Concerns with the current RDTC Board - Governance
While there is much we could discuss here, we would like to highlight two main concerns: 1) the Board’s lack of transparency; and 2) the Board’s disregard for the rules that govern them.
What are they hiding?
Why are they governing out of view of the membership?
Why have they done their best to silence or push off the Board any Directors who disagree with them or who try to ensure Bylaws and governance policies are followed?
We believe that the answers to these questions become more clear in the context of the hidden agenda that we believe many of the current Board Directors had with regard to the Simon Tennis School (STS). In short, we believe that many of the current Board Directors sought positions on the Board principally to try to bring about the termination of the RDTC’s contract with the STS. On that basis, as well as manufactured grounds for this termination, we believe that the termination of this contract was unjust.
Lack of Transparency
Did you know that the Board of Directors has closed all meetings? In other words, folllowing a Board vote on the December 16, 2024, club members - the group who elected this Board - are not allowed to listen to them govern the club.
This is definitely against expected norms, as well as the long-standing tradition of the RDTC. Can you imagine if Red Deer's city council made this choice? How would you feel about it as a taxpayer? In our opinion, voting members who elected these Directors have a right to know how those Directors are behaving. This Board has rejected the membership right to oversight beyond reading meeting minutes after the fact, where there are minutes (In Camera sections of meetings keep minutes sealed from the public). We find this incredibly concerning.
In Camera
Prior to formally closing all Board meetings to observers, the Board frequently held lengthy In Camera sessions during meetings. Even with meetings closed, significant portions of Board discussions are still held In Camera. This is very unusual. In Camera meetings are intended to be used only for highly sensitive matters, matters that would damage the club's ability to function if they were held in public. Having listened to many meetings, we don't believe that the club is dealing with business of that nature.
Minimal communication
You may have noticed that the Board also refuses to provide information regarding its decisions. For example, in the initial email on April 2, 2025 to the tennis community after terminating the coaching contract with STS, they simply said (we paraphrase) "we can't tell you anything; trust us that it was in RDTC's best interest". We are disinclined to trust in this situation, especially given the patterns of behaviour described elsewhere on this website. We also find this incredibly disrespectful to the tennis community and the membership that elected them, and to whom they are ultimately accountable.
This accountability seems especially important given the widespread positive regard of STS by their students and the expected negative impact on membership if STS were no longer able to operate at their existing capacity out of the RDTC (see our Survey results, that we presented to the Board on October 8, 2024).
Meeting minutes
Initially, this Board made accessing meeting minutes easier; as of April 12, 2024, meeting minutes from October 2024 through to January 2025 were available via the membership portal. As of August 24, 2025, however, electronic viewing of past Board minutes has been removed from the RDTC website and only minutes from two previous meetings (April 30, 2025 and May 5, 2025) are available. Printed copies of minutes should be available in the club office. If you are interested (and still a member), go and take a look at them. Note how often discussion is held In Camera.
It’s also worth pointing out that the Board has held an unbelievably large number of meetings. This Board met 18 times between October 8, 2024 and April 6, 2025; this amounts to 3-4 meetings per month. Most of these meetings were 3-4 hours long. Meetings have continued with considerable frequency. Do you feel that the minutes give you a good representation of the nature, deliberations, and outcomes of such extensive discussion?
Disregard for the Rules
Did you know that the majority of Directors, when first elected, refused to sign the Declaration (including the Code of Conduct) that lists their ethical obligations as Board Directors? This document is part of an RDTC Board policy and is required to be signed by each Director when they join the Board.
Read this Declaration here. Do you feel comfortable with the club being run by people who refuse to commit to these expectations?
As a legal entity, the RDTC Board is meant to uphold various “rules” that the club has committed itself to, by which we mean provincial legislation, RDTC Bylaws and Governance policies, and RDTC’s own contracts. We are concerned that there have been numerous occasions when the current Board, or individual Board Directors, have instead ignored, violated and dismissed these rules that are supposed to govern their actions.
