Carol Altmann – The Terrier

What’s happening at Lyndoch Living?

It’s been a long time since I have written about Lyndoch Living – our other high-profile public institution which, in recent years, has become an increasingly closed shop – but with its AGM next week, the time is right to dive back in.

I do so under the tight collar of yet another legal action against The Terrier by Lyndoch Living – my third in 12 months.

This one has been running for some weeks now and I can’t tell you much more than that…for legal reasons.

I often wonder how much money has been spent by Lyndoch on hiring the classy Collins St law firm, K & L Gates, to go after The Terrier?

Perhaps this could be one of the questions at the AGM next Tuesday at 4pm?

Another, more pressing question I planned to ask concerned the $2 million budget blowout for the Swinton Wing upgrade and expansion which had its online, virtual opening in September.

The upgrade was reportedly budgeted at $11 million, but came in at $13 million.

Where did the extra $2 million go?

Another important question I was keen to raise related to the recent fire sale of the Waterfront Living swish apartments which, as long-term readers would know, failed to fully sell since being built in 2014.

This is largely because – according to real estate watchers – those on the south side of the “Rolfanna” apartment complex were in the shade and over-priced.

In 2014, the cheapest apartment in this block was $420,000. 

The last one is now under contract, having been listed at $305,000 – a $115,000 nose dive. Ouch.

A bunch of smaller, less salubrious residential units next to “Rolfanna” are for sale for as little as $185,000.

Did Lyndoch need to liquidate some fast cash to move on to the next part of its $100 million masterplan?

Good question!

Except I won’t be asking questions at the AGM, and neither can you.

That’s because the AGM will be online via Zoom and – unlike the virtual grand opening of Swinton Wing – is strictly invitation only and we haven’t been invited.

I have contacted several families of residents to see if they have been invited and no, they didn’t even know the date of the AGM, which once-upon-a-time was advertised widely and weeks in advance.

[I learned the date just last week, after a couple of emails to the Lyndoch media unit.]

Us mere mortals who have not been invited will have to wait for the video recording to be uploaded to the Lyndoch website, which sounds sort of reasonable….except we are still waiting for the video from the 2019 AGM to be uploaded to the Lyndoch website.

More importantly, we don’t get to ask any questions next Tuesday and – I suspect – that is the whole point.

Those who have been following this Lyndoch story from the beginning (last October), know that Lyndoch – despite being community owned and built on the generosity and support of locals – has changed to a Company Limited by Guarantee and is now a very tight shop.

At last count, it had just 16 members: nine board members, the Lyndoch executive and two life members, so every member is from within Lyndoch itself.

As long-term readers know, everyone from the wider community who has applied to be a member these past 12 months, has been rejected for what we might now call the “Peter Schneider clause“, no reason.

Even Vicki Jellie AM and retired lawyer Lynn Hudson didn’t make the cut.

In this climate of litigation, frustration and obfuscation, I feel we have only one choice and that is to appoint our own Member Of Lyndoch (External) to represent us.

So meet Abbey the Airedale Terrier, also known as a Waterside Terrier (which seems fitting), a breed known for being intelligent, outgoing, alert, confident, friendly and….courageous.

Abbey is just what we need in the kennel and she will be sniffing out some important issues in the lead-up to the Lyndoch AGM that still require answers.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Former Warrnambool Racing Club chief Peter Downs has quit the board of Lyndoch Living, having been reappointed for another three years just last October.

I don’t know exactly when Mr Downs* – who moved to Melbourne in September – resigned, but his board profile was on the Lyndoch website yesterday morning and gone by the end of the day.

This is awkward.

Lyndoch now has to fill his spot.

Mr Downs was one of nine board members, and Lyndoch must have at least nine board members under its constitution.

And here’s the catch: to become a board member, you must be first a general member.

Uh oh.

As we know, Lyndoch has only 15 14 members in total, all present and accounted for, including the board, the executive including the CEO, and two life members in Ron Patterson and David Atkinson who have already done their time.

There is nobody else, because, as we also know, nobody has been allowed to join.

No new members = no new board members.

Just yesterday there was a brilliant Letter to the Editor to the Warrnambool Standard by retired lawyer Lynn Hudson, a super-qualified person who applied to become a member of Lyndoch and was flatly rejected.

Her well-credentialled husband was also rejected. (You can read the letter here).

Lynn’s letter pulled back the veil on the farce that has seen a string of smart, caring, well-credentialled people who have applied for Lyndoch membership and been rejected with no explanation.

What an absolute joke. 

Except the joke, if it only were funny, is that the Lyndoch board now has to find a new board member.

It has four choices, only two of which will pass muster. 

