WWYD? Rude behaviour at a committee meeting. I'm not sure how to deal with it.

[LeanneFromEpsom]

Hope this isn't too long. I need to set the context. I also wasn't sure where to post it. I guess it's about relationships of sorts. Definitely not AIBU. Sorry for the length.

I'm on a committee with four other people, two women in their 60s, the chair who is a man in his 60s and then another man my own age, and then me. My role is the comms person, which is the simplest and least involved part which works for me because of other commitments. I don't even do the social media, someone else does that. I send out newsletters quarterly and occasional bulletins. The over 60s don't work, I do and so does the guy my age. I have a very demanding full time role with extra committee work for that (four work related committees) on top of it and I also have another part time work commitment on top of all of that, so this small element of committee work suits me. We have committee meetings every 6 weeks or so and I host them at my place of work (to save the cost of hiring a venue). The three older people are very very involved with this. I am committed to it too but my time investment is less for practical reasons.

I send out a newsletter quarterly, it goes out via email and also to those who request it via snail mail. I produce them from articles submitted, the chairperson gets them printed and delivers them for me to put in envelopes (that I go out and buy, along with stamps) and create mailing labels and then go and find a letterbox to post them in.

The last newsletter went out the day I was due back from holiday. I sent it out using the mailing list (email list) and then realised the next day that I hadn't copied in the committee members, so they got a copy the next day. It's easy just to cc them in for next time, but I blame jet lag.

At the committee meeting yesterday one of the other members turned on me asking why I had done that, nobody knew it had gone out and said "I'm going to be rude here you are not very efficient." I'd just worked a 9 hour day without a break and gone straight to this meeting from 6.30 - 8pm after also getting some very bad news about a family member. The other woman joined in. The men just looked on.

The thing is she is probably right, I didn't do a brilliant job last time. I accept that. But that was not the forum to raise it in front of everyone as a personal attack. I had the wind taken out of me and I didn't even respond, just nodded. She does a great job on the committee herself, but I chose this role because of the time factor. I see this as bullying, and she was right, she was rude.

If I challenge her, either 1-1 or in the group, then I think the other members might gang up on me. I think the chair was remiss in not stepping in. I'm usually very good at standing up for myself but yesterday I was just exhausted. On top of all that, I was using public transport and there was a breakdown there, resulting in me getting home at midnight. That's not her fault but it added to the crapness of the day. If I don't say anything then I'm not setting boundaries.

WWYD?

Also, what a minor thing for them to get upset about. And as none of them stuck up for you, I would write them all off. Life’s too short.

Very hostile. Appalling. I have done a lot of voluntary work in my time and been on Committees having a central role. How they spoke to you is really really bad.

Once in a meeting, the Chief Director, told me to 'shut up' in a very jokey way. (Hard to explain the context, I was talking too much about an issue!). She immediately apologised and at the next meeting had another apology put in the Minutes. And she rang me at home to say sorry!

If I were you, I would have a chat with the one who brought this up in totally the wrong way. If it's a voluntary role, your outside commitments do matter and I think you should say that whilst you don't want to give up the role, you have a very busy work life and when a small mistake is made, you don't expect to have a telling off in front of everyone. And if that cannot be accepted, you will have to give up this role.

I have a full time job, I also do voluntary work which I love, a new committee member joined and all hell was let loose, abusive texts on WhatsApp (which the Chair is part of) to me over the Christmas period, she ruined it for me and the Chair at no point stopped it. I resigned immediately and it was a huge relief for me and although I loved it the aggression wasn't worth it. I went back to work after Christmas and was visited by the people who I volunteer for, they asked me if I'd come back and I said, I would if so and so was taken off the committee, she was and I went back. I've told you this because it's sometimes not worth it, if you left it would leave a massive hole for them to fill, most probably by themselves, you would be missed but you'd be making a point, they didn't back you and you were definitely under valued, you need to ask yourself, is all this worth the aggro and pressure? I wouldn't say so.

I think it ia always a fine balance in these situations between letting something go, assuming that it is not regualar and they are not usually so rude, and taking a stand so that it does not become acceptable to speak like that.

I think as you are posting on here and it is bothering you, you need to take a stand.

so either resign using Harvestfestivalknickers excellent repsonse at 11:13
or
decide to stay and pull the person up on the comment using PoppingTomorrow excellent post at 10:56.

They are both calm, professional and to the point.

Volutary committees are a nightmare when staffed by a mix of working and non working members. Time to take a moment to think about whether or not you want to continue, is it worth it?

I think you should have pre emptied it by telling the committee at the time that you had sent it the day before but had missed them off, with your apologies.

