Email Correspondence with Jimmy Boyle and Scioból na bhFear, Men's Shed Jan 14th -Feb 2nd 2022

Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com>

Re: 131221 Sciobol Na bhFear Gaoth Dobhair Code of Behaviour signed off version Hugh McLaughlin Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com> 2 February 2022 at 13:31 To: James Boyle <jimmyeoghanellen@hotmail.com> Cc: Treasurer Sciobol <scioboltreasurer@gmail.com>, Secretary Sciobol <sciobolsecretary@gmail.com>, Chairman Sciobol <sciobolchairman@gmail.com> Bcc: Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com>

Harking backwards........Giving Forward Hi Jimmy, I've been asked by the Scioból Chairman to forward to you, for the record, the correspondence below. As indicated by him, if you have information you wish to have considered and/or Agenda items you wish to have included for next Monday's meeting, if you forward them to me as set out by Austin, I will relay them to him.

"Harking backwards........Giving Forward Liamog ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wed Beb 2nd 2022 Hi Jimmy, As Scioból Chairman, I wrote to you by email last Friday 28/01/22, as a second follow up reminder to try to get you to come into alignment and compliance with Scioból Policies. You have not responded, as requested, to confirm your willingness to comply with the five specific elements as set out in writing therein, by the end of Feb 1st 2022, save for a short email response to Liam which he has forwarded to me wherein you wrote only “Busy will be at the next months meeting Jimmy “ I did put you on Notice that the Scioból Code of Practice came into operation on Feb 1st and that only members who have signed up to the Code are entitled to carry out activities on the shop floor. As you have failed to sign up I am putting you on Notice not to engage in further Activities on the Shop Floor.

As Chairman, I have attempted to persuade, informally and formally you to come into alignment with the policies and practices which have been discussed and agreed by the Scioból Membership. Given you have now termed me personally, as a Liar, I have been mindful to pursue these issues with you in a recorded medium, for everyone’s protection. Your behaviour in continually failing to respond or to engage in any way towards your aligning with these agreed decisions, indicates that you don’t wish to be in step with the collaborative teamwork within the Shed and it has caused unnecessary distraction at a time when we are trying, in our voluntary capacity to improve the Shed facilities and Administration for the benefit of All of the Members.

I note that you gave a commitment to attend the next Scioból Monthly meeting on Monday Feb 7th at 8 pm whereat this issue and all associated correspondence,

which you have been provided with, will be reviewed by the Membership. If you have any information which you wish to have considered at that meeting, I request that you forward it to me through Liam, by Friday 4th of Feb, in order to include it on the Agenda and for members to have a prior opportunity to consider such information in advance of the meeting

Austin O'Donnell Chairman Scioból na bhFear On Fri, 28 Jan 2022 at 15:16, Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Austin, See confirmation of receipt email response from Jimmy.

Liamog Harking backwards........Giving Forward ---------- Forwarded message --------From: James Boyle <jimmyeoghanellen@hotmail.com> Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2022 at 15:14 Subject: Re: 131221 Sciobol Na bhFear Gaoth Dobhair Code of Behaviour signed off version Hugh McLaughlin To: Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com> Busy will be at the next months meeting Jimmy Sent from my iPhone On 28. Jan 2022, at 13:26, Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Jimmy, following on from my previous email, The Scioból Chairman, Austin, has asked me to forward to you the correspondence below, which also includes the attachment referred to therein. while I am serving the role of ensuring that the communications between you and the Chairman are independently witnessed for the record, I do exhort you, in the long term best interests of all parties and in particular, the Shed Community, that you engage and participate positively. I remind you that you had, during our recent phone call, stated that you intended to respond in writing and suggest that you do so without delay.

Harking backwards........Giving Forward Liamog ------------------------------------------------------------------------Friday 28/02/22 Hi Jimmy, As Scioból Chairman, I wrote to you by email last Monday 24/02/22, setting out five specific issues which required action by you in order to ensure your alignment with Scioból policies and. I requested that you

respond in Writing by Midnight Thursday Jan 27th confirming your willingness to comply.

I note that you are Cognisant of receiving my email but that you continue to not engage with the issues and that you have neither contacted me nor responded to my emails as requested.

It has been the core focus of my approach to you on these issues, to encourage you to align with the policies and procedures which have been agreed by the Scioból members and your obstinate refusal to engage and cooperate has been endured with great patience.

