The RSPB has responded to my cancellation. It’s a bit meh and they peddle the climate emergency bollocks. Natch.
Thank you for your email. We are sorry this has resulted in your cancellation, but we appreciate you letting us know this is the reason and sharing your feedback, this will be logged and passed onto the relevant teams for consideration when producing future communications.
The RSPB has a duty, in line with its core purpose, to challenge governments across the UK to tackle the issues affecting our natural world. Our Code of Conduct states that all RSPB employees must be politically neutral when representing the RSPB. Campaigning is just a small proportion of what we do and is just one tool, alongside world-leading science, conservation, and advocacy, that we use when we have to.
We are deeply frustrated by the government’s proposal to change policy without consultation, however, our tone of focusing on the decision makers was not in keeping with how we normally challenge damaging policies. We have procedures in place to cover how we use social media, and these procedures were not followed. Standards of public debate are important and as a respected charity we hold ourselves to high standards and believe that it’s important to apologise when we make mistakes.
We are an evidence and science-based organisation. Securing the legal protections nature needs and the frameworks to drive nature’s recovery, especially during the nature and climate emergency is a political issue but we will never be party political. As a charity, we are party politically neutral, and our staff, members and supporters cross all parties and political views.
We understand that the initial tweet has caused some frustration and we can confirm your renewal has been cancelled but the membership will run until the renewal date, unless you would like us to update this. Just so you are aware, we do label our post several weeks in advance, so it is possible we have already printed membership mailings to go to yourself and we do apologise for any inconvenience and upset this may cause.
Well, evidently that’s not a response crafted solely for you as an individual.
I’d read it as being a standardised response because they are getting sufficient people leaving, citing similar reasons, to make it worth the effort.
Which says (a) They’ve seriously hacked off a significant part of their membership, and;
(b) They don’t care.
Indeed. That there are enough of us to have this effect is satisfying, though.
Specifically it was Daniel Carey-Dawes who didn’t follow procedures, what about him? How has he been dealt with? Has he been disciplined or fired?
“We are an evidence and science-based organisation.”
The paragraph that follows this sentence strongly suggests that you are not.
The letter does address the political issue directly but, yes it looks as though it is a template that can be tweaked for specific purposes. What is jokingly referred to as a beetle letter.
Beetle- A mallet with a large wooden head?