Women’s Rights Network imploding

[NameChangedWren]

WTF is going on? There are letters circulating with members alleging bullying, and anyone who asks a question is suspended and comments deleted. The leader calling everyone to urgent meetings with bizarre messaging: ‘there is no letter, and if there is it’s full of lies, and you can’t see the letter just trust us, and ooh look, something shiny!’ Should I cut my losses, cancel my standing order and just follow Let Women Speak?

Oh yes, it most definitely happened

Agree this is shocking - cant you just block people on zoom? ie do that rather than just leave ...

But agree women have every right to be caustious.

But being caustious about TW trying to trick their way in doesn't then justify or explain all the issues those who have experienced them have been subjected to.

It might be the least of the concerns for you, @ThimbleThief, but it really bothers me. I know women paying money they can little afford, every month, thinking it’s going to feminist action. I promise you, they do not know it is going into a director’s pocket. Literally in Scotland, from what one poster says. When the website says everyone is a volunteer, that sounds very much like fraud to me. What was the name of that GC woman in Scotland, where there was a financial scandal?

As others have confirmed, yes this did happen. I was on the call and saw a WRN member attempting to catch Heather's attention (everyone was muted so couldn't speak) and eventually the speaker saying I think this looks important, so she was unmuted and said there was an interloper and it was Fred. Heather vanished immediately and left the rest of us hanging, not knowing what to do and unable to kick Fred out.

Thanks. It is just so strange.

Was there any discussion aftwards. Even just how should we (she) handle something like this should it happen again.

Or would that amount to criticism of WRN to imply the process had gone wrong.

@Scottishwifey posted this while I was writing my post, which you have just quoted, so I had not seen it when I posted - I just knew that there were seven new posts waiting to load.

"Additionally, in the Scotland WRN group chat, there have been regular requests for donations that go directly into the leader’s personal bank account. Many women have contributed regularly, but without receipts or clear accountability."

This is shocking financial mismanagement. I had assumed that all donations went into an official WRN Ltd. bank account and that receipts would have been issued.

I have just had a look at the Donations page on the WRN website.

www.womensrights.network/donate

Are you saying that the bank account linked to PayPal and GoCardless for donations to Women's Rights Network Ltd. is a personal bank account rather than a company business account for WRN Ltd? 😳

Mind, they would issue receipts automatically whatever bank account they were linked to.

So is it that members were asked to bypass those options and pay directly into a personal bank account? Or hand over cash?

"What was the name of that GC woman in Scotland, where there was a financial scandal?"

Marion Millar. There would some painful irony if it turns out that there are now financial shenanigans affecting WRN.

As far as I can remember, there was no immediate conversation but after we all sat on the call for several minutes unable to kick him out I left. Apparently Heather went back in and booted him but then nobody else was allowed back in either so I don't know what might have been said on that call. I do remember there was a member communication that this had happened and that all security was being reviewed and all zooms were paused while this was investigated. Eventually new procedures were put in place and the zooms started up again. I don't remember how long that took though. It's been a while!

It’s extremely ironic that Fred got into a WRN Zoom, and no one could kick him out. The split which set up Women of Wessex came from a disagreement about security, where the WoW group were saying WRN was lax.

MM case wasn’t to do with any women ‘s organization, women did go along to support her when she was in court for threatening a trans ally …with suffragette ribbons …

Yes, the irony is not lost on many of us, especially when some “ wag” changed the description of WRN just after the 62 women in Scotland were chucked out.

The fact that HB panicked, immediately did a runner to protect herself and left everyone else stranded with Fred when only she had "Zoom Host Privileges" to kick him out does not say much for her leadership abilities. It seems that it is other skills that got her where she is today.

"some “ wag” changed the description of WRN just after the 62 women in Scotland were chucked out"

What's that all about? How was the description changed? That has gone right over my head 😵‍💫

What’s a “wag” in this context?