In accordance with a reasonable and stepped approach to progressing this Disciplinary process with you, in the interest of Scioból and the other members, I am now reiterating the requirement for you to address those five aspects and to confirm your compliance by Feb 1st next.

Please note that the Shed Code of Practice comes into force on February the 1st.

Hopefully, by then, you will have seen the long term value to yourself and the Community within the Shed to sign up to the Code of Practice and to attend to the other required elements, by then.

However, after Feb 1st, anyone who hasn’t signed up to the Code of Practice will be restricted from operating on the workshop floor.

Hoping for a positive response, Austin O'Donnell Chairman Scioból na bhFear PS:- I have asked Liam, when forwarding my correspondence to you, to attach the draft Disciplinary Process document, copies of which have been posted on Shed Notice Boards since last Monday, for your information and consideration. This Draft will be an Agenda item for Discussion at the next Monthly Shed meeting on the 7th of February.

On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 at 16:37, Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Jimmy, I am forwarding, for your attention, correspondence for the Scioból Chairman, Austin O'Donnell. I encourage you to email your response to him at sciobolchariman@gmail.com, while suggesting that you copy me, in order to maintain a record of interchanges.

Harking backwards........Giving Forward Liamog ----------------------------------Monday 24/02/22 Hi Jimmy,

I wrote to you on Thursday January 15th re your conduct as a member of An Scioból. I have not received any written acknowledgment of receipt, nor a response from you, to the points which I raised therein.

The only feedback I have had is contained in the note which Liam emailed to you and me, re your phone call to him last Thursday. I wish to confirm that in spite of Liam suggesting that you direct your written response to the chairman (email sciobolchairman@gmail.com) you have not, to date, done so.

In order to progress what are in fact Shed Disciplinary issues with you, I confirm that:1) I had spoken to you personally prior to Christmas to try to encourage you to comply with Shed policies, in the interest of a smooth, collaborative running of the Shed and then, subsequently, 2) After you had failed to modify your actions/behaviour, or to comply with policies and/or directives from the Chairman, I raised issues with you in writing, by email, on Jan 15th last.

As, to date, you have not responded to assure me of your commitment to aligning with and supporting Shed policies as explained to you and given that you continue to show blatant disregard and disrespect to the role of the Chairman, I am now drawing your attention to the following specific elements whereof you are required to modify your behaviour, to commit to Shed agreed policies and to show evidence of alignment and compliance with Shed policies and decisions:1) According to Liam's recorded notes of your phone call to him last Thursday, Jan 20th 2022, you insisted that your Van "Has to" go back into the Shed. Please note, as per email to you of Jan 25th you are directed by me, in my role as Chairman, not to bring your van into the Shed at this time. In accordance with the motion passed at the December Monthly Meeting, which you are now apparently claiming to have been present at and thus would have been cognisant of and party to, you are entitled to have the Chairman's directive on this matter reviewed at the next Monthly Meeting on Monday Feb 8th. I note that you have confirmed to Liam by FB Messenger that you will be present at said meeting, which is good news and a possible sign of positive engagement by you in Shed administration. In the meantime, in order to reduce possible misunderstanding and tensions around the Shed, you are required to, in writing, by Midnight Thursday Jan 27th next, confirm your willingness to comply with the Chairman's directive in this matter.

2) You are required, in writing, by Midnight Thursday Jan 27th next, for the avoidance of future doubt and unnecessary wrangling, to withdraw your ultimatum to enforce an illogical demand that 75% of other members must pay their weekly subscriptions before you contribute your share. You are required to confirm your commitment to pay your

subscriptions going forward, while undertaking not to issue further unhelpful ultimata in future.

3) You are required, in writing, by Midnight Thursday Jan 27th next, to acknowledge that you have continually, failed and refused to comply with the reasonable, and relatively undemanding safe practice requirement of informing the Chairman, by text or by FB messenger, when you have been alone in the Shed. In order to establish alignment with agreed Shed policy, you are required to undertake, in writing your commitment to complying with this notification policy, going forward.

4) Liam has noted in his record of your phone call to him of Thursday last, that you now acknowledge the "Legality" (in your own words.....whatever that actually means) of the Shed Code of Practice.

You are now required to confirm. in writing, by Midnight Thursday Jan 27th next, your willingness to sign the Code of Practice, without any caveats or further ultimata. For your information, any member who has not signed Code of Practice form will not be entitled to use Shed Shopfloor facilities from Midnight of February 1st, 2022. I do encourage you to do so without further delay, in order to avoid inconveniencing yourself, unnecessarily.

