So it seems the result of the meeting was the decision to sell the book, and that this was reached on the advice of the Secretary who informed the committee there was no risk to them of legal action!!! One can only hope she had sought independant legal advice, in writing, before taking such a step. I gather the author also nominated himself as President - not sure how that was received. If he was accepted then Steph has lost her control over the History Room as he seems rather a bully to me.

Meanwhile, I got home from Hobart on Friday and found a letter from the Outpatients department of the Royal demanding to know why I had not turned up for my appointment on the 20th. Simple explanation - they had forgotten to let me know about it. And since on the 20th I had the dog in Kennels and was at a loose end between engagements in Hobart at the time of the appointment, it would have been rather convenient, unlike their present proposal that requires me to trek down this coming Friday.

I had actually made an appointment with the local doctor to follow up on the fact I had not heard from them, which, being on the Monday, I kept since I needed the relevant documents to take with me. Sigh.

We are heading into another cold spell here, but at present it is a lovely sunny day so once i have caught you all up with my news I will head out to attack the back yard.

Heading down to Hobart on Friday I was rash enough to call into Centrelink to drop off the form for the History Room to be a host for volunteers. The girl on the counter over-rode my explanation that it had nothing to do with me, and insisted I waited, which I did. The interviewer made the same error of assumption (that is was my form, not the History Room's form) but was more amendable to reading the 'Purpose of the Form' and so we soon sorted out the confusion, but it did leave me a bit behind schedule for my appointment at the Uni.

On my way back I called in to see a friend who I knew back in Queensland where he served on the Heritage Council. He and his wife have established a distillery on their property (Shene) which seems to be attracting a number of awards. He ran for Council the time before last but his leaflets were not distributed, despite him paying large sums of money to Australia Post. He was busy with development works at his property at the time of the last elections, so could not be persuaded to run, but I asked him if he would do so this time. He has agreed to give it serious consideration and I proposed that if he did, we could each take one end of the electorate and distribute each others' flyers as we did it. Hopefully he will proceed and will not be discouraged by his wife. Actually if he ran for Mayor he would be in with a chance as he achieved some pretty solid numbers on his one venture into politics.

Meanwhile I have been weighing up my volunteering options and they do not look attractive - either the Community Centre (serious political implications there as they are running a campaign against Council), the Medical Centre (and if you think the History Room is a nest of competing interests you have not seen anything yet) or Community Transport seem to be the best options - so I will give them a ring and see what I can get there. Other options are at a considerable distance (eg Chauncey Vale) and would impose considerable travel costs.

A long day today, wondering if I would be called to the meeting and if so how I would respond. It went for hours - it must have been exhausting for those involved. I did see the key players arrive - the author looking triumphant and the owner of the second house looking rather more vital than her usual act of sickly languidness. And I am still awaiting  a call from my inside source to find out how things went. I do hope they saw some sense and at least decided to get independent advice.

Meanwhile I am emptying my freezer of the textiles from the History Room that have been there to kill silverfish infestations. I have to wash out the second bin so that the current lot of stuff drying on the airer in the shed can be stowed safely. I hope to be able to drop it in on Monday when I know there will not be a hostile reception.

Tomorrow I am heading to Hobart for the second visit of the smoking study, and to collect my new labels for my packets - I will be interested to see what they have to say.

Other than that, it was rather nice and sunny, but what with one thing and another I didn't get the sheets washed. I expect they will be done on the weekend since I have no other commitments at present.

Oh Lord, it just gets worse and worse - Steph has proceeded with calling the meeting with all members and the author tomorrow afternoon! I found out because another concerned member rang to beg me to attend. I explained I couldn't since I am neither a member nor the President any more, but suggested he move that they seek independent legal advice before selling the book. Personally I would be urging the author to do that since it would save us money, and would be requiring him to provide that advice to us so that we could form a decision, but i am no longer in charge. For all that, I suspect I will spend the evening marking up my copy of the book to highlight digressions, infamy, inaccuracies, etc so that if I get a phone call requesting my presence I can be prepared.

