Massive changes to NACTV board

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Published on Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Photo by Kate Jackman-Atkinson. The newly elected NACTV board (from left): Don Walmsley, Larry Powell, Alvin Borchardt, Val Wilson, Ivan Traill, Jean Borchardt and Richard Knechtel. Missing: Jodie Byram

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

It was a very eventful night at the Neepawa Access Television (NACTV) Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday, Oct. 14. 

The back room of the Neepawa Library was full, with 51 people attending the meeting.

Almost everyone there was either a volunteer or on the board of NACTV. Going into the AGM, the board consisted of Alvin and Jean Borchardt, Christine Waddell, Don Walmsley, Hector Swanson and Bill Gade. Ivan Traill, general manager of NACTV, had originally been on the board as well, but the constitution stated that he could not be a board member and the general manager, so he was removed from the board. 

Before any business started, the room took a moment to remember Gary Reidle, who recently passed away. He had been on the board and was an active volunteer with NACTV for many years. 

It didn’t take long for things to heat up between the board chair, Bill Gade, and the majority of the meeting’s attendees. Within the first 15 minutes, there was a threat made by Wayne Kines to call the police to remove Gade if he didn’t step down as chair. Kines declared that Gade did not have the confidence of the community, and therefore had no right to be on the board. Many of the people at the meeting raised their hands in assent with this statement. However, nothing could be done, as at that point, no Active members other than the board had been appointed, so only the board members had the ability to make a motion and vote on it. The RCMP were called. Two uniformed officers did show up to the meeting and spoke privately to Kines, but no arrests were made and they left soon after. 

Once the commotion had died down from the declaration made, the meeting moved on as scheduled, for a time. It was explained that at the meeting, Active members had to be appointed, but until then, only board members could make motions and vote on passing them or not. 

The suggested policy for those who could apply to be Active members was that the applicant had to have volunteered at least 40 hours in the last 52 weeks and that membership had to be renewed annually. There was some confusion and conflict about such restrictions. It had not been clearly stated that these were only suggestions and people were upset that they hadn’t been aware of such a policy before. Gade assured everyone that it was only a suggestion, and that a different policy could be proposed by one of the board members. 

Once the president, treasurer and Bigger Bingo committee’s reports had been received, the topic of Active members was addressed. Dave Bennet suggested that a board member make a motion to allow anyone who has volunteered to be an active member, without a minimum number of volunteer hours. Don Walmsley made the motion suggested by Bennet, but added that one had to have volunteered within the last calendar year. 

There was some controversy over the limit of one year. Val Wilson pointed out that even if someone hadn’t volunteered within the last 365 days, they could still be considered an active volunteer. Quite a number of others agreed with her, even though all of them had been volunteers within the last year. Bennet once again piped up, suggesting the motion be amended to three years instead of one. Walmsley allowed the amendment and the motion was passed, allowing all volunteers within the past three years to be considered an Active member. 

With that motion, all but about three of the meeting’s attendees had the right to make motions and vote. 

After the volunteers were satisfied with being given voices, the meeting continued on with some basic motions being passed. It was decided that creating a Capital Fund bank account for money from fundraising and donations to be deposited in was in the station’s best interest. Money from this account would be used for specific purchases, such as filming equipment, as opposed to monthly bills and other general expenses. 

A motion was also passed to make it so that any expenses, with the exception of regular ones such as wages and monthly bills, had to be approved by the board before being spent. Up until now, the finances had only been seen at the end of the year with totals going out and coming in, without knowing where specifically the money went. This resolution would help the board keep track of what money is being spent on and allow for more effective budgeting. 

The consideration of the actual budget and appointing of an auditor was moved to the next general meeting, which will be held Nov. 12. 

Then came the decision many seemed to have come for: the expiring of old board members’ terms and appointing of new board members. In the constitution, it had been stated that the board members’ terms be staggered, so that there was always half with at least one year of experience on the board. The board has eight seats, so four new members would have to be seated or old ones re-elected. There were two empty seats already, as one of the board members, Gary Reidle, passed away and Ivan Traill was no longer allowed to have a seat, being the general manager. Therefore, only two terms had to expire to allow for four members to stay another year. 

On the agenda, it was written that Gade, Swanson and the Borchardts would stay another year, so Walmsley and Waddell would expire. It was questioned how that had been decided and suggested that Gade had just went ahead with that decision without consulting anyone else. 

Gade said that he had circulated an email to the board and Traill of who he suggested to remain on the board. He said that no one had made any objections except Traill, so he stuck with those names. Christine Waddell said that she didn’t remember getting such an email, and when Walmsley was asked, he confessed he couldn’t remember either. The Borchardts and Traill did recall said email and Alvin Borchardt mentioned that he thought he remembered everyone’s names on the email list. 

The group expressed concern that Gade had allegedly appointed these people to stay, when they should have been elected. Gary Salmon, having read through the constitution, pointed out that technically, these people hadn’t been chosen yet, and that it was up to all the active members to choose the board. He reminded the volunteers that they had a say and all they needed to do was choose which two would expire and which four members would take the seats. 

