Re: IMPORTANT - London Hackspace Formal Warning

Vivas Pro

unread,

May 18, 2016, 12:46:31 PM5/18/16

to Charles Yarnold, London Hackspace Trustees, london-h...@googlegroups.com

Hi Charles,

your email is factually inaccurate, paints distorted picture of the chain of events and seems blurred with prejudice. I am extremely puzzled by your reaction and I below briefly explain why. This being said, I will not tolerate abuse any more.

Firstly, it is not true that I and my team ignored your demands - we met every single one of them: we attended induction twice, exchanged a whole string of private texts and communication via emails, obeyed to switch emailing public (which we did) and then adverted the events following your guideline, after which we posted all transparently and in line with your guideline. Now I am puzzled why you insist on private messaging whereas before you insisted we communicate via group?!

We had a number of question which we all answered individually and in groups, also at length explained and apologized for whatever grief we may have inadvertently caused. We had almost a whole week of communication to satisfy your rules - amidst other things we are doing.

We then we allowed to go ahead and got individual membership for our members. We registered each one separately and paid for them. We asked if this was a problem and if it was we can pay separately for each, Immediately after this our membership has been approved.

Nobody complained about us and all seem to be happy with us - except an abusive minority - in which I would put a person whom you named. You said yourself that we have been very undisruptive . Deaf man was not helpful. He was very unbecoming to all of us, threating and didn't explain anything. The email you refer to from him was just a repletion of the issues we have already been through. He seemed to be unhappy about us being there. We are all to this day unsure what was his personal problem.

For all the answers you may. need please consult the previous communication. We have been through all of this a number of times and have explained all. We have not break any rules and I am afraid you have been under misapprehension. Also I feel we have been unduly accused of something which is not true - we have sought all relevant permissions and dully followed your procedure. It is NOT true we have given our cards to anybody else except our members for whom we paid. These are registered under their own names. Its all in the records.

Thus, I am afraid, your message is wholly undue and disrespectful, threatening, and out of context. I do have a huge issue with the tone of your email and I do not think that this is fair to treat our group in this way.

If you wish to sanction us please follow the right procedure, relay on the facts and refrain form emailing me in this manner in the future.

Sincerely,

Rita and the entire Vivaspro

Rita Mahtani

Casework Administrator

Stop Abuse Forever

0744 86 45 679

www.vivaspro.org.uk

facebook.com/vivas.pro.90

twitter.com/ViivaPro

vivapro.wordpress.com

youtube.com/user/VivasProTV

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 3:50 PM, Charles Yarnold <charles...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Rita,

Despite being informed by the Trustees on several occasions that you need to comply with our event planning procedure you have ignored us and gone ahead, and you have been operating your craft workshops in the Hackspace regularly for over 2 weeks now.

While we understand that they have to date been small and on the whole not disruptive to the Hackspace community, and undoubtably a worthy cause, they must still comply with our rules.

Note that one of our trustees, Matthew Israelsohn, is profoundly deaf himself and can speak in BSL & SSE. He has already explained at length to you in BSL using anecdotes to further drive the point home how the Hackspace & event booking works, and why it has proved necessary for the Hackspace to have the minimal set of rules that it does, and what happens when these rules are broken. Matthew also emailed Vivas Pro cc the London Hackspace Trustees on 27th April after a long discussion with you in the Hackspace but there does not appear to have been a response.
Matthew also spoke in BSL to a woman from Vivas Pro who was very aggressive to him - this was witnessed by several other people in the London Hackspace, and also your other colleagues from Vivas Pro (if that is where they were from).

We are thus telling you that you must immediately cease all courses, events and training at the London Hackspace along with advertisement of such until this matter has been resolved. You may only resume agreed upon events or training if/when you have been given express permission via private email from the trus...@london.hackspace.org.uk email address.

Along with this we have had reports of you having given out access cards attached to your account to people other than yourself. This is expressly forbidden. It was communicated to you that we don't have group memberships in our initial emails. Because of this your access has been revoked while we deal with this issue. None of the cards on your account will grant you access at this time.

The event planningprocedure can be found here: https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Guides/Planning_an_event

Also as a result the trustees are issuing you with a formal warning under the grievance procedure.
Should you incur another warning we will also have to release your name and the dates of your warnings on the Warnings Issued page of the Wiki https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Grievance_Procedure/Warnings_Issued
You can get more information about the grievance process here: https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Grievance_Procedure

Regards,

Charles Yarnold

On Behalf of the London Hackspace Trustees

Charles Yarnold

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May 18, 2016, 1:03:06 PM5/18/16

to Vivas Pro, Hackspace Mailing List, trus...@london.hackspace.org.uk

Hello Rita,

I would like to highlight that this email was written and edited by the whole board of trustees and sent in agreement by the board, not by myself in a personal capacity.

As such we will respond to your points in the same way once we have discussed them.

Best

Charles

tim_n

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May 19, 2016, 3:53:32 AM5/19/16

to London Hackspace, charles...@gmail.com, trus...@london.hackspace.org.uk

1st formal warning is always communicated privately. The trustees represent the membership (I'm not one).

I think quite often any criticism is always read in an aggressive manner. I read the trustees email and saw absolutely no malice or threats in there - merely action to ensure the community is protected and you follow the rules.