Apart from that I had a nice chat with our local heritage officer over a cup of coffee over the lake and he agreed it was nasty and we discussed future plans for the History Room. I have indicated to the concerned member that if it is their view I should return I will do so, but that it must come from the committee, not just his desperate pleas. Meanwhile I suggested he take his wife to the meeting as she carries weight with Steph and is also clued up about the issues I have been highlighting - and is a rather forceful personality haha.

A lovely sunny day meant most of my washing is done, dry and put away, but no work has been done on the grass - it's so depressing that the area I slashed already has 8 inch high regrowth. I hate this time of year!!

So I may or may not be at home tomorrow, I may or may not be at a meeting, and if I am at home I am expecting a visitor who I am not that keen on entertaining as I suspect he has motives other than the ones presented. Sigh.

Well after an evening of increasingly toxic emails from my Secretary, refusing my offers to meet with her personally to discuss the matter, I have resigned. I have to say I am feeling rather good about it. My resignation details my reasons for leaving and includes short articles on Defamation and Publishing defamation (only two pages each) as well as my original instructions to Steph. No doubt she will call it defamatory but as my email is marked 'in confidence' and it includes a description of the role of the President (including alerting the committee to potential harm), I am pretty comfortable with that. Besides if she does threaten it I can point out that this would damage her own defence of 'I am just a simple country woman' in the event she herself were the subject of litigation.

So the Ute is full of my possessions removed from the History Room, including the window display, and my paper copies have been delivered to the non-computer people. I can relax - I think.

It will be nice to have a few days off, and I will probably take the opportunity to take to the beach on Show Day, though maybe not.

Then I will have to start looking for other volunteering options so as to satisfy my obligations under NewStart. Sigh.

The game is on big time over the book. Having copied my secretary into my email to the author I subsequently received an email from her questioning why I was acting independently of the Committee, and expressing distress at the 'tone' of my email (formal and polite and acknowledging the excellence of his historical research while demonstrating the points at which he was exposed - the email also referred to my request to Steph to organise a meeting, but that in the absence of this he should consider my communication advisory of my position, not necessarily indicative of the views of the committee).

 I responded to remind her of my request of last Tuesday and to once again ask her to organise a meeting. This morning I had another email threatening to resign, to which I responded with a conciliatory message above my original email - suggesting that perhaps we were suffering from poor communication, and also stressing (as she remains insistent on inviting the author to any such discussion) that as the author  has a demonstrated interest in the outcome of any such deliberations, it is not appropriate to invite him to participate.

Silence ever since.

I went to the hairdresser and had my head shaved - despite being a professional, the job is rather more brutal than the last one, but I can live with it and it will soon grow out. It is astonishing how much it had grown in the nine months or so since it was last done.

Heavy rain this afternoon after a day of humid overcast, but at least Council has mowed that part of the lane that I have yet to get to, so the dog and I can walk with some degree of confidence we will not run into a snake before I spot it.

Update: Had an email from Steph making no reference to whether or not she had received my Tuesday email, but responding to this one with the news that this is not the way we normally do things but that the author wanted to meet with all of us on Thursday.

I responded that this is not a normal situation and that it was essential that we have the opportunity to discuss my concerns in the absence of the interested parties.

Her response - it's all a storm in a teacup.

My response, leaflets about defamation and publishing defamation which I urged her to read - betting she will say she can't download them. I will drop off printed copies to her and to the VP personally in that instance.

Resignation being drafted as we speak.

Having thrown my hands in the air about the book, I took two lovely days off to enjoy myself. A trip to Hobart started with a visit to the University - I am participating in a study to consider the effectiveness of cigarette warnings on smokers (none, in my case I am sorry to say). It involves having a mobile phone on which you record each cigarette and respond to various surveys (all pretty identical as to what you are doing, how you are feeling and so forth. The first day it drove me crazy as it asked these questions every bloody time i had a smoke - as a result its results are not a reflection of my normal habits as its intrusions resulted in me deferring cigarettes to avoid having to fill in the survey, lol.

