Well, we've waited two weeks for clarification on the many offers and deals, very tasty ones, that have been put on the table all to be turned down without even consulting the team who have done all the hard work. We asked Gina to explain her words and got only silence but that's exactly what we expected because, and there's no way to sugar coat this, it was simply a blatant lie. There were no offers other than what you already know about and had anything, tasty or otherwise, come across the table it would have been given due consideration by the whole team as is our way in such matters. Nope, it was libelous, defamatory and utterly untrue.
It's by no means the first lie we've been subjected to, there have been many, nor is it the worst but it is undoubtedly the most ill-advised. If having people take your word as gospel is a tool in your toolbox it's a good idea to be careful how you use it because it's well and truly broken now.
But that's not the half of it. What is even more interesting is that that lie implicated the trustees of the RM who would have to be involved in the alleged deals and who would have wasted no time in telling all about our dismissal of these offers and who would have had every right to do so were there even a grain of truth in it. But, no. Suddenly they're caught up in someone else's lies then asked to account for it when they'd done nothing wrong and that's well out of order - you don't do that to people so what would have been the decent thing to do?
The most honourable course would have been for Gina to fess up and apologise. Blame one too many glasses of red over dinner, give reasonable doubt to her actions and get the RM trustees off the hook. That would have been the decent thing to do. But all we got was silence. We're very used to being ignored when we ask difficult questions so, sadly, it came as no surprise. But that dropped the museum trustees properly in the clarts, as we say here on Tyneside. (Clarts is mud, by the way) It was now up to them to defend themselves against someone else's lies so what were they to do?
Undoubtedly the best option for them would be to issue a statement putting some distance between themselves and the untruths. That's what you would do, isn't it. You'd say, hang on a minute, that's nowt to do with us and we don't agree with or condone what you just said. Because if not, the only conclusion to be drawn is that you're happy with with a third party who, let's be honest, isn't involved when it gets down to brass tacks, telling lies about your organisation and your people. Why would you do that?
Instead, nine officers of a registered charity sat tight in silence and allowed this to happen. Now there's still the rest of Friday and maybe we'll hear something by the end of the day in which case we'll be sure to report it accurately but it's not looking good and most likely we'll have our team meeting tomorrow still with no reply so what are we to take from this?
Surely it's time for a changing of the guard over there.
We've done that over here to a large extent with Peter doing pretty much all of our negotiating these days. He's a brilliant negotiator of many years professional experience, now retired, and knows what's needed whilst the old-hands from the BBP workshop are passing on hard earned skills to our newbies and catching up on side projects between ticking off bits and pieces of the unfinished work on K7 but gone is the controlled panic and race to the finish mentality we endured for many years and we're really enjoying it.
So for now we'll just keep on keeping on until something changes and show you what goes on in the workshop on Twitter. Til next time.
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