteered their time and who’ve used their best endeavors to act in the interests of the Institute. Brodie is just the latest victim in a long pattern of complaints against trustees and board members.

His case should have been seen in the context of all these other complaints, but they looked at it in complete isolation. And I did submit a statement to the committee of inquiry, and myself and a couple of others asked to give evidence, but it was refused. They buried my statement in about page 180 of the big document Hal’s been talking about, so I don’t suppose anyone read it when they only got it two days before.

So, just to conclude, I see Brodie as a victim of that long process. I mean, the reason I’m here today is that I would like to see the principles of democracy and accountability restored to our Institute. I’d like to see the principles of natural justice and proportionality restored to our complaint system, and I’d like to see honesty and openness restored to everything we do because it’s not there at the moment. The independent inquiries are [a] starting point; I urge you to vote for it.

And just finally, a comment on the recent elections: as Brodie said, they weren’t elections as none of the seats were contested. But who would want to be a board member with all this going on? You might get attacked like Brodie was. So, don’t stand. Thank you.

Chair/Host (Speaker 2): Thank you Helen.  And this is just a quotation from what Helen has just told us about. The fifth speaker, representative of the board of trustees, declined our invitation, so we won’t be hearing from the Institute formally.

So, you’ve heard from the speakers some of the issues contributing to this complex and often obscured train of events leading up to the unprecedented removal of an elected future president of the Landscape Institute. As Hal Mugridge has demonstrated, the Institute appears to have put aside or changed the regulations and bylaws in pursuit of a single purpose: the removal of Brodie McAllister as a trustee. The bigger picture is no less troubling, as described by Merrick, Brodie himself, and now Helen. There are many unanswered questions which may need to be addressed in months to come, and this is why we ask for an inquiry.

But now I’d like to throw the floor open to questions. Please bear with us; we’ve never done this before. So there are many in the room, but there are even more online, and we’d like you to put your hand up and wait for a microphone to come to you if you’re in the room. Similarly, if you’re on Zoom, to put your hand up or use the chat facility, and we will endeavor to get to you. We are allowing about half an hour for this discussion, and so [we are] ready to take the first question or point.

Tony Edwards (Speaker 4): Tony Edwards, please wait for the… I don’t know how many people in the room would have actually read the independent review of the Landscape Institute. I’m happy to leave it here because I don’t want to take it home on the train, particularly. But if you actually see some of the findings, it is important to remember certain things. This was an independent review. That’ll crop up again, because in this review, they also suggested in recommendations 36 and 37 that there are two other independent reviews on financing and IT as well. So, there is a track record of suggesting that an independent review is the way forward. This is not something which is completely out of sync with anything the Institute has done before.

But also, when you’re looking at the context in which some of these things are happening, it said that the board recognised when they commissioned the independent review, “The Institute is experiencing substantial and long-standing problems of culture and behaviour and leadership which are impeding its ability to deliver its strategy and to function effectively.” Symptoms include high levels of staff turnover and sickness and the resignation of a number of both elected and appointed board members over recent years. So the actual context in which this is happening, it’s not just gone sour because of the president-elect being removed. This was the context for the whole of the Institute as well.

And it’s interesting that what the recommendation was, having identified a number of issues, that what is proposed would “constitute a material change to the culture of the organisation and this will only be possible with a sustained level of focus and commitment from the board and the CEO.” Well, as we can see, Brodie came in with an agenda to be reforming, and obviously that is not what was going to happen at all, because the CEO didn’t last very long beyond these recommendations and he left the premises as well. So I think when we actually look at what is happening now, we are seeing a pattern of behavior which is almost like self-defense. Someone has mentioned it’s almost like where the civil service has decided to protect itself and attack the minister as well. So this is almost what’s happened in an anti-democratic way.

So if anyone would like to read what this report actually said, leave it on the table. But I think don’t be misunderstood that the LI is doing everything well and somehow Brodie is the troublemaker. The trouble is in the heart of the Institute, and it’s an Institute we’re all caring about. Sometimes you shouldn’t worry about the people who are here making comments about this; it’s because we care about our Institute. For us, it’s a learning society.

