Poor Poetry Society

After the extraordinary general meeting held at the Royal College of Surgeons yesterday I'm depressed at finding out that people appointed to positions of responsibility on the grounds that they were judged capable of discharging such a duty were in fact unqualified to do so at a practical level. One remark in particular jarred (and characterised the weird bravado the Board displayed) it was a retort '...perhaps you don't go to the right parties...' made to a perfectly legitimate question put in good faith by a polite member. Talk about misjudge what would be the appropriate tone for a session where you are gradually being revealed as culpably incompetent!
What might be the appropriate manner to adopt when approximately 400 members of a respectable and august organisation of many years standing come to you; many of them from far flung parts of the UK; to ask you to account for serious irregularities in your conduct? I can only say what I would have felt like. And as the revelations became ever more alarming - financial irregularity, no adherence to basic HR protocols, little KNOWLEDGE of basic HR procedures and practices and only the skimpiest grasp, it appeared, of employment law (they knew of the law that allows that an employee whose temporary contracts are renewed beyond four years  be entitled to a permanent contract) I, if that had been me, would have been terrified. Employment law is law isn't it? If you break it (e.g. by not following grievance procedures or conciliation procedures to resolve disputes - and they claim that a dispute 'caused' the situation) can you be charged with something? It would have scared me. I wouldn't have been able to chat and laugh with my fellow board members sitting either side of me as if we were all bravely doing our duty. I would have been mortified. Still, maybe they were mortified but just not showing it.
A motion for a vote of no confidence in the Board was carried by a massive majority. Four stalwart members were put forward as co-optees to this lamentable board - I don't envy the three that the board now has to choose but I take my hat off to them. Somehow this all has to result in a new Board being elected. The current board has resigned with effect from September (the 1st I think it was was it?) - - but that still leaves rather a lot of scope for them to DO things. Maybe they won't excercise this option.