The majority didn’t seem to understand this logic, and was still upset. They started debating how many people needed to be replaced. Bennet suggested that they should expire all six, and then select eight new board members, with the top four votes getting two year terms and the bottom four getting one year terms to retain the stagger. Ken Waddell agreed with Bennet, saying that it would best reflect what the room wanted. Gade reminded them that in the constitution, it said that they could only change half of the board, so starting from scratch wasn’t an option. Alvin Borchardt added that this by-law was in place because they didn’t want eight inexperienced members on the board. They had originally agreed that four should stay for consistency.

Val Wilson said that they should be able to choose four to expire, because that is half of the available seats, and then replace those four plus the two empty seats. Gade replied that it would only make sense that the two empty seats would be considered as two of the expired terms. He also pointed out that in his interpretation of the by-law, it said that four had to remain. Much of the crowd sided with Wilson, saying that they interpreted that four had to expire. 

In the midst of all the debate, Christine Waddell confronted Gade, asking why he had sent her an email asking for her resignation from the board. Gade replied that two individuals had come to him with concerns that her being on the board was not in the best interest of NACTV. She demanded to know who had said that, and he responded with Ivan Traill and Hector Swanson. Traill denied ever saying such a thing about Waddell, and called Gade a “liar.” 

Swanson claimed that his motives came from a previous board meeting, where she had behaved inappropriately, and allegedly “shook her fist at Bill [Gade] and told him he ruined Neepawa.” 

Waddell did not deny the outburst at the previous meeting, but pointed out that she had received the email requesting her resignation 10 days before that meeting had taken place. 

So either Swanson had approached Gade before the meeting for some other reason, or Gade asked for her resignation before Swanson had complained about her. Gade then changed his answer, saying that he had learned of an email she had circulated, saying that he was not good for NACTV, and he thought that she was not acting in the best interest of the board. So he asked her to resign, but said he was fine with her decision not to. 

Getting back to the matter at hand, Gade brought up the question of which two board terms would expire and who the four would be to replace them. Ken Waddell once again insisted that eight members be elected, but Gade continued to state that it was not in compliance with the constitution. 

At that, Waddell stood up and proceeded to criticize Gade’s running of NACTV. He accused Gade of manipulating the constitution to serve his own purpose. He called much of what Gade has said about the community on his radio editorials “despicable,” said that he “continues to slam people,” and called him a “disgrace to this community.” 

Alvin Borchardt then stood up and said that it was obvious that this group was “out to get rid of Bill [Gade].” He was not the first to point this out. Swanson had voiced that fact earlier in the meeting, but defended Gade, saying that NACTV wouldn’t exist without him. Nobody seemed to agree with Swanson on that point. To keep the peace, Borchardt told Gade that he should resign as board chair of NACTV. That, the crowd agreed with. 

Gade replied to that by questioning why they didn’t just make a motion that his term and one other’s expire, instead of asking him to resign. The group once again argued, unreasonably concluding that somehow the only fix would be to elect eight new board members. Salmon agreed with Gade, saying that it was against the constitution, and insisted someone simply make a motion to have Gade’s term expire. 

Finally, Wilson made the motion to have Gade and Swanson’s terms as board members expire. A seconder for the motion was found and it was passed. 

All that was left was to nominate at least four members to stand for the empty seats. They ended up with six names: Richard Knechtel, Jodie Byram, Val Wilson, Larry Powell, Gary Salmon and Ivan Traill, who resigned as general manager so that he could sit on the board. Christine Waddell turned in her resignation from the board, saying that she had only planned on staying for a year anyway. Salmon withdrew his name from the list, saying that he would continue to support the station, but he did not have the time to be a part of the board. That left them with five empty seats and five nominees. The motion was passed to cease nominations and five new board members were seated. One of the members had to replace Waddell, who was to expire in 2016, meaning that one of the five would only have a one year term.

A motion was passed that the board would decide who was to have the one year term at the board meeting immediately following the AGM. The board would also appoint the positions of president and CEO, vice president, secretary and treasurer at the separate board meeting.

Before the AGM ended, Jean Borchardt offered to be in charge of the fundraising for NACTV. She insisted that the station is very important to the community, and it does need financial support to keep going, so fundraising is vital. She had a cheque from her and Alvin, and one from Gordon and Vivian Campbell, both going to the station to be used for fundraising. She said she had the receipt book with her and encouraged the attendees to make donations before they left.

The meeting was then adjourned and the board members stayed for their board meeting to decide on their positions. The board now consists of Ivan Traill, president and CEO, Alvin Borchardt, vice president, Jean Borchardt, secretary-treasurer, Don Walmsley, Jodie Byram, Richard Knechtel, Val Wilson and Larry Powell.

The next day, Ivan Traill spoke about his thoughts on the new board. “I’m hoping that we can take the positive attitude and move forward. Make [NACTV] bigger and better than ever. It seems that there has been a lot of infighting in the last year and a half from the board - spending too much time and energy on infighting rather than producing a great product. By the look of the board that we have now, the time is now going to be focused on making good programming and getting everything bigger and better than ever, rather than worrying about personalities and infighting.”

He also spoke of decisions to come and community involvement. “This is a very important time because we know that we’re going to have to make a decision about whether we’re staying [in our current location], or moving and it has to be made fairly shortly. We all have to be on the same page when we start doing that sort of thing because there is going to be some fundraising involved and there is going to need to be community support in order to make it work. But right now, it looks like everyone is willing to step up to the plate and do the work that is necessary.”