I was very surprised and disappointed that he made these public and potentially damaging statements – now reported by you – which he knew would almost certainly be reported by the media that had only been allowed to attend the meeting with the approval of the members present.

He said he did not intend to speak – yet he did. What changed his mind?

Now that you have reported what happened – which you obviously are entitled to do – I intend to say what I thought should best remain unsaid after Carl Reid made his remarks.

Far from agreeing to an amicable resolution of the dispute it now seems to me that the insurgents are going out of their way to torpedo the Board’s DA.

That is highly damaging to the interests of the Club and its members.

I hope that Carl Reid can allay my fears that this is not so.

Carl Reid now needs to explain why he went to the Council without the Board’s approval and why he decided to publicly raise the issues with the media present – rather than with the President privately.

Could he not have approached the President before the meeting and raised his concerns in private? If not satisfied with the President’s response – then go public if he wanted to – although I believe this would have still been the wrong thing to do.

Apparently the insurgents fail to realise that if the Board’s DA fails then the insurgent’s plan hasn’t got a chance in hell of succeeding since it is based on selling 25% of the site.

So why not get behind the Board’s DA and let the Board and its highly experienced and expert team of consultants deal with the heritage issues?

Carl Reid also told the previous AGM that the Board’s proposed plans had no chance of receiving approval.

He also told last year’s meeting he had resigned as the Club’s Solicitor at 5pm on the same day as that AGM was held just some few hours later.

Such gratuitous advice from the Club’s former legal adviser at two successive AGM’s is very disappointing to say the least.

While Carl Reid is responding – might he also reply to the following claim by David Itkowicz which remains unanswered:

“the insurgents’ include carl reid. i met with carl reid after he rang me asking me to sign the petition for the EGM. I was against the smaller football field. he agreed to show me his plans. At our meeting, he showed me a single A4 artist’s impression, but neglected to say that land would be sold. I now feel that he attempted to get me to sign without telling the full story.”