Some clear examples of breaches of these rules that we believe this Board as a whole, or individual Board Directors, have committed include:
- Failing to secure a safe environment at the club, following multiple threats against a contractor (Rene Simon, from STS), in contravention of provincial Occupational Health and Safety legislation
- Failing to adequately investigate complaints about Board Directors (due to lack of transparency, lack of impartiality, and/or lack of expediency)
- Consolidating power in the hands of a handful of Board Directors (the ‘Executive’) rather than respecting the equal authority - and accountability - of all Board Directors
- Targeting Board Directors who don’t agree with the majority to try to silence them (through intimidation) or to push them off the Board (see our Harassment page)
- Making decisions outside of Board meetings and without full Board discussion or authority
- Sharing sensitive information to a non-member without Board approval
- Sharing club financial documents to a non-member without Board approval
- Failing to ensure respectful conversations during Board meetings
- Failing to intervene or to reprimand the behaviour of Directors, both in and out of Board meetings, that are disrespectful, profane, vicious, or demeaning toward other Directors, members and players, or which does not comply with the Declaration
From our perspective, there has also been a lack of accountability for these violations.
Since the termination of the STS contract, we believe that the Board has continued efforts to consolidate their authority at the RDTC and to undermine the rights of members with a new Code of Conduct and proposed amended Bylaws. They have also failed to address violations of this Code of Conduct by family members of Board Directors.
The Board Directors seem unwilling to see that they are violating the Board’s own legal agreements, and that they could be damaging the club as a whole by operating in this manner. We are concerned about the potentially significant risks to RDTC that this Board is exposing the club to by doing so.
Do you feel comfortable with the club being in the hands of people who don't seem to feel that they need to follow their own rules nor hold themselves accountable to those rules?
Hidden Agenda to Terminate Contract with STS
While the termination of STS’s contract on April 1, 2025 was abrupt and shocking, some of us were not surprised. Why? Because we believe it was the plan of many of the current Board Directors all along.
Many members of the current Board attended a meeting at one current Board member’s house prior to the AGM in September, 2024. We believe that the goal of this meeting was to plan how to achieve a majority on the Board for the 2024-2025 year, with the primary goal of terminating RDTC’s contract with STS.
We also believe that many of this Board’s efforts have been directed toward engineering a default on the contract so that RDTC would not be held accountable for this termination. In other words, we believe that the Board’s most recent statement that the termination was due to “material breaches” by STS is, at worst, a lie and at best, a reflection of determined efforts to try to manufacture the appearance of STS breaches to achieve this end.
Rene Simon, head coach of STS, had been off on leave since September due to having received the fourth in a series of anonymous, threatening and racist notes, the most recent being the same weekend as the September 14, 2024 AGM. If the Board were interested in keeping Rene, and STS, at the club, why was there such a lack of response to these threats against him? (See details on our Harassment page)?
Instead of reaching out to Rene, offering support and sympathy, and putting some measures in place to increase safety and security at the club (as requested by club member, Kristin Fast who also offered to help with those measures; read that letter here), the current Board has:
- Treated these requests for increased safety measures as threats against the Board
- Reduced security instead of increasing it, by removing the extra security cameras installed by Director Lawson (some of which they finally re-instated at the behest of a lawyer)
- Repeatedly requested that Rene put himself in a situation where he felt unsafe
- Insisted that Rene communicate with a Board Director who was openly antagonistic toward him rather than respecting Rene’s requests for safe communication channels
- Tried to isolate Rene by telling him that he could not discuss his interactions with the Board with anyone
- Sent Rene increasingly aggressive letters demanding various reporting measures for STS - such as the setting of monthly improvement goals - outside the terms of STS’s contract with the RDTC
>Why would seeking monthly improvement goals from STS be a higher priority than creating a safer environment for Rene to return to his coaching position?
Do these seem like the actions of Board Directors trying to continue positive relationships with a coach who has provided excellent coaching services in our club for the past 16 years? Do they seem like the actions of a Board that is acting in good faith and wanting to maintain a contract with STS?
The second explanation circulated to the club from the Board on April 8, 2025 is that the Board terminated STS’s contract due to “material breaches” of the contract by STS.
We do not believe this to be true. In fact, we are so convinced that this is not true that we published this website (for which we are now being sued by the RDTC Board). If you are convinced as well, please support our efforts here.
Donate to our legal defence fund
In Summary
In our opinion, when a Board acts with secrecy - breaking a long history of transparency and inclusiveness - and fails to adhere to its own governance policies, we become greatly concerned about the decisions they are making. How can we trust the intentions and decision-making processes of this Board when they are operating outside their governance framework and have closed all meetings to observation?
With the STS contract being cancelled in a cloud of secrecy, this Board’s frequent failure to follow the rules that govern them, and the hidden intentions that we suspect many Board Directors had going into the last AGM, we openly question the validity, and legality, of the decision to terminate the STS contract.