Our Core Concerns

A Not-for-Profit society like the Red Deer Tennis Club (RDTC) is a legal entity. This means that RDTC has legal obligations - to staff, contractors, members, the broader communities of people who use the facility, and the City of Red Deer as a whole.

Elected Directors who sit on a Board, like RDTC's, have what is called a fiduciary duty to look out for the interests of the organization first and foremost, particularly above any personal interest. This means honouring contracts, faithfully adhering to Bylaws, and generally behaving in a way that demonstrates responsible leadership and builds community. This is consistent with the democratic principles that underpin the legal framework of a Not-for-Profit Society.

We are concerned that the majority of Directors of the RDTC Board are not executing their fiduciary duties appropriately.

We also believe it's worth pointing out that the words and actions of many current Board Directors, in our view, reflect a strong personal dislike for Rene Simon, the head coach of Simon Tennis School (STS). We believe STS brought significant value to the club. This Board either did not recognize that or, if they did, dismissed that value. Their actions related to STS suggest that their decisions may have been influenced by things other than their fiduciary duty to the members of the RDTC.

Expectations of community organizations

The following 4 principles summarize our expectations of the Board of any Not-for-Profit society:

1) Operate transparently

Decisions of the club should always be made public, after a fair debate and discussion, where possible. The thought process and discussion for arriving at decisions should also be made public.

2) Create a safe space for everyone

Whether someone is a paying member or not, if they are a tennis player and are aiming to play tennis and/or grow the sport of tennis in central Alberta, they should be welcome at the club, and feel safe at the club.

3) Serve all members of the community equally

We expect a Board to deal in good faith with the broader concerns of its membership, and not to pursue a personal agenda. All members and potential members should feel supported at the club and feel like they can grow and thrive as players, as supporters, as community members.

4) Engage in responsible governance to safeguard the club for future members

The RDTC Board should put the club's well being ahead of any personal interest or agenda, and work to ensure the club’s financial viability down the road.

We do not believe that our current Board is doing these four things.

Current RDTC leadership has, in our opinion, demonstrated through a variety of actions that operating with sound governance and serving the whole community are not their primary goals. Instead, we believe they have demonstrated:

Disregard for harassment: Threatening notes delivered at the club have been ignored, minimized, and in fact denied by some Directors of the current Board. Formal complaints of other inappropriate or harassing behaviour have not been dealt with in clear, transparent, and/or expedient ways.
Culture of bullying and intimidation: Several Board Directors have behaved angrily and aggressively toward other Board Directors, both in and out of Board meetings. Several have used what we consider to be intimidating or demeaning language toward players and members, and some have deliberately mischaracterized members, coaches, and other Board Directors.
Lack of transparency: This Board is purposefully operating out of view of its membership. Meetings are closed to observers and large sections of many meetings are still held "in camera" (in secret), meaning that even the minutes are not accessible to members. This regular, ongoing use of “in camera” is incredibly unusual for an organization like RDTC. While there is some communication from the Board to the membership, there is a great deal that is happening out of the public eye and members’ eyes.
Disregard for Board rules: Individual Board Directors, and the Board as a whole, have repeatedly ignored or violated the governance documents that direct how the RDTC Board should operate. This lack of commitment to the rules has also meant a lack of accountability for breaches of these rules. Operating outside their governance framework exposes the club to risk.
Hidden agenda to terminate contract with STS: The actions (and inactions) of the Board toward Rene Simon, following multiple threatening and racist notes, do not clearly reflect good faith intentions to secure a safe environment to facilitate Rene’s return to coaching. Rather, the contract termination seemed pre-planned, making us question the validity, and legality, of this decision.

To read more about these concerns, please see:

Harassment Concerns Governance Concerns

Ongoing Concerns about this Board

Since we published this website on April 12, 2025, the Board of the Red Deer Tennis Club (RDTC) has produced several new policy documents that we believe are intended to secure their control over the RDTC, complete their no-longer-hidden agenda, and eject anyone who tries to oppose them from the club.

In particular, they have written and enforced a new Code of Conduct and proposed amended Bylaws. Both of these documents, we believe, give more top-down authority to the Board, reduce the rights of members and potential members, and reinforce the concerns we have already raised in this website about the Board’s lack of transparency, lack of due process, and lack of accountability.

Furthermore, these documents provide the Board with additional tools with which to silence or remove from the club anyone who does not agree with them.

(This fear - that they will weaponize these tools against dissenting voices - has already been realized against three Club members, to our knowledge). What we feel has been a culture of intimidation by this Board, and which continues to be nurtured by them at RDTC despite the fact that the contract with STS has already been terminated, can be evidenced by the many people who are reluctant to step onto the grounds because of their physiological response to being in that environment.

Instead of being a friendly, welcoming community Club, the RDTC is now a place where many people are reluctant to go due to their lived negative experiences since this Board began operating in an authoritative manner.

Will these new policy documents create a better culture at the RDTC? We do not think so. Instead, we believe they will further entrench the power of this Board, further reduce member rights and continue to erode responsible governance, safety and fairness for all.

We believe the new Code of Conduct and amended Bylaws will lead many to feel even less safe, valued and respected at the RDTC.

New Documents

In May, 2025, the Board produced a new Code of Conduct, amended Bylaws, a new Privacy policy and a new Harassment policy. We ran all these documents though Chat GPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. While recognizing the limitations of AI tools, we found it very noteworthy that Chat GPT concluded that these documents, collectively, warranted the following actions:

Recommended Actions

Seek Legal Injunction (if feasible).
Halt adoption or enforcement of these policies until legal review is complete.
Request Third-Party Governance Audit
Push for external governance experts to evaluate compliance with the Societies Act, PIPA, and OH&S.
Prepare Member Mobilization Materials
Create a side-by-side rights comparison between Alberta Societies Act and RDTC documents for members.
Formal Complaints to Service Alberta or Privacy Commissioner
Especially if privacy or membership rights are violated.

For the full analysis from ChatGPT, including the prompts used, click here.

To read about our own main concerns with these documents, please see:

Code of Conduct Concerns Amended Bylaws Concerns