You make a big deal of how busy you are, but to some degree that is irrelevant as you volunteered to be on the committee, so people have an expectation you are able to do the things you say you will. Perhaps you should have asked someone else to do the newsletter while you were overseas?

I thinkit depends on how much you value the committee or the cause it is linked to. You talk as if you think they should be grateful for you, rather gab as if you feel so grateful to help steer whatever it is, so perhaps you aren't as interested in this as you once were?

You could contact the lady,cc the chair and say that it didn't come across well in the meeting but you appreciate the feedback and remain committed blah blah. Or you could just sack it off altogether.
Festering resentment seems to be the least good idea I would suggest.

I would either resign from the committee (it doesn’t sound like you’re getting much out of it), or speak to the chair and ask for it to be covered at the next meeting (rules around respect, understanding this is voluntary etc).

Do you work for Handforth parish council?

I’d leave if I were you, they sound awful.

Walk away - life is too short.

So was your "inefficiency" just that they received it a day later?

This sounds an absolute non-issue unless the newsletter contains crucial details of a flood that occurs within the next 12 hours.

Do you need this role for your CV or career development? If not, I'd just fuck right off and drop them in it. They can think about how to improve their manners whilst trying to cover the job you were doing.

If your working conditions are tough, perhaps you should be putting energy into doing something that benefits you financially or give yourself rest time, not being harangued whilst ruining your leisure time.

I've done volunteering when I was younger, and honestly unless it was "for my CV and so I just did the minimum to tick the box" its never worth it.

There's some really rude bitchy types, no-one respects you (especially if you're a woman and people are comfortable talking down to you), and you're tired for your actual paid work. Unfortunately if you do unpaid work people often devalue you.

I've now had a chance to look at the membership spreadsheet with email addresses on (that is prepared by the treasurer). The committee members are at the bottom of the sheet, with the columns out of sequence. Therefore when I use it as a mailing, it doesn't take email addresses for the committee because they don't appear in the email column, if that makes sense. This is why they didn't receive them. I have now rectified that.

Yep. The fact that they didn't know it had gone out, as well.

Resign, life is too short, you don't need this.

Just checking emails and I have found one from this individual, the contents of which include:

Could you just make an amendment to our next event information - the Museum of Glass is at the Museum of St Helens, not Cambridge - that was my earlier typo!

Highly inefficient wouldn't you say?! 🙄Even that isn't correct, there is no Museum of St Helens! Should I mention this??? 😉

I'd leave personally. Life is too short for their level of pettiness.

Honestly? Speaking as someone who has been on a variety of committees over the years, life is too short for that shit.

Send an email to the Chair with your resignation, and cc in all the committee members. Say that you took great exception to being spoken to like that in the last meeting, and that you have decided that you are no longer prepared to volunteer your time to the organisation.

Honestly, why bother? Let them do all this in their ample free time, not leave it to you to squeeze into your extremely limited time and then get shitty about it. I'd take great pleasure and relief in using this as the reason to resign right now.

“If I were you, I would have a chat with the one who brought this up in totally the wrong way. If it's a voluntary role, your outside commitments do matter and I think you should say that whilst you don't want to give up the role, you have a very busy work life and when a small mistake is made, you don't expect to have a telling off in front of everyone. And if that cannot be accepted, you will have to give up this role.”

Agree with this

This! I'm in a very similar situation - regretting volunteering to help a local organisation with comms while also being very busy with my paid work.

Some of the other committee members have been incredibly rude and demanding and I've basically done a 'quiet quit', citing work and family pressures. I chose not to flounce and tell them why because I live in the same community and don't want to burn bridges.

Other than people in the business, no-one EVER understands or appreciates the expertise and work involved in producing newsletters/doing a good job with social media campaigns.

Voluntary work needs to feel rewarding, if it doesn't, the good thing is, you can walk away.

I agree you should email them, remind everyone what was said and in what manner, remind them you have other responsibilities too and also say that though you didn't make a mistake, you know that others have and you wouldn't have dreamed of bringing a minor error to everyone's attention.

I would definitely resign over this.

This.

Oh, stuff that. I'd resign with immediate effect specifically because of the way I'd been spoken to and advise that they will need to find an alternative location for their committees.

It sounds like you don’t have time for this committee. I think the other committee members are entitled to think that if you are on the committee that you should make the same contribution as everybody else. If you can’t do that, then don’t be on the committee. 🤷‍♀️

Exactly this.

I, too, have had similar situations. There is something particularly insidious about volunteering environments that can bring out despots & bullies.

Eh? Did you actually read what happened?

OP did the task, she accidentally missed the committee off the list and rectified it the next day.

A pretty minor mistake and one that anyone with a lot or a little time might make. As per the berating woman’s earlier error about the name of a museum.