I have sent a letter to the Landscape Institute querying the Financial Summary, February 2009.

You should all be able to download it here:

http://www.adrive.com/public/f73c1ccf62db9b42f44400da237b8b17bf2ece722eba3d9adf593f05e2a5202e.html

What follows is my message to Dominic Cole, who, along Tom Turner and many others, have lend me their support in pursuit of freedom of opinion and speech and my right to bring those who claim to represent us to account.

I must thank you all. Above all, I appreciate this bit of wisdom:

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance”

Let’s not forget this so easily, next time we build our institutions.

—-

Dear Dominic,

Please find attached my letter to Mr Williamson, on the subject of the “Financial Summary, February 2009” and the reasons for the LI near bankrupcy so far.

I have attempted to explain my views and ask for as much clarification as possible. I have avoided allocating blame, but I haven’t resisted the urge to point out that some individuals may have no future at the LI, given the information available.

I have moderated my calls for the police to intervene and I even avoid calling for resignations. It may be easier for all to digest this way.

I am sure I could have done much better, and I have left out much information that may be relevant to this issue. I have portrayed the facts as clearly as I have been able to. I am sure that I have made mistakes, and they will be picked upon.

However, I do believe that my letter shows that mismangement has ocurred and that foul play with our money is a distinct possibility. I also show that the Council has engaged in a distinct attempt at concealling the source of our Institute’s troubles from us Members. I feel lied to and misled. I know that this was their intention in sending out that pitiful piece of trash named Financial Summary.

I have not restrained myself entirely with regards to the use of colourful language and insults. Suffice to say that where you can read “idiots” I originally envisaged the addition of several expletives with considerable impact in English language. This is a fairly tuned down version of the original, to say the least.

We saw so far because we stood in the shoulders of giants, such as Jellicoe, Clouston or Ellison. Now we find the blind leading the one eyed towards an abyss of destruction and disrepute.

To say that I despise this lot and their pathetic rigmarole of an Institute is not enough. They have brought us very low, with their disgusting rotation of council members and their dubious financial practices.

This Institute does not deserve us, but I hope that you all can find a way to reconcile this impossible divergence between Members and Institution. We really need to refound this profession upon new principles and outlook.

We are not without blame, either. Nazionalsocialism rose to power simply because decent people decided to do nothing and looked the other way until it was too late. Our Institute has become a profundly disfunctional institution because all decent Members looked the other way whilst some greedy and pathetic mediocres used it to further their failed and irrelevant careers.

We have allowed our Communications department to become a cheap Public Relations bureau in the hans of an professionally limited and ethically challenged individual that has never had our interest at heart. We subcontracted our voice and our thoughts. We may as well have subcontracted our feelings and emotions, our love and our passions.

We have stood together in darkness and silence for so long that i wonder if we ever will be able to speak loudly and articulatedly again.

I took it upon me to call the Council to account. As far as I am concerned, my task is complete. I do not much care for their reply, what they think of me, or the consequences.

I just feel both sad and incredibly tired. I hope that some good will come of all this.

Best wishes to you all.

Gabino Carballo CMLI

Barcelona, Spain

The Landscape Institute prefers lame ducks ready to work for a pittance in some large practice devoted to furthering property developers profits at the expense of society.

I said it: Society. Dirty word. Please read as “suckers good enough to take their hard earned cash from, but not good enough to be listened to or cared for”.

I may be talking about something other than that “Cack Hand Ed meets Bug Ginsturn” that our Institute became so long ago. Or may be not!

My forensic skills are those of a Landscape Architect used to working with Specifications, Bills of Quantities, Contracts, Detailed Drawings and multidisciplinary teams where Landscape Design is always going to be the last thing to be considered!

Right now, I am not the most popular living LA, if I consider the state of my Inbox. So:

Thank you for your Comment!

I can see that in the year 2008-2009 will cost us more than 100,000 and slightly less in 2009-2010, possibly 60,000. However, what do we get from it? Let’s see what its head, Mr Paul Lincoln does:

“Responsible for the development and implementation of the Institute’s policy and public affairs, marketing and communications strategy, internal and external communications, publications (including the Landscape Journal and Vista), events programme, sponsorship, income generation, competitions, awards, library, archive and information services.”

Well, it looks like he is going to be doing nothing.

SO, we dispose of the archive, which we members we want to keep and has little financial impact on our situation, and sack the archivist, but not the much more expensive head of that failed Department? What is going on? Why do we sack minions that cost nothing and do something, and help fat cats to stay fat?

