Wired In Unplugged

how to get this to end well

2011-05-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

The very wise AnonAlky sensibly asks me "where next" and it's a question that is worthy of a considered answer.

I can probably approach this in one of several ways. Where we've got to now, where we need to get to next, and ways of getting there.

This all started because of a sensible, simple question "Is Wired In" a charity - and the issue has snowballed in to areas and issues that I didn't expect. And the more I scratch the less I like, and the harder it gets to walk away.

To recap:

Wired In to Recovery is not a charity. It is built around the private company Wired In Ltd which is is turn owned exclusively by David Clark.

The community editor has at various points misrepresented the Wired In to Recovery site as a Charity and a CIC; neither of these are true.

Wired In to Recovery receives money via the charity Wired International Ltd which in turn funds the work of the private business.

Previously Wired in to Recovery funded the Daily Dose news service which, allegedly, costs £100,000 a year to produce a daily bulletin.

All the content on the Wired In website becomes the property of Mr Clark and allows him to exploit in in perpetuity royalty free.

People who have dared to ask questions about the structure or funding of the site have been barred from the site and have had all previous posts deleted. Some have been the subject of tirades by Mr Clark on the site.

Where to get to next:

If the Wired In site is to survive and thrive then substantive changes need to be made to ensure transparency and honesty. There are a lot of site members who don't know or don't care (or don't believe) that there are any issues that should concern them. But there are and changes need to be made.

1) The "Wired In" website should be signed over to the Charity Wired International Ltd. This would ensure that ownership of the site and the materials thereon would only then derive benefit to the charity, not to a private business.

It would also mean that the money collected by the Charity to pay for the community would not need to be routed through Mr Clark's private business.

2) More trustees should be recruited from within the Wired in community. This could include members of the Wired in Advisory board, moderators and others with an interest. This would reassure the wider world that the business dealings of the Charity were being properly scrutinised.

3) The board moderation of Wired in should be changed so that a greater number of people can moderate posts. Post moderators should not have a business interest in the community; people who are directors of the Charity, the CIC or the Business should not be in a position to moderate posts - especially those that are critical of the business and its functioning.

4) A proper system of appeals and complaints should be instigated - culminating in appeal to the board of Trustees - in relation to barring and deletion of posts.

These recommendations are only related to putting the Wired In community on to a more ethical and proper footing to make it more stable for the future. The wider questions about the nature and structures that contribute to the recovery movement - those are not the purpose of this Blog. They are important issues and should be discussed. It may or may not be the case that the Wired In community does become a leading player in a UK or international recovery developments. Whether it does or not, it should be an ethical, lawful and honest body which lives by the code of integrity and transparency which lies at the heart of recovery.

How to get there:
My hope and belief is that even those who believe that Clark and others have done nothing wrong will see that the recommendations above are sensible and make Wired In an accountable and transparent organisation.
It is the right thing to do and has nothing but benefits to the community.

There is only reason for not doing so: because David Clark has the arrogance to believe that the recovery is best served by Wired In being a business under his jurisdiction without scrutiny or external control.

I am sure that most people who use the Wired In community will see that this is not the way to do it, and they (and only they) are the people who can exert the pressure to bring about change.

we're in the money

2011-05-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

A while ago, in a discussion about NTA Funding on Wired In Michaela Jones delivered a corker which in part illustrated how much about the inner workings of Wired In Ltd/Wired International Ltd had slipped under her personal radar.

She said "Daily Dose is not Wired In and vice versa. They are linked in some ways, as are all of us in the ‘recovery’ network, but are seperate entities. I for example have nothing at all to do with Daily Dose."

This statement is not true and, to me is indicative of how out of her depth with these issues Michaela is. To suggest that the only relations between "Daily Dose" and "Wired In" is the loose interconnectivity of the recovery network is arrant nonsense of the first order.

"Daily Dose" website and the "Wired In" website are both owned by David Clark's private company, Wired in Ltd. They both received funding from Wired International Ltd. They may have been distinct websites but they were far from separate entities.

Because of this overlap, when looking at funding issues, it's not sensible to look at the Daily Dose and Wired in as seperate businesses. Money went in to Wired International Ltd to fund the running of the Daily Dose. Some of this money probably went to the setting up of the Wired In community. And as a key interest here is the sums involved, and where they ended up.

