Volunteering got complicated …..

[MellowTiger]

I didn’t really know how to title this post. My DH & I volunteer for the same charity. He became involved with volunteer (female) -unknown to me this has been off and on for 6 years. It’s mainly s/text and phone/video call but it’s been very explicit & talk of moving in together. I found out & when challenged he ended it.
OW then started to be awkward with me in online meetings etc (we rarely meet F2F). It got to the point where other people commented on it. We were due to meet F2F as a group so I messaged OW saying requesting she didn’t attend (I have to go she doesn’t). I also said that if she continued being the way she was I would take it further in the organisation and that she couldn’t deny the relationship because I have photos of their conversations.
She put in a complaint saying I had threatened her, which has now been upheld and I now have to be interviewed to be sanctioned.
I feel this is really unfair AIBU? This is a personal matter, I was polite and although I see there was 100 ways to word it, I don’t think saying I’ll take it further (meaning a formal complaint) is really a threat. We ended up cancelling the F2F cos I said I wouldn’t go and without me it can’t take place.
Regardless of the sanction outcome I want to stop volunteering, but this could lead to the charity closure, so my DH says I should carry on. I don’t know what to do.

To be honest, this charity can try and "sanction" you all they want. Good luck to them, but it's meaningless. You aren't their employee, you're a VOLUNTEER.

I can kind of see where they're coming from with regard to the OWs complaint. You should never have spoken to her, but their attempts to punish you are irrelevant.

Either way, your involvement with this charity has come to an end. And if the departure of a single volunteer could cause the entire charity to collapse, I'd argue that they're not doing much of substance anyway.

Why are you targeting her and tolerating him? It does sound vindictive that you are singling her out and using you relative importance to influence the operation of the charity to your advantage. You have brought issues into the workplace. Maybe time to accept you need to move on, professionally and personally,

She’s not targeting her. OW is targeting OP and making things awkward and OP is making clear she won’t tolerate it.

But it is not op place to decide who can and can't attend meetings. She clearly wants ow out but her h can continue as before.

And yet you’re unable to see that OW is bringing her own personal beef into the charity’s sphere when it has zero to do with charity or indeed the OP.

It’s completely unacceptable to make things difficult for another volunteer to the point of making a meeting awkward that OP is obliged to attend due to her role but OW is not.

OP has never said she wants her out merely that if she chooses to make things awkward between them to the point that other volunteers are noticing that’s not ok, that if she doesn’t stop she will be obliged to make a formal complaint.

It’s perfectly reasonable on a personal level to ask someone who has been fucking your DH for 6 years not to attend an event that you are obliged to attend if she’s going to make things difficult.

If it's the same charity she's talking about, and if she is a trustee and OW is not, then her behaviour towards OW in this context is awful. She should be removed from her role, no doubt about it.

It's unconscionable that a charity would have to close due to one trustee leaving. If that is the case, the whole board has been remiss in its duties and it probably deserves to shut down!

As an aside, what on earth is going on with all these people going to things they don't need to? OW going to a meeting she doesn't need to be at (allegedly ). In the other thread Person A trying to claim expenses for an event they didn't have the right to claim expenses for (i.e. had no need to be there!).
I wonder if either of the people in the other thread are OW??

Shaking my head at the replies that are oh so indignantly concerned with how the OW was treated. If she wants to be treated with fairness and respect herself, perhaps she should keep her legs closed to other women's husbands rather than eagerly and sneakily trying to help break up their homes behind their backs.

@MellowTiger Why don’t you just leave the charity? I know you said the charity could collapse, but how? Maybe say you’re going to leave on April 1st, to give them a chance to get things in order.

Be brave and make the move!

I see - the OP's husband played no part in any of it? He was just led astray a wanton female?

But you are confusing the issue just as the OP (and most posters) have. What anyone does or doesn't think about people who have affairs has absolutely nothing to do with the price of tea in China. Volunteers or not, this is a profesional workplace, and the affair has nothing to do with that workplace. Not so long ago there was a thread from a woman who wanted her husband to sack an employee that he'd slept with, and she rightly got her arse handed to her on a plate. This is no different. You can judge the affair if you want (of course, we only have one side of the events anyway) but that isn't what this is about. It is about how people interact. If the OP is correct and the other person was speaking / acting inappropriately then that should have been what was dealt with, and nothing else. As it is the other woman got her version in first because the OP stupidly made inappropriate threats.

Revenge pornography is a criminal offence, and unless the OP was threatening to disclose photos of her husband and a woman having a picnic (I doubt that is the case) then she has seriously misstepped. If someone was threatening to disclose your personal and private messages and photos, would you be as sanguine about it?

OW joined a charity as a volunteer and has a long ongoing affair with one of the trustees’ DH and is now trying to make life at the charity difficult for her. Turning up at an event she has no need to attend knowing full well OP can’t choose to miss it. That is a kind of low key harassment.