5) You are required, in writing, by Midnight Thursday Jan 27th next, to confirm your compliance with and commitment to the practice and agreed at the December meeting of removing All plugs from sockets on the Shop Floor (only), when you are leaving the Shed (a decision which you would cognisant of and Party to if you were, in fact, as you claim, present at the Monthly December Shed meeting) Finally, as Chairman, and seeking, in an unpaid voluntary capacity, to improve the Shed experience for all members, this time-consuming exercise of implementing a robust, fair, transparent, documented Disciplinary process with you, is designed and aims to, hopefully, encourage and facilitate you to reflect on your behaviour and actions and see how they are out of alignment with the Shed Culture, values and agreed procedures and policies and, if you come to agree with these Shed values and how they reflect the majority views of members, you will modify your behaviours of heretofore and join with the rest of members in working together to build a sustainable, inclusive Shed for our Local Community, going forward.

Hoping for a positive response, Austin O'Donnell Chairman Scioból na bhFear On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 at 09:37, Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com> wrote: Hi Jimmy, I received a call from you on Thursday at 13:41 which got suddenly disconnected after 31 minutes as I was traveling through the North. For the record, as I confirmed in a text to you shortly afterward, the sudden

disconnection was not any intentional act on my part.

I made some contemporaneous notes of our conversation and I am setting them out below for clarity. I invite you to confirm my recollection as being an accurate version of our conversation, or that, in the alternative, you set out where your recollection differs from mine and email it to me, by return.

You confirmed that you hade received previous emails by saying you intend to respond to those emails. I respectfully suggested that you would actually address your correspondence to the Chairman as I am purely facilitating communication between you in order to preserve the record of information exchange.

You were adamant that I had incorrectly stated in my email to you of 14 January 2022 at 13:49:29 that you were Not present at the Scioból monthly December 2021 meeting. I undertook to review my assertion and that if I was incorrect, I would apologize, unequivocally, to you and correct the record.

Last night I took the time to re-read the December minutes (see copy attached) and you are Not recorded as being present among the attendees. I would request that you review the minutes, reflect on your assertion that you were present and confirm with me in writing whether you still maintain that you were present or that you acknowledge and accept the veracity of the recorded minutes and agree that your original adamant claim was wrong.

You stated in our call that the Chairman had mistreated you during a phone call with him in December, in which he put down the phone. You were adamant the during this call the Chairman did Not, at any time, mention the Code of Practice, which I have emailed you a copy of, nor did he tell you that there was a hard copy of it in the Shed office for you to review.

I explained to you, That I had personally printed multiple copies for all members and can confirm that copies were there in the Shed for members to review.

You were also adamant that you did, in fact, apologize to both Austin and Connie that Monday night when the Chairman had to phone you at ‘Bostons’, CarrickMacGarvey, Derrybeg, Co.Donegal to seek for you to move the van out.

I pointed out to you that there are two contradictory versions of both elements between you and the Chairman and in your response you stated that the Chairman is a Liar. If this is your belief, it certainly appears that the Chairman has lost your Trust and if it were me, I would be proposing a Motion of ‘No Confidence’ in the Chairman at the upcoming Monthly meeting on the First Monday in February and I would request that item to be included on the Agenda. This, at least, would put some structure and possibility for progress on the ongoing wrangling.

As regards the fact that when you continue to go the the shed on your own you do not give notice to the Chairman by text/messenger, a Safety protocol that was agreed by and at the January meeting (and of which you were informed in my previous email to you), you stated that your reason for continuing to refuse to comply is justified by your question to me:- “Who does Austin inform when he goes to the Shed?

You were adamant that while the Chairman has directed that your van is not to be brought back into the Shed at this time, that the van “Has to go back into the Shed” You did say that you have now read the Code of Practice, which you claim the Chairman did not make you aware of in that phone conversation but once again, you issued an ultimatum that you will not sign it until you have discussed it with Safety Officer. I did point out to you that this Code was discussed and agreed upon, by all, in detail, at a specific meeting organized for this purpose, which you did not attend, nor, the Chairman informs me did you give prior notice of non-attendance. You stated a number of times that this Code was “Legal” as against some other document not being “Legal”. I did caution against using such strong terms as I personally see them as somewhat I’ll advised.

