I attended the AGM at Cosford RAF museum (which is wonderful) on 27^th April. The following is expressed factually, I hope, and you can make up your own mind about the issues.

The remaining members of the Executive Committee (ie excluding those who resigned in the wake of the uproar of the sale of the Butte of Warlincourt) have continued in office and have not in fact resigned, as they originally stated their intention to be.

The chairman’s report and following discussion revealed that membership has fallen over the WWI centenary period. A discussion followed on the target market for new members and the young were not thought to be an appropriate target. The demographic of the current membership is mostly elderly.

A question on the published accounts revealed that the net proceeds of the sale of the Butte were £895. The remainder of the 10,000 euros received was spent on legal fees, both British and French, to achieve the sale. This information on fees is not in the accounts, but was given verbally by Rich Hughes.

The former legal trustee, Rich Hughes, explained the reasoning for the disposal of the Butte which was to rid the WFA of the potential liability of a WWI site, with unexploded ordinance (presumably as it is in the middle of the Somme battlefield) and likely hazardous substances in the soil. The French insurers had declined to renew the policy and three English insurers had declined to cover the risk. It seemed to Rich anomalous that an educational charity owned land in the first place. The aim was therefore to rid the WFA of the problem, which involved potential personal liability to the trustees.

The Butte was held on a trust document in the name of four former trustees, two of whom were deceased. There was no power in the document to appoint new trustees to hold the Butte. In short, legally it was a mess. A former trustee from the era when the Butte was purchased said that the purchase had been something of a vanity project by the then chairman and that he, the former trustee, had been against it, as being anomalous for an educational association.

Rich explained that Bob Patterson, a former WFA chairman who has a house on the Somme, was perceived as being the only realistic purchaser, as he had done a lot of maintenance work on the Butte. The aim was to get rid of the Butte, not achieve a maximum price. An attempt some years ago to give the Butte to the French local authority had failed.

There was discussion as to whether Bob had insurance, which was not known, and what the support for the Butte from the WFA would be, including potential liability of the WFA for continued involvement. The question was asked as to what would happen to the Butte when Bob passed away.

The sentiments expressed at the meeting were that the reasons for the sale had been lucidly explained. However, the main complaint was of the secretive nature of the process and that members, including branch chairmen, were only informed by an announcement of the sale which was released publically two weeks before the centenary of the Armistice. This was described as being perfect timing for journalists to write the stories that appeared in the national press. The handling and timing of the matter was felt by many to be very poor. One of the WFA vice-presidents, Maj Gen Mungo Melvin, lucidly summed up the discussion and suggested that a post mortem be carried out to learn lessons from the row over the Butte.

In many ways, the elephant in the room was that the Association is unincorporated, which leaves the trustees and members with unlimited liability. This could be seen as an omission by the original founders of the Association, as charities would usually be formed as a charitable company. It was explained that there was a governance group which was looking at future governance of the Association. This might include incorporation as a company limited by guarantee. We will see what happens.