I can't comment on aggressive behaviour. I wasn't there.

You are using shared facilities. Payment of membership does not excuse poor neighbour behaviour. You must comply to event planning procedure.

If you're sharing membership cards that's not acceptable behaviour.

Take it on the chin and work with the community (preferably privately) to resolve it. You've currently sent this reply to many thousands of inboxes who most likely will side with the trustees on this. You're always going to have teething problems in this situation. Just be happy you're not paying 7k rent a month.

Domas

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May 19, 2016, 4:26:52 AM5/19/16

to London Hackspace, charles...@gmail.com, trus...@london.hackspace.org.uk

Am I missing any other public threads about this? Looking back I can only see these:

Re: Community organisation would like access to leather and sewing studios for disabled & deaf
Community organisation would like access to leather and sewing studios for disabled and deaf people
Re: Community organisation would like access to leather and sewing studios for disabled & deaf

These threads do not answer all the questions and died down after no reply from Vivaspro. Also there was no clear indication that the workshops are actually taking place. I would loved to have joined and learned leather working assuming that they were open to all members (which was one of the concerns raised).

Paddy Duncan

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May 19, 2016, 4:35:06 AM5/19/16

to london-h...@googlegroups.com, London Hackspace Trustees, Vivas Pro

Hi Rita,

To answer your points:

your email is factually inaccurate, paints distorted picture of the chain of events and seems blurred with prejudice. I am extremely puzzled by your reaction and I below briefly explain why. This being said, I will not tolerate abuse any more.

Firstly, it is not true that I and my team ignored your demands - we met every single one of them: we attended induction twice, exchanged a whole string of private texts and communication via emails, obeyed to switch emailing public (which we did) and then adverted the events following your guideline, after which we posted all transparently and in line with your guideline. Now I am puzzled why you insist on private messaging whereas before you insisted we communicate via group?!

Advertising your events externally is not what is meant by following our guidelines regarding event planning. Our guidelines are here: https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Guides/Planning_an_event

This is the 4th time we have given you this link

My email on behalf of the Trustees 20-4-2016

Mark's email of 22-04-2016

Matthew's email on behalf of the Trustees 27-4-2016

And several other mentions of the requirement in the public mailing list thread.

We didn’t insist on this email conversation being private. It is (was) private as per our policy of first warnings being private, unless the recipient chooses otherwise.

We had a number of question which we all answered individually and in groups, also at length explained and apologized for whatever grief we may have inadvertently caused. We had almost a whole week of communication to satisfy your rules - amidst other things we are doing.

We then we allowed to go ahead and got individual membership for our members. We registered each one separately and paid for them. We asked if this was a problem and if it was we can pay separately for each, Immediately after this our membership has been approved.

You were not then allowed to go ahead. The consensus on the mailing list was far from being in favour. You did not get individual membership for your members. You got 1 membership for Rita, and registered (to date 13) multiple cards to it. You were informed at least twice, quite clearly by both myself and Russ (on the 20th + 21st April respectively) that you must register and pay separately for each member. There is also no such thing as membership approval.

Nobody complained about us and all seem to be happy with us - except an abusive minority - in which I would put a person whom you named. You said yourself that we have been very undisruptive . Deaf man was not helpful. He was very unbecoming to all of us, threating and didn't explain anything. The email you refer to from him was just a repletion of the issues we have already been through. He seemed to be unhappy about us being there. We are all to this day unsure what was his personal problem.

As you well know, his name is Matthew, and he is one of our Trustees, not 'deaf man'. His email was a repetition yes, of the requirement to comply with our procedures, as you continued to ignore them. And yes he was unhappy that you were there conducting a workshop prior to obtaining approval, not personally but on behalf of the Trustees. He repeatedly informed you that he would be your biggest supporter if you kept to the procedure.

For all the answers you may. need please consult the previous communication. We have been through all of this a number of times and have explained all. We have not break any rules and I am afraid you have been under misapprehension. Also I feel we have been unduly accused of something which is not true - we have sought all relevant permissions and dully followed your procedure. It is NOT true we have given our cards to anybody else except our members for whom we paid. These are registered under their own names. Its all in the records.

We have gone very carefully through all of the previous communication. All of the accusations are true to the best of our knowledge, backed up by the facts, and all of the card registrations are registered under one name - Rita’s.

Thus, I am afraid, your message is wholly undue and disrespectful, threatening, and out of context. I do have a huge issue with the tone of your email and I do not think that this is fair to treat our group in this way.

If you wish to sanction us please follow the right procedure, relay on the facts and refrain form emailing me in this manner in the future.

The correct procedure is found at the link provided in your warning email, this is currently being followed. https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Grievance_Procedure

Please note that the official warning stands, as does the access revocation pending the following (which is a summary of the oft-linked event planning guide):

1) Engage with the community via the mailing list for approval and let them know when the events would like to be held.

2) Do not hold any events until they've been added to the calendar

3) Immediately cease sharing one membership account between multiple people.

Regards

Paddy Duncan on behalf of the London Hackspace Trustees

From: london-h...@googlegroups.com [mailto:london-h...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Vivas Pro
Sent: 18 May 2016 17:46
To: Charles Yarnold
Cc: London Hackspace Trustees; london-h...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [london-hack-space] Re: IMPORTANT - London Hackspace Formal Warning