Let’s look at Mr McCapra’s suitability for the post, too. It appears that before he landed the job at the LI, he was the head of Icon, or Institute for Conservation. I am not very sure what happened there, but their Accounts for 31 Mar 2008 show that they ended the year with a significant trading deficit, in the region of 250,000. We may be witnessing the emergence of a pattern.

With regards to the LI I would say that if your house is on fire, you call in the fire fighters, not pyromaniacs. What do I know?

I have searched the web a little bit and I got this gem:

“Prior to coming to Icon, Alastair had learnt his leadership skills in the workplace, mainly through personal observation.”

So, he had no real qualifications and little on the way of credentials to be a CEO, this gentleman, It seems that he landed a job as CEO in Icon though sheer willpower. I bet they are glad they chose him.

It is also worth mentioning:

““I found I am comfortable with fuzzy edges, in other words, with not knowing everything about something or exactly how something will turn out. This willingness to take risks is a strength, but at the same time it can contrast strongly with the style of others involved, both at board and at staff level.”

Great. Fuzzy edges. Risks. Not knowing how things will turn out.

We had a problems with Control and procedures in Marion Bowman’s time, yet we chose a chap with no previous track record as competent, capable, and fool-proof administrator, but one that is learning on the job. He’s gonna have a hell of a learning curve, when he is finished with us.

There is something mesianic about his vision of his job description:

“He therefore welcomes the evolution of a more flexible and proactive role for the Chief Executive in the new organisation, allowing board members to delegate a wider range of issues to him. Alastair feels he gained some important insights regarding this from using Liberating Leadership. In his own words: “I saw myself as not directive, but rather as someone who tried to bring the best out of people. The Leadership Assessment Tool revealed that I might need to be more directive, given my current operating environment.”

We can see that.

So, we “delegate” to him, I guess. We have subcontracted our leadership to an employee. Obviously, not a single Landscape Architect in the land was up to the job. I wonder whay don’t we just shut the shop up?

My recommendations to any incoming council members would be:

– That serious consideration be given to a thourough investigation of expenditure during Marion Bowman’s term. We need to seek legal advice and possibly call the police to investigate to waht extent it may be possible to recoup the expenditure that I find has not been properly justified.

– Have a close look at the interim period between her departure and Mr McCapra’s appointment, with particular attention to Policy & Communications Department expenditure.

– Review Mr McCapra’s suitability for the job and redefine his job description. He is not to lead, but to administrate and serve. If he is not capable of such a task, he must be allowed to pursue his interest in “Liberating Leadership” elsewhere.

– Cut our losses and eliminate the Policy & Communications Department entirely, starting with its head, which I presume is lot more expensive than an archivist and a lot less useuful given the fact that there are no communications to speak of, right now.

– Give serious consideration to the posibility of bringing legal action against the current Trustees and expelling them from the Landscape Institute if any form of wrong doing or collusion with any wrong doing is found.

– Reform the Li entirely to make accountable to its members. Publish all expenditure and accounts online in real time. All salaries to be made public. COntrol of expenditure in the hands of a Member of the Landscape Institute, that will institute systematic procedures for control.
– Leadership entirely in the hands of landscape architects. CEO to be Administrative Director. Reinstate the Archive and cut all loss making activities and Departments. No strategic decissions in the hands of non-landscape Architects.
– All LA’s to receive complusory trainning on ethical issues and corporate responsibility.

No worries, I am working on the network side. However, these virtual networks are to human relations what masturbation is to sex, to put it bluntly!

You guys in the UK have to start getting organised seriously to remove most of the Council, and Trustees and possibly Mr McCapra. It much more serious than I thought!

We have been stripped of over 300,000 pounds sterling worth of cash in the last 5 years whilst our assets remain at 2004 levels.

We are being milked!

By the way, the 20,000 will not save the LI, that doesn’t even cover a week operating expense. My analysis show they have not cash to function, if we ALL stop paying our subscriptions for 1 month, the LI will go bust entirely.

Some of you need to work on getting McCapra on our side. He cares about his job, he’s ready to compromise and negotiate. Either he is with us and keeps his job or he is against us and he is against us and unemployed in a few months. There is no them and us. There is only us.

In my mind, there is some danger in Communications and Education. Smart suits and smarmy smiles.

We have been playing for expensive computer games!

http://dapofessional.blogspot.com/2009/03/landscape-of-destruction.html