I don’t think the way OP handled it is ideal but nor do I think that requesting your DH’s ex mistress stays away from an event she has no choice but to attend herself given OW’s recent behaviour is unreasonable. And pulling her up before a panel to air her private life which is not the charity’s business is not even a remotely professional way to handle the situation.

If the charity are going to sanction you - then best to step down

regardless of you having evidence of their affair so it can't be denied

I would go. Explain the situation with evidence and say you clearly can't work together so it's her or you.

@ItTook9Years

I appreciate Charities have a Code of Conduct. And the Equality Act doesn't cover volunteers as such, however in some cases the EA does apply. Or rather you can't just have charities behaving willy nilly, unreasonably.

Professional workplaces have rules around fraternisation and relationships. Some have clauses stipulating relationships between colleagues must be declared. And there are some where an adulterous affair between colleagues where the spouse is also an employee could see both affair partners sacked for gross misconduct if the affair is deemed to be detrimental to their work or the workplace as a whole.

Which is where we are now - the fallout of this affair is affecting everyone.

This thread is absolutely batshit. The lack of logical thinking from most posters, or of any consideration at all for what is and isn't acceptable people management within a charity, is just insane.

A charity is not exempt from HR regulations. If anything they have to be even more careful, because volunteers can be more difficult to manage.

I am both a charity trustee, and a normal volunteer, and have seen situations from both sides. Small charities are even more at risk from getting these things wrong, as they don't have the same structural scale as large NGOs and private companies, and are often tempted to cut corners on expensive HR advice.

In my organisation, among other things, we have had to ask a trustee to step down (rather than be pushed) and manage a safeguarding situation by asking a volunteer to step down from the role they were doing, to one where their mis-step could not be repeated.

We would absolutely be taking the OW's complaint seriously. The rights and wrongs of the affair would not be our business. We would only be concerned with the complaint regarding OP's threat, and would be contacting our HR company to ensure that we addressed the situation correctly.

I don't think the OW should be behaving badly but what OP was doing was essentially blackmail. 'Do as I want or I will out you'. It was a highly inappropriate way to address their personal differences.

Agree with @saraclara a very batshit thread

Essentially this is a woman with various legal and ethical obligations to a charity where her name is over the door.

She has handled this badly, there is no doubt about that. She should have disclosed that two volunteers had been having a relationship. One of them being her husband. And there was apparent animosity.

That way any potential safeguarding/conflicts of interest/data and compliance breaches could be understood and managed.

Instead she chose to make a private threat because she did not want OW at a meeting (AGM I assume). OW has done the right thing by raising this as a complaint and other trustees now doing the right thing by investigating.

@MellowTiger this is all fairly simple tbh. You need to step down. Clearly there is a lack of understanding of the role you occupy. You are not a fit custodian for a public organisation.

Edited to add: and if it's true that this charity would not exist without you, then you have doubly failed in your role of managing risk and resilience.

A charity is not exempt from HR regulations.

Quite and that includes regulations regarding workplace relationships.

Extramarital affairs are particularly frowned on because they are controversial and may lead disruption in the workplace and affect the performance of involved and uninvolved employees (in this case volunteers).

Maybe it's worth clarifying what OP meant by the OW being 'awkward' with her in zoom meetings? I assumed it meant that she was being hostile or obstructive - but did she mean 'awkward' as in 'embarrassed' as she'd been found out in some shameful behaviour with OP's husband? If other people noticed, either way it's not good - but can understand why telling her not to attend a meeting just because she was embarrassed may be a valid complaint from the charity's perspective (as presumably they don't know anything about the personal stuff)

@saraclara

My point exactly! Even though she's a volunteer, charities must still be seen to be behaving reasonably.

I'm just saying that OP does need to go into this (the meeting) with her eyes wide open.

Is what she text to ow considered to be a 'threat'. They've presumably taken HR advice and upheld the complaint made by ow.

@BigHeadBertha

No support for ow. She chose to have an on-off affair. For 6 years!

I'm only trying to enlighten op on how her case might be seen by others, at pending meeting, from an HR side (not even HR myself!).

Anyone can leave a voluntary role, at any time, for any reason, with or without consulting anyone else about the decision.

And the Equality Act doesn't cover volunteers as such, however in some cases the EA does apply.
The Equality Act applies to everywhere, and everyone, all the time. It is not a piece of employment legislation. It is a piece of legislation that covers equality in all aspects of life.

@MellowTiger can you confirm whether or not you are a trustee? Does your organisation have any paid staff/a CEO?

I don't understand why you think the charity will have to fold without you. I'm guessing it's tiny then? How many trustees are there?

It would be helpful to know, in order to understand the structure, HR resources and general expertise within the charity.