At the tail-end of march 2008, David Clark launched an intense fundraising campaign, saying that unless he received £100,000 the Daily Dose could not continue. It should be stressed that at this point the Daily Dose was already operational, was being compiled by the worthy Jim Young on a part time basis, and so the primary costs for the organisation would be staff time and website hosting. Somehow David Clark figured this to required £100,000 of funding - meaning that each issue of Daily Dose cost just under £275 to produce.

There was an assertion that the preceding year, he "only attracted approximately £23,000 sponsorship, which did not cover our costs." http://replay.web.archive.org/20080509194248/http://www.dailydose.net/archives/funding_2008.pdf

After a tense few days, with a clock ticking away to the closure of the DD, Clark was happy to announce that he secured the £100,000 he needed to fund the ludicrously expensive Daily Dose.

The origins and spending of this £100,000 have been bugging me, and clearly bugging others reading these blogs. So I am in the process of establishing as far as possible where it came from and where it went.

My first task has been to establish that Wired International received this sort of money from the end of March 2008.

Where would I be without the Way Back Machine? Whilst the Archives have been removed from the Daily Dose, they still exist on the Way Back. Here is an interesting old post from the (not a) Prof from the end of March 2008.

The Prof's statement in March 2008 about how much money they raised is unequivocal:

"On Monday, 17th March 2008, we announced we were in a crisis situation and could not continue running Daily Dose without a commitment of £100,000 funding for the coming year.

We are thrilled to announce that this target has been reached. The following organisations have agreed to become Lead Sponsors of Daily Dose:

* Addaction

* Ayurva

* Castle Craig Hospital

* Centre for Drug Misuse Research, University of Glasgow

* Concateno

* HIT

* Home Office

* National Treatment Agency

* Scottish Government

We would like to point out that the National Treatment Agency made a very significant financial contribution."

Now either this was a lie - Clark was talking up DD, or some of the money didn't come through - or Wired International received £100,000 for Daily Dose. We know that £50,000 came from the NTA, and so the rest would have been made up of small and medium donations from the rest.

(In truth, even this doesn't ring completely true. The Accounts for the period ending May 2007 shows donations of just under £70,000 so there was another £47,000 of income over and above this £23,000. But I digress.)

The Charities accounts for period ending May 2008 shows "Grants and Sponsorship" of £78,954 and donations of £88. As no new accounts have been filed since, we can't be certain how much has been spent since. As Daily Dose ceased to function in April 2010, the suggestion is that no money was forthcoming and all the £78,954 had been spent.

That would make the Daily Dose for that year one very expensive news portal!

In April 2008, the NTA wrote to David Clark, clearly concerned that the money may not have been spent just on the Daily Dose. Jon Hibbs of the NTA asked "I’d also appreciate any information you could provide on the costs of maintaining Daily Dose. Do you publish any accounts? I understand the NTA supplied £50,000 last year as a one-off and wonder if there is a breakdown of how this money was spent."

David Clark clearly took umbrage at these questions and, refusing any further funding from the NTA, shut down the Daily Dose.

We won't know how much of the £100,000 paid to Wired International was left at this stage until the next accounts are published. It could all have been spent on Daily Dose. Alternatively the funds could be sitting in the Wired International accounts which DC describes as being in "abeyance." They could have been used to support the costs of the Wired In website.

In the same time period, Wired In Ltd, Mr Clark's private company, appears to have received more than £60,000 which was used to clear the Director's loans.

Given this situation, and the use of public funds involved, the only acceptable resolution to this situation now seems to be independent scrutiny of both the Wired International Ltd and Wired In Ltd accounts to establish beyond doubt that there is no issue of probity here.

watch the money go round

2011-05-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

Following AnonAlky's posts the issue of how money was spent became more and more interesting.

How wast the money spent - the supposed £100,00 pulled together by March 2008 (including £50,000 from the NTA, plus sundry other donations).

I am especially interested in this in relation to David Clark's "own money" which we have heard on numerous occasions he has spent on Wired In: "I used my early retirement money to build an online recovery community" - he tells us on the site's "Our Story."

A quick scoot over to Companies House, and a look at Wired In Ltd's accounts is interesting. Wired In Ltd is the Private Company of which Mr Clark is the sole director, which in turns owns Wired In website.

The accounts demonstrate significant sums moving around on the balance sheets as "Director's Loans." For the financial year ending March 2008 Clark appears to have loaned the Company nearly £64,000 - indeed loaning his own money.

