An Update On The VPSG Situation

[Guest guest]

There are new developments in the saga of the VPSG part of the front-

page statement.

 

Firstly, on Vegan Forums*, user Kevster revealed that contrary to

what the Vegan Society have claimed**, it was the Vegan Society who

asked them to make a statement, and not vice versa.

 

I spoke to VPSG, they said that they clarified their position due

to being asked to do so by The Vegan Society. Also as i

understand it Stephen Walsh has done a lot of work with VPSG and

it's really appreciated.

 

http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=242612 & postcount=40

 

I then contacted VPSG to ask why the statement had been made, and this

is what they said:

 

I'll try to brielfy explain - one of the signatories of the

unofficial document put out to Vegan Society Members had

against their name that they were our Senior Nutritional Advisor

- this was incorrect information and as outlined in our statement

all our nutritional information came from Stepehn Walsh who

worked worked hard with us to compile our Catering Information

Pack which was pput in place in all prisons in 2003 and

continues to give us advice when sought. For reference see our

Catering Section on www.vpsg.info.

 

In addition VPSG volunteers work as a team and would not sign

anything using the name of our organisation as we do not involve

ourselves in the politics of other organisations. If we ever

felt we needed to it would be a decision of all our volunteers

and no one volunteer would sign anything without the full

agreement of all the other volunteers.

 

Now on the Vegan Forums, the acting general manager has repeatedly

claimed that the sole reason for this statement being necessary was

because VPSG were losing supporters and donations as a result of

James G mentioning them in the letter, and that it was therefore VPSG

who had asked for the statement to be put up. But not once in their

mail to me did they mention any loss of supporters or donations. And

they didn't apparently mention it to Kevster, either.

 

Now in the interests of fairness, I should state that in a response to

a follow up email of mine, they did say that they had indeed lost some

financial support (why people would punish them for what James G had

said is a mystery to me, but clearly some people have chosen to do

that). But they also confirmed that it was the Vegan Society who

contacted them and not vice versa (which backs up what Kevster claims

they said to him).

 

Now given that it is now clear that the VS contacted them asking for a

statement, any loss of donations cannot have been the reason for the

statement's creation, because the Vegan Society wouldn't have known

about any loss of donations to VSPG. So it really does seem that the

primary reason for the statement was to ensure that Stephen Walsh was

correctly credited as Senior Nutritional Advisor, with a secondary

reason being that they'd rather volunteers not mention their

connection to VPSG when writing / talking in other contexts.

 

Both of these are fair reasons (certainly I believe in the principle

of credit where credit's due) but were they really of such importance

that they justified having the statement put on the front page of the

website for nearly a week where literally tens of thousands of

visitors would have seen it? This is far more than would have seen the

original letter, and far far more than would have noticed the

offending item, being as it was one line on page three of the letter.

 

Indeed (although I have to admit this is merely my opinion), I would

have thought that the front-page statement is likely to have caused

more confusion than the one-line mention on page three of the original

letter.

 

Finally, why did the Vegan Society feel the need to claim that it was

VPSG who asked the Society to put the statement on the webpage when

the truth appears to be that it was the other way round?

 

* Unfortunately the Vegan Forum vegansoc forum has now been locked by

the moderator Korn, largely (IMHO) because of one user posting

material Korn had asked not be posted, and then repeatedly

criticising Korn's decision and demanding that it be reversed. (In my

experience, it's never a good idea to tell a forum moderator that he/

she is " playing god " and I think that Korn was remarkably patient).

For the moment the forum is visible (to those registered users who

join, but cannot be posted to.

 

http://www.veganforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=87

 

** This claim was in the original statement itself, but was repeated

several times on Vegan Forum by the acting general manager.

[Guest guest]

Sorry, my indents aren't coming out when viewed on the web. Just to

avoid any confusion. This bit:

 

" I spoke to VPSG, they said that they clarified their position due

to being asked to do so by The Vegan Society. Also as i

understand it Stephen Walsh has done a lot of work with VPSG and

it's really appreciated. "

 

....is from Kevster, and this bit:

 

" I'll try to brielfy explain - one of the signatories of the

unofficial document put out to Vegan Society Members had

against their name that they were our Senior Nutritional Advisor

- this was incorrect information and as outlined in our statement

all our nutritional information came from Stepehn Walsh who

worked worked hard with us to compile our Catering Information

Pack which was pput in place in all prisons in 2003 and

continues to give us advice when sought. For reference see our

Catering Section on www.vpsg.info.

 

" In addition VPSG volunteers work as a team and would not sign

anything using the name of our organisation as we do not involve

ourselves in the politics of other organisations. If we ever

felt we needed to it would be a decision of all our volunteers

and no one volunteer would sign anything without the full

agreement of all the other volunteers. "

 

....is from VPSG.

 

Apologies for any confusion caused by my poor formatting.

 

Jonny