You reaffirmed that you stand over your earlier position ultimatum of not paying member subs until 75% of the other members have done so.

I suggested that there is a clear communications difficulty between yourself and the Chairman as evidenced by the fractious phone conversation between you, whereof you both present mutually contradictory versions. Your response was that Austin is the problem and you resurfaced the generic but unspecified claim that you were/are experiencing bullying in these matters. I pointed out to you that, as minuted, you had been invited to formally lodge a bullying complaint by the Shed Meeting and that, not

only did you not take up up the offer, but also you did not attend the following monthly meeting and participate in the follow up review, making it nigh on impossible for the group to progress past this impasse.

Once again, as we discussed the directive by the Chairman that your van is not to be brought into the Shed at this time, you were adamant that the issue of your van van discommoding others by blocking the entrance on a Monday or a Thursday night, was an isolated one and has not occurred before. I tried to explain that I had witnessed the van being there on Shed nights on a number of occasions and that I myself had not been able to get my van in to move items on one occasion. It was around that our call was suddenly disconnected without notice, which. I hope was due solely for reasons of intermittent coverage. I note that you did not make a follow up call to renew or to close out our conversation.

In conclusion, I did ask you during our conversation what you thought should happen in a group say of 10, where 9 vote to go left and 1 votes to go left. You responded by saying they would go left as against addressing the core question of what “should” the group do. You then raised the point that if the 9 were choosing an unsafe path, according to the one member, then how could that member go along with group choice? I noted that the disagreeing member would have the choice to leave the group. You then suggested that is the Scioból case you were being pushed out. In my attempted reply I simply sought to explain that if you feel that you can’t or won’t comply, on a continuing basis with the decisions voted upon by the majority of Shed members then I can’t see how any such dissident behaviour can expect to remain a member of the group.

The above reflections and notes are offered to bring some clarity to the ongoing troubling and time consuming interchanges. I am copying them to the Chairman for his information. I do invite and request you to review and reflect upon my notes and to reply to me by email, with suggested modifications, adding possibly elements etc.

However, on one specific element, in regards to your adamant claim that you were present at the December meeting, I am providing evidence ( by way of approved meeting minutes) that you are incorrect in you assertion and I expect from you an acknowledgment of the facts and a formal withdrawal of your incorrect claim.

Harking Backwards……Looking Forward.

Liamog

On 14 Jan 2022, at 13:49, Liam O Gogain <ogogainl@gmail.com> wrote: 

Hi Jimmy, I have been asked by the Scioból Chairman, Austin O'Donnell to email you a copy of the Sciobol Na bhFear Gaoth Dobhair Code of Behaviour signed off version for you to review and decide if you wish to sign up.

Austin has explained to me that he has tried to discuss the matter with you and has left a hard copy for you in the office and told you he had done so, but that you appear to have been unwilling to engage on the matter.

As you have been corresponding with me on this email address and that you had confirmed receipt of information sent by email to me of Shed repayment to you of Loan, I suggested that this medium of communication be used as evidence of service of material and of Cognisance on your part of same. Hopefully this proven channel will enable everyone to be on the same page and support the Shed in moving forward together.

In light of your not being present at last Monday night's meeting of the Scioból, I am also attaching the minutes of said meeting for your information.

Firstly, I draw your attention to the following minute in relation to the code of Best Practice attached herein:"The Code of Best Practice must be signed by all members by 1 February 2022, the day the Code will come into full effect."

Secondly, I draw your attention to the following minute:"For safety reasons any member who is going to be alone in An Scioból is required to inform the Chairman via a text message or through the Scioból messenger account.

A form will be prepared with the members' 'Next of kin' telephone number recorded. Again this is for the benefit of the members themselves and of course this personal information will be kept secure and confidential.

Finally, for the avoidance of doubt I note the following minute from the December Monthly Scioból meeting, which you did not attend (said minutes were posted on the Shed notice Board at the time):"Liam proposed a motion that the Chairman 's directive be accepted as Shed Policy in the event of an urgent ruling or decision that needed to be made between meetings.

In such cases any member who disagrees or who might have a different view will have the opportunity to raise this at the next meeting.

Paul seconded this motion and it was passed without objection"

Please Note that these Scioból meeting decisions are now in place and I encourage you to engage with them in the spirit of collaboration and for the wellbeing of the Shed.

"Harking backwards........Giving Forward Liamog <Scioból draft Disciplinary Code proposal 240222 LOG.pdf>