But the next year, if I am reading the accounts correctly, this loan had been repaid - the company goes from showing a £60,197 loss to a £4,875 profit - that loan has been repaid from somewhere in full.

It would be interesting to view payments made by the Charity Wired International Ltd to Wired In Ltd. At this stage I wouldn't be suprised to see some large payments made by the Charity to the Business, which in turn paid off the Director's loan.

If this is indeed the case (and i stress at this stage it is speculation) then some of the money from the NTA - intended for development - instead went to paying off the Director's loans.

The only way to establish this will be a detailed exploration of the accounts of both companies and to see what payments were made and to whom.

If it turns out to be the case money from the charity was used to pay off the Director's loans to the private company Wired in, then this will probably come as a suprise to Donors, especially the NTA.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Mr Clark getting his money back - it is his after all. But the impression one is given on the website is of a man giving large sums altruistically - rather than lending money and getting the lion's share of it back. The smell of burning martyr is suddenly less pungent....

And the smell of eucalyptus becomes stronger... If a person were applying for residency in Australia at the same time they would need to have enough savings/assets to meet the Visa requirements.

Curious that.

go compare!

2011-05-09T01:24:00.000-07:00

I was having a trawl through some old posts - it's a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and I found this interesting:

"The Wired In to Recovery Community is a CIC (went for this rather than a charity as it is more flexible in terms of our aims)." - Michaela Jones - 9/11/2010
http://wiredin.org.uk/blogs/entry/9353/wired-in-an-abundance-of-riches-but

...and then a mere fortnight later...

"just so you know we are a charity with all the governance that this involves." - Michaela Jones - 24/11/2010 http://wiredin.org.uk/blogs/entry/9491/proposal

"We set up a CIC, a community interest company, together but this has not been used." David Clark - 19/4/11 http://wiredin.org.uk/member/blog/13/entry/10823/an-important-statement/

Which of these is true? Neither - Wired In is exclusively owned by the Company Wired in Ltd.

Being Charitable?

2011-05-01T01:40:00.000-07:00

Wired In and David Clark

Following our last blog entry, and ongoing questions of David Clark about the Charitable status of Wired In, Mr Clark eventually responded with what he titled “An Important Statement” on the Wired In website.

Mr Clark clearly didn’t on this occasion feel that the Wired In Terms and Conditions applied to him as his Important Statement certainly didn’t conform to the requirements “not harass or cause distress or inconvenience to any person,” that the material “is not… defamatory of any person.” Nor did he feel the need to allow discussion, as the post was closed to comment.

It is unfortunate that the site moderator, who has of late deleted comments and users with abandon saw fit to allow Mr Clark’s post to be published in it’s entirety.

In this statement, Clark is still less than explicit about ownership of the Wired In site. It seems he prefers instead to attack his critics by bringing to the public arena a collection of issues and discussions that hitherto had been personal. And by doing so via the vehicle of the Wired In website he brings in to question not just his judgement and that of his Editor, but also the judgement of those who have remained silent on the subject – both the inner circle of Wired In but also those who contribute and post professing to believe in recovery.

Irrespective of whether or not people believe that there are questions to be answered about how Wired In is owned and run, and irrespective of whether or not people think that the critics of Mr Clark are in the right or not, Mr Clark’s “Important Statement” response is beyond the pale. It is of course his prerogative to say what he wants and attack whom he wants. And as he owns the Wired In website he is entitled to use this vehicle to make the attack.

Presumably by their silence, CRI, Phoenix Futures and other sponsors do not feel that the site owner is acting in an inappropriate way. They certainly haven’t made any comment on the board and have seen fit to continue to fund Mr Clark by way of sponsorship despite him using the blogs as a tool to attack others.

Likewise, the great and the good of the “Wired In Advisory Board” seem strangely silent on the subject. It is saddening to see the likes of Rowdy Yates, Mike Ashton and David Best not speaking out – either publicly or privately, insisting that Mr Clark take down his Blog and apologising for the needless personal attacks therein.

Likewise, there are others from whom one would expect higher standards: Eric Carlin is silent on this, as is Wynford Ellis Owen who again through their lack of criticism signify approval for the way Mr Clark is conducting things.

And while it may not be possible for people on the Wired In website to voice any concerns or criticism due to the ongoing editorial censorship, there are contributors on the site who have the capacity to raise concerns outside of the website – but have not seen fit to do so. So the silence of Binge Inking, for example is especially noticeable.