I was very keen and wanted the member of the board. We got our library and archive taken to Reading. We’ve got it established there. We have the budget set up for it, and it pains me to say that now two-thirds of that budget has disappeared, but they did find the money to go to a junket down in the South of France. And I think what is the value of… so again, I think the Institute is losing the values that I would hold dear as a learning society, and we have to get an independent review because it cannot be left to mark its own homework. Thank you.

Chair/Host (Speaker 2): Thank you. We have a question from Debbie Sweet on Zoom. She says, “Exactly how should we act if the LI doesn’t engage with us, with the members?” Sadly, we can’t answer all the questions, but in a way the questions are a symptom of the problem. Can I take any further questions in the room? Roger Kent, please state your name and level and come up here.

Roger Kent (Speaker 5): I’m Roger Kent. I’m a fellow of the Institute and a member of the technical committee, and I’d just like to elaborate on one or two questions outstanding on the financial aspects of this behaviour.

First of all, can we please review the procedures required for the board to justify expenditure of approximately £150,000, now I understand that’s £170,000, from Landscape Institute funds on legal costs to support their case? This is a membership subscription resource which surely has to pass a scrupulous approval process. Where is this process identified or recorded? Was it followed? Was an estimate of probable legal fees established and considered before commissioning this level of expenditure? Who was responsible for approving it? Was there any consultation with the membership, board or council before committing to this expenditure? Did the Institute impose any cap on the potential legal expenditure? Was this figure exceeded? What constraints have been imposed to determine final costs? Is expenditure now complete, and if not, what analysis of potential future expenditure is being undertaken by whom? Is the membership being consulted?

I’d just briefly like to touch on involvement with the finances of the technical committee. Constraints on expenditure for essential Landscape Institute functions. On financial grounds, the technical committee (TC) has now been constrained to one face-to-face meeting per year; a further three Zoom meetings are proposed per year. The estimated travel expenditure by members to attend one face-to-face meeting is £1,000 to £1,500 per meeting. TC members are of the view that the TC cannot fulfill its function or obligations to LI membership on this basis. Are other committees under similar constraints? The priority of expenditure on legal fees for this case does not represent the best interests of the membership and does not appear to have been democratically established. Reducing Funding of essential LI functions as a result of excessive legal expenses will cause serious constraints on the present and future objectives of the institute without offering consideration from the membership. Thank you, Roger. Richard Burden on Zoom, would you like to ask your question?

Strangely enough, I hadn’t actually raised my hand, but I was thinking of making a comment that during all my time as honorary secretary, the vice president, and president, we didn’t have any of these complaints. So, how was it that in those days everybody was very ladylike and gentlemanly like and could resolve things in an amicable way? And why has the situation since the change in structure to the board and trustee framework led to all these behavioral issues?

Thank you. I’ll answer that one, Richard. I mean, it’s my experience that in the early days there were some tensions but there weren’t anything like the number of complaints and the scale of tensions there are at the moment. So, something has changed over the years and I think there have been various reviews, like the independent review, the review that Catherine Brown did looked at what was going wrong, but the question we need to ask is why is it going wrong? We really need to get to the bottom of why is all this happening, and that has not been looked at, and that’s what we need to do in this review. It needs to have quite a clear brief not just to sort of pick up on the various complaints. We need to seriously look at why it’s happening because if we don’t solve the problem of why, we won’t solve the problem. Thank you. Any other questions?

