Hijacking of a club

[[email protected]]

Hi there.

Im intrigued to hear is anyone has seen a club Hijacked by its members to benefit themselves. (access to free gliders. selling off assets to suit them etc...). i am hearing some rumours around an old club basically ousted everyone and now have hold of the assets and wont let anyone join and have sold off some of the kit. i would be disgusted if this is true. But it is from some very good sources. Nothing has been done because it would have to get the law involved which would cost too much money.

Just interested to hear some thoughts.

Richard

[2G]

On Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 3:14:28 PM UTC-8, wrote:
> Hi there.
>
> Im intrigued to hear is anyone has seen a club Hijacked by its members to benefit themselves. (access to free gliders. selling off assets to suit them etc...). i am hearing some rumours around an old club basically ousted everyone and now have hold of the assets and wont let anyone join and have sold off some of the kit. i would be disgusted if this is true. But it is from some very good sources. Nothing has been done because it would have to get the law involved which would cost too much money.
>
> Just interested to hear some thoughts.
>
> Richard

It all depends upon how the bylaws are written. I bet that most new (and old) club members have never read their club bylaws, but they are supposed to protect your investment. Remember when the SSA suffered a $200,000 loss to embezzlement? Well, the bylaws called for an annual audit that would have nipped this scam in the bud. Turns out that none of the directors read the bylaws!

Tom

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

On Wed, 24 Feb 2016 22:21:38 -0800, 2G wrote:

> On Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 3:14:28 PM UTC-8,
> wrote:
>> Hi there.
>>
>> Im intrigued to hear is anyone has seen a club Hijacked by its members
>> to benefit themselves. (access to free gliders. selling off assets to
>> suit them etc...). i am hearing some rumours around an old club
>> basically ousted everyone and now have hold of the assets and wont let
>> anyone join and have sold off some of the kit. i would be disgusted if
>> this is true. But it is from some very good sources. Nothing has been
>> done because it would have to get the law involved which would cost too
>> much money.
>>
>> Just interested to hear some thoughts.
>>
>> Richard
>
> It all depends upon how the bylaws are written. I bet that most new (and
> old) club members have never read their club bylaws, but they are
> supposed to protect your investment. Remember when the SSA suffered a
> $200,000 loss to embezzlement? Well, the bylaws called for an annual
> audit that would have nipped this scam in the bud. Turns out that none
> of the directors read the bylaws!
>
> Tom

Bylaws 'ought' to provide protection, but at the end of the day, they're
just a piece of paper. I've seen bylaws waived like a flag when they
suited somebody's purpose, and blatantly ignored when they didn't.

On the original question, yes, I've seen a case where some members
quietly got elected to the board, started writing sweetheart contracts
with themselves, changed the bylaws to give the board just about
unlimited power. Ultimate goal was to take over the assets and just let
half a dozen people use the airport. Well done, except one of the bad
actors was stupid enough to lay out their plans explicitly to another
member who thought he was lower than whale crap as a human being. Just
about destroyed the club, but it eventually was thwarted. No thanks to
most of the members.

-Dave