Comment

The AGM will be held in an unprecedented atmosphere anating from the decision by three long-serving directors of the organisation to resign their directorships in protest over communications issues with the organisation’s outgoing chairman and its chief executive officer.In order to clear the air, the mbers might de it appropriate to ask the outgoing chairman and the chief executive officer if they consider it satisfactory for the CEO to claim to have taken it onto herself to have sacked the organiser of ODMA2013 and ODMA2015, when no such action had been taken, nor could it under proper procedures for an organisation such as ODMA – i.e. the mbership, via its elected board mbers, not the CEO (who is he servant of the board), makes such a major decision.They might also seek an explanation for the resignations of the three long-serving board mbers and for the lengthy absence (three months) from the office by the CEO.And they might like to seek an explanation for the fudging of attendance figures for ODMA2015 by about 20 per cent.What has been going on reflects on the very raison d’etre of ODMA. Over time, it has evolved from being a blatant (quite legal at the time of its foundation in the early 1960s) price-fixing organisation, where mbers would sit around a table and agree on prices – even publishing price lists listing all companies concerned – to over time become an organisation whose aims and objectives have largely consisted of sponsoring ODMA trade fairs (the actual organising being contracted out), certain charitable efforts and, more recently, becoming a publisher.Now it is broiled in the results of the decision of the organisers of the two most recent events to quit, which has yet to be played out completely.It’s up to the mbers of ODMA to decide what they want from the organisation and to take any corrective actions they consider desirable. That may bring surprises for some.