Christine, please come up to the microphone. “Hi, I’m Christine Tudor. I suppose I’ve been involved with the institute ever since I became a CMLI, and I don’t want to give my age away, but that was about 40 years ago, which is, oh gosh, yes. And Annabel was in the year above me, so there we are, Annabel. I mean, yes, I’ve represented the Southwest on council for two stints, I think, once in the ’80s and once around about 2009 when Helen was on council. So, I suppose in all, I’ve been on council for about six years on and off, and I’ve been on technical committee for about two long stints as well. So, I do have a good feel, like Helen and others have said, that the institute over the last 40 years, which is amazing really, and I remember when Marianne Hoey, who was absolutely fantastic, she was basically the Secretariat—just really one woman—and there was Peter Broadbent, two people were the Secretariat, and they were fantastic. And there was a lovely, is the term, symbiosis between the Secretariat and the membership, and also between the board, I would say. I mean, I would always complain that, yeah, yeah, but this is important. It was a friendly body and we all had a say, and I think what strikes me currently is that, well, I suppose it’s a question, but it’s a comment: Does the failure of the board to allow an independent review suggest that they themselves don’t think that their approaches were a bust? To me, it shows cowardice, you know, to not allow an independent review. And I think because they’ve faffed about for the last, what, nine months to twelve months, they themselves have caused all this debate and discussion that shouldn’t have had to happen if we’d have had an independent review. So that’s the one big thing, and that’s the major comment I have to make. But the other thing, I think Brodie suffered as well, because I think probably the meetings that he was attending were probably on Zoom, not face-to-face. So, say, were his accusers ever met him? You know, he’s already said that those on council have never met him. And so that’s wrong, you know? And also, we voted in a president, you know? So, I mean, what’s going on reminds me a bit of Putin, really, you know? You know, he’s in charge of communications, just like the LI board, and that’s not right.”

Any other, any other questions? Mark Smedon. Mark Smedon on Zoom. “How do you do, everybody? Hope you can all hear me. My name is Mark Smedon. I’m a Chartered Member of the Institute. I’ve been on and off a member of council. I’ve been chair of my branch committee on several occasions and had other roles as well. I’m also, although as Brodie pointed out, unelectedly coming in to take on the role of honorary secretary on the 1st of July. One of the things that I think, and I should like everybody, if they’re willing to, to give my support to this, that I will be attempting to do, is trying to invigorate council to properly determine their own agenda, which they’re entitled to do, in order to present some of the views of the membership. And I strongly believe, although I know the current Vice President doesn’t agree with me, that branch representatives are just that; they are representatives of their branches. They’re not just another member of council. And I really hope that as a small contribution to trying to improve democracy with the Institute and to hold everybody to account, we can reinvigorate the council of the Institute, and I hope I can count on people’s support in doing that as much as possible. That’s all I wanted to say.”

I’ll just comment briefly on that, Mark. But earlier on I was talking about the difference between the spirit of our constitution and people playing with words, and certainly the spirit of our constitution is that the branch reps should represent the branches. It’s sort of terribly obvious, but it appears to be something that’s now been denied, and that’s that is democracy working because if the branches did represent their members, then they would all have an input and feel valued. Any other questions in the room while we’re waiting for you, Brian?

Tom Turner is coming to the microphone, so Brian, don’t, don’t speak yet. He’s left the room, oh dear.

“Good evening, everybody. Tom Turner. I, I think I’ve been a member of the Institute for longer than all but one who’ve spoken tonight, but I shall not give the figure. I do however remain a terrific enthusiast for landscape architecture, for its potential for the landscape profession broadly. I don’t restrict it to landscape architecture, and also for the role of the Landscape Institute in promoting it. And I’d just like to remind you of what the constitution of the institute said when I joined, which was drafted in the 1930s. It had two objectives: to promote the study and general advancement of the landscape profession in all its branches, that’s correct, but the other one: to serve as a medium of friendly intercourse between the members and others practicing or interested in the art. That’s correct. That’s where our energy should go. The independent review was right that it should be done with the membership. It is therefore to me absolutely extraordinary that this long prosecution of Brodie has gone on with innumerable requests from people here and others to discuss it with the Institute, including seven past presidents, and they say no. It’s extraordinary. One other point, which is that this is described as a whistle-blowing complaint, but the nature of the whistle-blowing legislation, here in the States, everywhere else, it’s to protect the weak against the strong. And so, it’s typically a case like Erin Brockovich, that a big company is poisoning the public and the whistleblower reveals it. Or there’s a fault, Ralph Nader is associated with it, there’s a fault in a motor car and the poor employee needs to be protected against the bosses. But this is the reverse of that; this is the Board, the strong, attacking the weak and using whistle-blowing procedure to do it. It seems to me completely wrong, but if anybody can explain to me why it’s right, I’m all in.”

