The ALSO Foundation’s annual general meeting last week finally revealed some home truths about the financial position of the embattled organisation.
Well, the state of its balance sheet until June 2011 at least. Members are still in the dark about the last eight months as the AGM had been postponed from last November.
It’s fair to say the Foundation’s financial health is grim. The community should be aware the organisation does face the real threat of closure.
ALSO board spokesman Daniel Perkins has been pretty upfront about this fact.
If funds (tied up in ALSO Care) are not received by the end of March, and there is a real chance they may not, it’s almost certain the organisation will be placed in the hands of administrators to be wound down.
Reporting from the meeting, I was struck by the relatively poor attendance of members.
Perhaps the buzz of festival time at the end of Midsumma and the start of Mardi Gras meant attention was elsewhere.
More likely, I suspect many members have simply thrown their hands in the air, disappointed it’s all come to this.
The meeting was a fairly bruising experience for the board, there’s no doubt. Perkins spoke of the personal stress ALSO’s difficulties have caused to board members’ health, careers and relationships.
The fact that 11 board members resigned in 2011, most in the first half of the year, is a tough ask for any executive, much less one relying on volunteer staff.
For those gutsy enough to remain, the challenges they’ve faced holding the ship together should be acknowledged. Whether the sinking ship is worth keeping afloat, however, is another question, and one members may face very shortly.The board obviously believes there is something to be salvaged.
As some members carefully pointed out at the meeting, the obfuscation of serious issues and carelessness of the past must be stopped.
The organisation has tried to stretch itself too thinly without a firm hand on the purse strings. This has been allowed to happen over several years with, it seems, little thought from respective boards.
It’s doubtful individual board members, looking at their home budgets, would operate their finances in the same way.
There has been some eagerness, in certain sections of the community, to lay blame with certain CEOs and board members. But the truth is, everyone is to blame. Board members past and present, CEOs past and present, and members for letting them get away with it. The important thing is that ALSO’s hard lessons are learned.
