AGM results and some thoughts on "governance"

A total of thirteen members attended our branch AGM yesterday, so we were comfortably quorate and everyone standing for re-election to the committee got in. However, thirteen people out of a branch membership of roughly 300 people is really not all that great, and a total membership of 300 isn't ultimately going to be enough to sustain services to 4,000-odd people long-term. Add in the wider population who expect us to be able to help with wildlife casualties, injured strays and so on, and it's just impossibly top-heavy.

The RSPCA is a very democratic charity—if you want to get rid of me, you can vote me out—but it depends on people being willing to participate, put in some work to achieve our goals and accept that majority decisions must be final. The idea of working within a structure of rules puts some people off because they think it's "bureaucratic" but without rules to decide who can make decisions and when a decision has been made the result would be chaos and nothing would ever get settled.

To participate in the decision-making processes of the RSPCA the first requirement is to become a member. Anyone with a genuine desire to help animals may join, although application from someone who wanted to use their membership for an ulterior purpose might be rejected (for example someone who joined in order to reverse the Society's policies against battery farming would have their application refused).

Three months after joining a member is entitled to receive voting papers for National Society elections and to attend their local branch AGM and vote in the election of the branch committee. They are also entitled to stand for election to their branch committee, but are not eligible to stand for election to the National Society's ruling council until they have been members for at least five years.

Branch elections do sometimes result in policy changes (although a lot of the time just getting enough people elected to form a committee is a struggle). Thirty years ago this branch did no rehoming at all, and this was only changed when a group of new people were elected to the committee. What happened wasn't exactly like a parliamentary election as members of both the old group and the new group were elected at the AGM (creating a much larger committee than before), but the new group formed a majority and put through the policy change. This kind of sudden shift is comparatively unusual and most of the time committees gain just a few new individuals each year.

This poses a problem in itself because new members are essential if committees aren't to wind up composed entirely of octogenarians, but being the only person who doesn't understand what's going on can make newly elected members feel the rest are forming a clique to exclude them. If you join a branch, be patient, and don't expect to understand everything immediately. Branches are complicated organisations, handling substantial amounts of money and requiring a lot of sustained work to keep them going. If you join in and help with existing activities you'll find it all gradually falls into place (and you'll have a wonderful command of acronyms—NCC, IET, RTA, RHQ—just like everyone else!)

Working for change

There's a growing movement in the US and Australia to press animal shelters to adopt the principles of "no-kill": basically a rejection of the idea that the majority of "unwanted" pets will have to be killed because there are far more strays than potential homes. 

One element of the strategy is to encourage voluntary animal welfare organisations to relinquish what we in this country would refer to as "the stray dogs contract" unless they can realistically aim to place all, or nearly all, animals capable of being adopted. In other words, animal welfare organisations ought not to spend funds doing society's dirty work by killing unwanted pets and so diverting money from saving animals.

This became RSPCA policy in the UK some two decades ago, and is the default position for all its branches. It was possible because of our peculiar organisation structure which means that animal welfare policy decided by the national governing council can be imposed on the branches countrywide.

It hasn't meant that no healthy animals are ever killed because they are unwanted, but the evidence suggests that a much higher percentage of animals are successfully rehomed than in the US. The 2007 Animal Welfare Indicators report collating statistics on a range of animal issues records that the RSPCA (overall) rehomed just over 70,000 animals and put down just under 4,000 for non-medical reasons (the lowest figure for five years). [Pet animal welfare indicators]

Working at arms length from the local authority pounds and shelters has its critics and means that some people will be very unhappy because there is a group of very visible animals in need and the RSPCA is not taking all of them. 

Unfortunately this can result in a vicious circle in which the branch limits its intake of animals because it has limited resources but has difficulty recruiting helpers to increase its resources so it can take more animals because people are angry about the animals who weren't taken in. Two members of the Sheffield forum say:

Q. "Looking at this thread and the earlier one about the RSPCA do I assume that we the people of Sheffield, who support the local RSPCA branch have no say in its running, or how they spend the money that we donate, does this place not have a committie that leads/gives direction to the staff ?. could we not as either a group or as individuals, contact this committie and ask them to change their direction, does the overall RSPCA headquaters at Horsham direct the local branch to this course of action ?.

How does one get onto the local committie, to try and change things, or is it a closed shop like most of these societies seem to be, anyone know ?"

A. "I wish i did know Shytalk. All i know is that people should become aware of the things the RSPCA do and DON'T do before supporting instead of just what they DO do. I am not saying they shouldn't support the RSPCA but theres many small rescue centres out there that save 100s of dogs each year from being put to sleep when they have been in pounds for a long period of time on very low funds due to people not knowing about them as most of the time the rescues are only small and arent pleading for support on television, they make do with what they have and ask around for help, they get it and make the most of it.

I would love to know how to persuade them to help pounds and rescue centres. There's been no luck so far."

Ultimately if you don't like the way your local branch is being run, you can join the RSPCA and stand for election against us. Or you can join and stand for election to work with us. We're not a closed shop and no-one will object to newcomers who want to work to increase the number of animals we can help. What can be a problem is if new recruits have a very limited agenda and want to close down existing services to release funds for their particular pet projects. There isn't much point increasing rehoming if you abandon animals who already have owners but will have to be put to sleep if there is no available veterinary help.