Here's an article about the
current issues and upcoming extraordinary meeting for The Land Conservancy of BC.

I am a
running mate with Briony Penn, for the Save TLC slate – to become new
board members of TLC.

Mail-in ballots have now been sent out for the upcoming extraordinary general meeting and voting for new directors.  The Save TLC committee has had four conference call phone meetings and one in-person workshop meeting.  It's a great group of organizers, volunteers and candidates – all committed to the future of a strong and viable TLC.

TLC founder Bill Turner (2nd from left) and TLC co-founder Briony Penn (2nd from right sitting) with new candidates for the TLC Board: (standing) Todd Wong, Ken Millard, Magnus Bien, and (sitting) Cheryl Bryce, Elspeth McVeigh.

from The Saltspring Island Driftwood News:
http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/saltspringislanddriftwood/news/51959192.html

TLC
co-founder Briony Penn,
who is running for a spot on the new board, hopes that the membership
will educate themselves on what she believes was a false accusation
resulting from a lack of due diligence by the board and their lawyers.

“The
allegations were that the moneys donated by the land trust had been
used for other than that intended by the donor. That’s simply not
true,” Penn said.

“The
subtlety of it is that they were confusing what is known as pooling
trust fund accounts instead of setting up independent separate accounts
for every project.”

According
to Penn, the funds were pooled until the time that they were needed,
and the lawyers were misinterpreting the Charitable Purposes
Preservation Act.

Gabelman was unavailable for comment, however, Penn recalls that he was unable to back up the board’s claims.

“I
called up the lawyers and treasurer Colin Gabelman and asked: ‘What was
your written interpretation? What was your evidence?’ And they didn’t
get any written interpretation. They didn’t get any evidence.”

“[Turner] has raised over a hundred thousand dollars [since he was fired],” Penn said.

“Last
Sunday morning I was up at six with him at a bottle exchange in
Victoria. He’s been treated really badly by the board but he’s still
raising money as a volunteer to keep the organization going until it
gets back on track. I might add, I saw no members of the board at that
bottle drive.”

Still,
despite a major disparity between what Penn believes happened and what
TLC’s bean counters have reported, the environmentalist is willing to
work with anyone on the new board should she be elected.

“We’ve gotta put the trust back in land trust,” she said.

For more information see:

Save TLC Committee:  www.savetlc.ca

The Land Conservancy of BC www.conservancy.bc.ca