Up to this point, I am only referring to the reprehensible silence of these various parties in relation to Clark's attack on people who have had the timerity to ask "is Wired in a Charity." What is shocking is the unwarranted, personalised and vicious attack on critics via the Wired In website, and the fact that people who profess themselves to care about such issues remain silent and thus complicit.

The wider question - that of ownership – we will come to that.

Remaining questions about Wired In and its Structure.

Despite Mr Clark’s “Important Statement” there is still a lack of clarity about the business structures connected with Wired In.

There are three primary organisations:

Wired International Ltd (Charity No: 1077312; Company No: 3776111)

Wired in to Recovery CIC 07249147

Wired in Ltd Company No: 3958641

The Charity Wired International Ltd was set up in 1999 and Mr Clark was a member of the Management Committee (and therefore a Director and Trustee) until 2006.

According to a description in the 2007 Annual Report “The charity Wired International Ltd has been part of the overall WIRED initiative for the past eight years. WIRED has now been renamed Wired In.”

This is a little confusing, as, strictly “Wired In” doesn’t exist as a trading body, company, trademark, trading style or in any other sense. There is “Wired in Ltd,” the business, but otherwise it’s a concept rather than an entity. The Wired Initiative website acts as a referring link to the Wired In website.

The 2007 report is an interesting read, not least because it highlights the confusing relationship between the business and charity. The report is the “Trustees Report” and should describe the activities of the Charity. So when for example, the report says “In April this year, we changed the name of WIRED to Wired In and developed a new logo…” the “we” in question should refer to the Charity. The logo in question – the “Wired in to Recovery” logo which graces the top of the Wired In website – is then something that was “developed” by the Charity and is now being used by the private company Wired In Ltd.

At present the Annual Returns for the past two years are overdue. Presumably, because the Charity has income of less than £25,000 the accounts are not available to download.

The Charity Commission website list the current Trustees as Messrs Zorko, Ashley and Peter Williams. Back in March 2010, David Clark listed the trustees as being “Mike Ashley, Tony Beddow, Wynford Ellis Owen, Canon Peter Williams and Jeff Zorko." Sadly, this change hasn’t percolated through to the Charity Commission website as yet and only three Trustees are listed.

It is unfortunate if, indeed, Wynford is a Trustee of the Charity as he is also described as one of Wired In’s “core team members.” Now, given that Wired In (the website) is owned by Wired In Ltd (the private company) there is a significant potential conflict of interest especially if the Charity is effectively funding the business. This issue is discussed in more detail below.

Following the demise of “The Daily Dose” news service Mr Clark, in his “Important Statement” says “the charity was put in abeyance after Daily Dose closed down as the Trustees felt too little income was being generated for it to continue in the normal vein.” It’s not clear what date this decision was reached, but all subsequent contributions to Wired In were made to Wired in Ltd (Private Company) rather than Wired International Ltd (charity).

Later Mr Clark says “Some months ago, I asked the charity Trustees if the charity could be re-activated so that people could sponsor Wired In To Recovery via the charity. It was agreed that the charity would be reactivated and the latest sponsors’ funding has gone to the charity.” Again, it isn’t clear when this decision was reached.

In truth, there isn’t a process of “putting a charity in to abeyance” or “reactivating” it. The charity is in breach of its obligations to produce an annual return. So while a charity may cease to receive money, or cease activities it remains active at all times. It is still obliged to produce an annual return. A charity which fails to do so risks being removed from the register of charities.

The Editor of the Wired In website has been asked, on a number of occasions about charitable status. Her answers have been unequivocal:

In November 2010, in a discussion about funding, Michaela Jones said “just so you know we are a charity with all the governance that this involves.” http://wiredin.org.uk/blogs/entry/9491/proposal

However we spin this issue, this statement was not true. The site is not part of a charity, not run or managed by a charity. It is a private business of which David Clark is the sole director.

It is not clear if this was an honest slip by Michaela, or reflected the position as she understood it from David Clark. It is unlikely it was an intentional lie. But this ‘mistake’ has been allowed to stand and has never been corrected.

The CIC Wired in To Recovery was set up in 2010, and has two Directors, Michaela Jones and David Clark. Clark say of this Company “We set up a CIC, a community interest company, together but this has not been used.” Presumably then, when you click on the Donate button, the “Wired In to Recovery” to which donations go is Wired International Ltd (the charity) and not Wired in to Recovery CIC which “has not been used.”

