Memory of a Goldfish!

I was feeling particularly contrary at the Chorus rehearsal tonight. Charlie was teaching us a new piece by ear; apparently we are going to be doing more spiritual improvisation in Turin, possibly as a lead in to the popular Keep Your Lamps (Trimmed and Burning) that we sing.

Tonight was also the AGM and around eight o’clock we stopped rehearsing to do the hustings. In the newly re-written Election Procedures, only the Chair and Vice-Chair candidates have to take questions from the Chorus and the whole affair was very bland; several people were disappointed not to have the opportunity to question candidates for other posts – which is a fair point, since they want you to vote for them – but then again, there aren’t really any posts to stand for any more; other than the Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and Treasurer, everyone else on the committee is elected ‘Without Pre-Defined Portfolio’ which, apart from being a daft name, means that no-one is really responsible for anything artistic that happens any more. There is some vague corporate responsibility taken by the committee as a whole which will ‘designate specific responsibilities as it sees fit’ but that’s as close as you get.

Maybe I’m just feeling negative because the elections, whose just and transparent implementation I put so much effort into protecting, were so casually administered tonight that I may as well have not bothered. People have short memories and the abuses of the previous administration already seem to be forgotten. Tonight any unscrupulous person could have picked up as many ballot papers as they liked and completed them; no-one was keeping track. For an organisation that makes such a fuss about its democratic principles, we seem remarkably cavalier about protecting their integrity.

I feel an ‘Angry From Manchester’ email coming on… let’s just wait for the results to be published before setting the cat amongst the pigeons.