Brian (Clouston), please go ahead. “It seems to me that a great deal of the problems we have are to do with the partiality of senior staff, chief executives particularly. They have only one point of view and that is to serve the Board and not the members. And a good example of that is when our requisition was lodged. A decent, fair-minded, impartial chief executive would have advised the requisitioners to put the requisition right if it had been poorly presented. But no. The Chief Executive attacked the requisitioners and dismissed the requisition. So, if we have people who are working only for five or six board members who belong to the Institute and neglecting the four or five thousand, how on earth can you ever have a fair and decent institute? It just is impossible.”

Peter Hutchinson, online on Zoom, please go ahead. “Hello, can you hear me? We can. Hello, everyone. My name is Peter Hutchinson. This is my 50th year as being a member of the Landscape Institute, and for this is for three years, the Landscape Institute Northern Ireland branch has not existed. And I have written numerous times to the Institute, to the membership committee. I have met Sue Morgan when she was the CEO, with promises that they would get the Landscape Institute Northern Ireland up and running. My last communications with them, they have, they have effectively refused to engage in any, in any form of communication as to how they are going to get the Landscape Institute Northern Ireland resurrected. So, I emailed most of the big practices and the senior members in Northern Ireland, and I got back a number of responses that, one, I only got a couple of people who would like to join me in starting a branch committee and then putting that back to the Institute to say, ‘We’ve got a number of members, please can we then convene.’ But the most interesting responses from senior members of a number of practices were that the only way that the Landscape Institute Northern Ireland, and maybe many other branches, will be able to exist if they get secretarial assistance at branch level. A number of years ago, we had a Policy Officer. The three devolved nations had a Policy Officer because we have three different parliaments to deal with. Our legislation is slightly different and our parliamentary system is different. I believe that the branches are finding it hard to continue without having, without having secretarial help at branch level. I’m the past president of the Irish Landscape Institute, which is, this is roughly the size of a branch. It is run with a half a secretary. If I would urge you all to have a look at the Irish Landscape Institute website, we run CPD events, we run awards, etc., etc. We, we have representation on IFLA. Thank you very much for this invitation.”

Your line is rather breaking up. I wonder if we could move on to the next speaker. Bill Cairns, go ahead, please. “Fine. I was shocked before, but having had this excellent presentation from various members, I’m more than deeply shocked. But my main comment has got to be about the structure of the Landscape Institute. It’s fundamentally flawed, centralized, and is impervious to, or to opinion. And unless we can break through, and this is where we, I want to put the question, is that, how can we jolly well make sure that the Institute has a management structure which is fit for the purpose for which it’s there? And we really, if we don’t change the centralized system and have proper devolution to the branches and take the strengths that the branches can bring to the Institute, then we’re losing a tremendous opportunity to extend our whole influence as professionals. We’ve made more serious professional progress over the last two or three years, and for anyone like myself and others, it’s a disaster. So, I want to ask you, Chairman, what can we do about the management structure? Because that is the secret to resolving the situation we’re in.”

Excuse me, Bill, thank you very much. I think that we all recognized over these long months that if we were to make progress it had to be very focused, but in making that progress and coming towards this meeting, many other questions have been opened up and I’m sure that they will need to be addressed in the future. I’m going to invite… are there any other questions now from the floor or in the room? Otherwise, I think we will move on to… oh, please, give your name.

“Yes, hello. My name is Bojana Kollova. I’m a landscape architect and I have become a landscape architect about six years ago. I’m a newly hatched Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute, and I’m already questioning my decisions if this is an organization that is supposed to represent me and back me up and it’s supposed to be reputable. I’m really wondering who is holding this organization accountable? If I have not been asked in any form whether I agree with this investigation, then I would like to know why can’t an independent review be made when I actually am requesting for this? Thank you.”

Thank you very much. I think that will be the last question, unless… I think that will be the last question unless… No, there are no hands on Zoom and no hands in the room. So, I’m now going to invite Diana Armstrong Bell to describe the procedure for voting.

The result of the vote is on screen: in favor 154, against zero, abstentions zero. So, we declare the motion passed. Wow, boom! Well done! So, we, we will now write to the Trustees of the Landscape Institute informing them of the outcome and restating our assertion that the AGM is properly constituted and the motion valid. Consequently, the Landscape Institute, acting within the bylaws and regulations, must initiate the appointment of an independent reviewer as voted by this meeting. Thank you very much for exercising your democratic right to vote and thank you for coming. Good night.