The reason I signed up was because I thought it would be a good way to focus my consciousness on my smoking instead of letting it be just something I did and in that way would help me to prepare to have the Neurolinguistic programming I keep promising myself. Fortunately it has now become more relaxed and is not insisting I report in at hourly intervals to answer additional questionnaires. This week is establishing the datum, and from next week I will be applying new labels to my cigarette packets to test their effectiveness. That will go for an additional fortnight and then it will all be over.

From there I ran around the northern suburbs stocking up on dog food etc, and had afternoon tea in Bunnings as I couldn't be bothered looking for a cafe with parking and filled in time till it was time to return to Hobart for Divali - which had some interesting dancing and a variety of foods from a diverse range of countries - not much in the way of curry which was disappointing. The Paella was a little out of line, as at least most of the other countries represented presumably have some sort of Hindu presence - but Italy?

Then to Barbara's where no-one was home so I let myself in and settled down to wait for the dog to wake up. Dinner was KFC then to bed.

On Saturday we went to Currency in Lindisfarne which is in the old Commonwealth Bank building and had a poached eggs Benedict which filled me up so much I did not need additional sustenance till dinner time. Picked the dog up and headed home. He smells sweet as he has had a bath, so much so it is a little overwhelming. I can't imagine he enjoys it at all.

Today was the History Room and only two visitors, but I have recruited a new volunteer who can fill in on Mondays while our usual unreliable volunteer is off on sick leave. I took advantage of the peace and quiet to draft my email to the author of the book and have just sent it off to him - basically - what do you hope to achieve? Your aggressive approach is only going to inspire backlash, not a concession that she was wrong. And by the way, here are some serious errors in your own assumptions.

I copied it to Steph as it points out her error in arranging a meeting between him and me before she arranges an Executive meeting, but also points out that it may be she simply confused my request and my discussion paper.

The two days off were a huge relaxation and gave me time to refresh my soul which has been a little bruised by all the drama.

And I have unblocked the toilet which has been playing up a little of late, and flushed out the entire line with a hose down the pipe until everything has gone into the Septic (so many inspection hatches to work out what progress I have made), so now have drains that run freely once more.

I have spent the last two days in a state of anticipation waiting for a response from Steph or her indignant arrival in the history room today, but just received an email from her telling me she has contacted the author who is happy to meet and discuss (so much for being president and getting obedience from the Secretary).

This may be a better result for all of that as I have been considering over the last two days how to deal with the meeting and doing a little more research off my own bat. Basically it's my opinion that I am saving him from making a publicly humiliating mistake as he has assumed the author of the other document was a professional historian (I have since checked this and she is a geologist), which is untrue, and also accounts for her basic rookie errors. Her speciality, on the Council, is mining heritage so her involvement in the listing or re-registration of buildings is zero. His errors of assumption about how the heritage council works, together with his errors of assumption about the effect of heritage listing on property value, together with his demonstrated ignorance of the actual assessment process would make him look very silly indeed if there were a public showdown, so hopefully that argument will silence any bombast.

Personally if i were asked to remove one of the two pubs in the relevant village it would be the first one, not the other as the first one is a dime-a-dozen 1870s version and the other one is a rare 1820s model.

Today being my birthday was spent watching rain pouring down from the History Room. I did complete the 'increase' rows of the sleeve I have been sporadically knitting for some months now. And the dog and I were drenched on our walk on my return. I am packing my stuff together in anticipation of heading off to Barb's tomorrow - I have an appointment at the Uni as I am participating in another study, then a few shops (including Fullers) to visit, and pet food and other such errands before heading to Divali for lots of curry.