Sorry I've just returned to this thread and it's now 10 pages!!! I posted a link earlier on in this thread, maybe page 3 or 4 with a link to the other thread about WRN Scotland when me and 60+ other women were thrown out of the group last year. On that thread someone provided a screenshot of the WRN Scotland X account that had been changed (presumably by an aggreived admin who had access) to criticise WRN.

Edited: Here is the link to the original thread about what happened (from my post on page 4 of this thread), including an X screenshot, a couple of pages in, after we were all chucked out.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5353037-womens-rights-network-scotland-has-imploded

Thanks HagsRule - found it:
https://ugc-assets.mumsnet.com/images/202506/large-BBVFfVHfGzujNmonRx1eojtZCee4LDS0W9nOrnnE.jpg

WRNscotland X Profile bio:

"An apparently grassroots movement of women working together on behalf of women but really a top down management company"

Niven "wag" as in a joker, wit, prankster, etc.

So WRN Scotland decided to throw out 90% of their membership, for not following orders, but didn’t check who had access to their social media? It doesn’t exactly scream that security has been resolved, does it.

Membership is still free (as far as I know). I was a “member” but was only asked for donations for leaflets, money for T shirts etc which were sent to the WRN Scotland’s Leader via her personal account.
It is well known that the now scuttled Women’s Equality Party used figures for anyone they had an email address for (so supporters and paid up members) as “members” (see Wikipedia) and also kept the names of people who had left several years ago on their membership lists, so it is highly likely that WRN is doing the same. WEP didn’t throw paying members out for dissent, they just ignored them to keep the fees while avoiding discussion.
As membership of WRN is gated but doesn’t attract money other than donations & merchandise, they apparently felt that chucking people out for dissent was worth retaining central control & not particularly financially detrimental.

I’m not suggesting any financial irregularities occurred at all as I trusted this woman, just that this was the way they set up their accounts.

Scottish WRN group sizes: prior to the ‘great purge’ where 62 women were kicked out, there were roughly under 200 members (if I remember correctly) across the whole of Scotland. However, many were inactive – you could check if posts were read/delivered, and about 40-50 members on the group chat hadn’t been active for months (I suspect they just deleted the Signal app rather than removing themselves properly).
After that, the big regional group was split into three smaller regional groups for Scotland. Coordinators had to be members of all the regional groups. Post-purge, each one had about 17-30 members, including the coordinators.

Additionally agree, I think WRN counts newsletter subscribers as official members. The 62 women expelled from the Scottish group continue to receive the newsletter, unless they’ve unsubscribed themselves.

I am not sure but I know that’s the way it started. I don’t think for a moment that there has been ANY financial irregularity in WRN Scotland. It’s perhaps akin to the Zoom meeting when a TRA man sneaked in and Heather Binning apparently exited stage left leaving no one with admin privileges to chuck the interloper out. I wasn’t there so I can’t corroborate the information but it shows a lack of planning for future criticism.

To be fair, I think that WRN security is now pretty tight.

Their problem is less with keeping out nefarious infiltrators and more, as we have seen in this thread, with how "management" treats legitimate members, eg.

• failure to take on board local intelligence
• failure to respect local preferences
• failure to engage with members
• dictatorial behaviour
• enthusiasm for engaging in purges (which impact members uninvolved in any alleged breaches of rules).

The background to the Scottish purge (enforced, unpopular splitting of one group into three) and the Wessex exodus (enforced admittance of an applicant who had not passed local security "vetting") make me wonder if the motivation behind those decisions was to do with:

• boosting the number of groups that can be bragged about
• boosting the number of members that can be bragged about

If so, then it backfired spectacularly.

Reading the comments of WRN members who are getting along nicely in their local groups and are enjoying the benefits of local involvement, I am wondering how many WRN Groups are providing more than mutual support, eg. are as active in campaigning as the "Women of . . ." type groups that broke away from WRN?

At least one PP mentioned that members of their WRN Group actively support other campaigns and protests, ie. as individuals not as a WRN Group.