One is to hand pick someone that passes the strict criteria for being a Lyndoch board member, which appears to be sit down, don’t ask tricky questions and be bedazzled by the plans to transform our aged care home into LyndochLand™.

Another is to advertise for a board member, which used to happen back in the days of equity, openness and gratitude for a community that loved Lyndoch.

A third is to do both of the above: advertise and then pick the person who has been worded up to apply.

Or…..

Or, the board just happens to have a membership application on its desk right now from one of the most qualified, most decent, most ethical, respected and upfront people in Warrnambool: Vicki Jellie, AM.

What a stroke of luck for Lyndoch Living!

Vicki, as we all know, was the driving force behind Peter’s Project, which saw a multi-million-dollar cancer treatment centre built in Warrnambool.

The AM after her name was awarded in the national Australia Day awards in 2017 as Australia’s Local Hero – a winner chosen out of the whole nation!

And yet here is Vicki, applying along with the rest of us, to see if she is good enough to be accepted as a member of Lyndoch Living where she used to work and where, first hand, she saw the changes that are now the subject of long-overdue scrutiny.

Mind you, I doubt Vicki would want to join the Lyndoch board as it stands. 

There are mounting questions about the direction of Lyndoch, and around staff morale, resignations and sick leave, which rolls on, believe me, except I am unable to speculate publicly as to why.

Mr Downs’ resignation has forced the hand of the board to reveal its true intentions and the next board meeting on 25 February will be very revealing.

We will know whether the board intends to once again be open and honest with the community that built and sustained Lyndoch for more than 60 years, or to remain a place of secrets and, I hope, growing unease.

One thing is certain, the game is up.

*I have left messages with Mr Downs late this afternoon for comment.
If you would like to apply to become a member of Lyndoch Living, here is the form.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

What the heck is happening at Lyndoch?

It’s behaving more and more like a private corporation than a community owned home for our elderly and infirm.

Its unadvertised, annual general meeting held earlier this week was, by all accounts, one big self-congratulatory, PR exercise rather than a critical analysis of the last 12 months.

While it’s terrific to celebrate the good stuff, we also want to know the nitty gritty behind the growing “brand”, because Lyndoch is now very much a brand.

So where are the financials?

How are the Lyndoch board and CEO Doreen Power spending our money, be it via residents’ fees, taxpayer dollars or donations?

Was there a surplus or a deficit like the $1.77 million loss of last year?

How many staff have come and gone?

How much is being spent on food for the residents? On medical and health items? How are the public donations going?

And – I ask, one more time with feeling – where is the $100 million coming from for the eight-year masterplan?

The annual report released this week answers none of these questions, in fact, it deliberately avoids them.

The financial statements have been reduced to three, very basic graphs and about 125 words of text – that’s it – for a multi-million-dollar, publicly funded, not-for-profit organisation that is fully accountable to the public.

Well, it used to be.

Things have changed dramatically since Lyndoch changed its corporate structure late last year.

Now, trying to get any detailed information is like prising open the jaws of Barry the Bull Terrier.

I am still trying to get a copy of Lyndoch’s constitution, which it is zealously guarding like a first-edition copy of Harry Potter.

Even old annual reports that were posted on the Lyndoch website were pulled down yesterday.

Maybe this is because I actually read them and crunched the numbers and found a rather large skeleton lurking in the closest: Lyndoch last year recorded its largest deficit in recent years at $1.77m.

Thankfully I took notes and kept copies of the annual reports that could be downloaded, and took screenshots of those that couldn’t.

Good grief, when did it get this hard to find out basic information about our much-loved aged care home?

What on earth is there to hide?

Perhaps it’s because, as I believe, Lyndoch recorded another deficit in 2019, which would be its fourth deficit in the past five years.

I am not an accountant by any stretch, but using the scant details released this week, and my earlier notes, I think Lyndoch Living recorded another operating deficit, this time of around $750,000 and that’s before any other unusual items – if there were any – are added.

Please, Lyndoch, correct me if I am wrong.

Using my same, very high-tech accounting methods, I believe its net assets also dropped by a whopping $11 million in the past year from $62.7 million down to $51.2 million.

Hmm, could that be because Lyndoch just borrowed $11 million from the bank to pay for the first stage of the masterplan?

Please, please, Lyndoch, correct me if I am wrong.

There is no question that Lyndoch needed to freshen up some spaces, try different things, move with the times, but surely when big decisions are made and millions are being spent, it must all be open to rigorous scrutiny?

As it sits, to get even close to the full story, we will have to wait until early next year for the full financial reports and all of the gritty details to be released via a government website that oversees charities.

In the meantime, this Terrier is just going to keep digging. More soon.

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