Anyone can subscribe to the WRN Newsletter, read the WRN website and subscribe to WRN podcasts and YouTube. You don't need to join WRN to do any of that.

The WRN website does not explain the benefits of becoming a WRN member but IMHO one of them is that WRN does have pretty tight security at local level for "vetting" new members. They are not alone in that, of course, so it is not a Unique Selling Point by any means.

I might be misreading the situation but the impression is of a central team that does a lot of good stuff but also has a managerial function with regard to groups and members, ie. it is not a "grassroots network".

Which makes me wonder:

• why WRN Ltd. bothers to expend time and energy managing groups and members, ie. why not just have the central team?
• why groups and members bother belonging to WRN?

I am not asking these questions to be provocative or because I am "anti-WRN" but because everything that has come out so far suggests that:

• WRN Ltd. does not place a high value on retaining WRN members
• "Split-off" Groups seem to be functioning extremely well outside of WRN
• WRN offers many benefits that are not restricted to members
• Time and energy of the "central team" is diverted to management of groups and members with no obvious benefit to WRN members.

Thinking of the pros and cons of having a membership organised in Groups, the benefits to WRN Ltd. that come to mind are:

• Groups enable WRN Ltd. to identify new "talent" and connections to be exploited (in the nicest possible sense!)
• Groups and members provide good "stats" for PR
• Groups boost support for campaigns beyond what might be achieved by appeals to Newsletter Subscribers and website visitors
• According to reports from Scotland, Group Coordinators can and do solicit donations to WRN Ltd. from Group members (with questions remaining about whose bank account they are paid into)

Which makes it all the more inexplicable why WRN Ltd. is prepared to purge members so ruthlessly and thereby:

• risk reputational damage
• deter other women from remaining in membership or joining in the first place.

Awful behaviour and incompetence happens in "grassroots" organisations too and I don't think it is the structure of WRN that is necessarily the problem. Rather, it is a management issue.

WRN does have official Organisational and Operational Management Structures, in case anyone was unaware.

If WRN members were employees rather than volunteers they would have legal protection against the sort of management actions that have been described in this thread. That is no reason why volunteers should be treated so shabbily.

In fact, as mentioned in PP, the way that WRN is run makes it arguable that at least some of the women affected might be legally recognised as unpaid workers and therefore covered by Employment Law.

I suppose the only other question is, which area will be next to be purged?

In the meantime, I am sure the purged members of WRN North and South Bucks will be able to regroup, like the "Women of . . . " ex-WRN type groups, or will divert their time, talents and energies to organisations where they are more appreciated, respected and valued.

(Six new posts waiting to load while I was writing this so apologies if it seems out of synch!)

Edit: corrected typo

As I said in an earlier post I am more familiar with feminist organising that happens at grass roots level, ie the primary purpose to provide support, discussion whatever for women in a particular area and / or area of work / campaigning. And the group can at anytime join or support a campaign etc.

Not where a central group however good or bad "franchises" a network of groups (to ..... ??)

So, just asking out of curiosity, for those who have been members of a WRN group, do you think if your group became a "Women of wherever" group it would somehow not be as useful, informed or have a purpose.

As a self managing group it could subscribe, or termporarily support a campaign or action of other groups eg Sex Matters, FWS.

Or is it that, as has been an issue for some time, that women have not felt safe or have a mechanism for setting up a group to begin with. That the concern about infiltration is stopping more women in the same area just autonomously setting up a group.

Because if the primary issue one of making sure all those wanting to be part of a group are "genuine" then that is the problem to be solved.

I think there was a few years ago an attempt through FWR threads to find out if there women in area X or Y. Not sure if any were sucessfully set up. Or if too many were wary that this a system that would be "safe".

It’s obviously in the interests of those who want to make a name for themselves, to claim that they represent thousands of women. In reality, there are a handful in each group who do anything beyond local meet ups, and online chat. Even for the big name Zooms, it’s a couple of hundred women. Id WRN did charge membership, it might find out how popular it really is.