The Company Wired In Ltd was established in March 2000. The Director is David Clark and the company secretary is listed as Mike Ashley, who is also a trustee of The charity Wired In International.

The website http://wiredin.org.uk is registered to Mr Clark, and according to the Whois entry for the site, the registrant is Mr Clark’s company Wired In Ltd. Not, it should be stressed, the Charity Wired International Ltd or the CIC Wired In to Recovery but the Private Limited Company of which Mr Clark is the sole director.

So the upshot of this is that the web-community Wired In to Recovery is not a charitable, grassroots initiative has been asserted but is a private company owned and run by an individual.

Why does this matter? One of the recent posters on Wired In, in a sock-puppet-esque posting says “in all honesty I don’t care if it’s a charity, a business or whatever.” This viewpoint will shared by many – and will share the posters view that critics are “overly pedantic about Wired In’s status.”

Unfortunately it does matter; it has legal and moral ramifications. The bottom line is that recovery demands integrity and there is an issue here and despite all the bluster of the “Important Statement” the issue of integrity has to be resolved.

There are two key reasons why it all matters.

The first is that it creates an unusual situation where any money coming in to the Charity Wired International Ltd is then effectively being used to run/fund Mr Clark’s private company. The Charity doesn’t own the website and is not the registrant for the website – it is a private business. But, according to Mr Clark’s recent “Important Statement,:”
Some months ago, I asked the charity Trustees if the charity could be re-activated so that people could sponsor Wired In To Recovery via the charity. It was agreed that the charity would be reactivated and the latest sponsors’ funding has gone to the charity.

Based on this, money received via sponsorship has been donated to a charity, and the charity then in turn uses it to fund the activities of the private company Wired In Ltd.

If the Charity Wired International Ltd were transacting a great deal of business, and a small proportion of their spend went to commercial services (such as website hosting) this would be within the normal course of things.

Similarly if a large Charity had a relationship with a commercial business – and the profits from that business were used to fund the charity – again that would not be unusual. Several large charities run businesses (e.g. shops) so that they can run a shop and donate profits to the charity, using the Business as a trading arm.

But on this occasion the flow seems to be the other direction – the Charity funds the activities of the business, not vice versa.

So at present the only business that Wired International seems to be involved is the Wired In website. So the primary current relationship for the Charity Wired International seems to be to pass funding on to the Private Company Wired In Ltd so the latter can run the Website.

Intellectual Copyright, Ownership and Exploitation: The other reason why the ownership of the website wiredin.org.uk is how this relates to the Terms and Conditions of the website http://wiredin.org.uk/terms-and-conditions/

By virtue of the ownership of the website via Wired In Ltd and some specific wording in the Terms and Conditions, the T+Cs grant Mr Clark significant rights over material written by others and posted on Wired In.
Most significant of these is “You grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide license to republish the contribution you submit to us in any format, including without limitation print and electronic format. The copyright to this material will remain with you, and you will be able to continue to use the material in any way including allowing others to use it.”

This is a very significant clause. It means that the Company Wired In Ltd has the right to use (or exploit) any of the contributions made to the website – quoting people’s blogs, using aspects of their life stories as case histories or collating their advice and comments. The form could end up in training courses, books, lecture presentations, academic papers, journal articles. No further consent would need to be sought from the contributors and no credit or acknowledgement would be owed to them either.

Should, at some point, the mining of contributions to the website result (for example) in a book or a training manual, or a website with content behind a paywall, then proceeds from this would be to Wired In Ltd – Mr Clark’s private company – not the Charity Wired International Ltd.

If one were very cynical, one could see this as a type of crowd sourcing where the collective minds of Wired In contributors can help develop a model of recovery and at the end of the process the end product is not owned by the contributors but by the website owner.

And even though the content may have been provided by third parties, they lose the right to use them once they post them on Wired In: “You may not copy, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use, content from wiredin.org.uk in any way except for your own personal or non-commercial use.”

So Wired In Ltd can republish the contributions of everyone on the site, but other people cannot – including people who have contributed. (Ironically this is contradicted later on when the Terms and Conditions state “The copyright to this material will remain with you, and you will be able to continue to use the material in any way including allowing others to use it.”)

These terms and conditions are akin to what Myspace was doing pre 2006 – encouraging contributors to publish on Myspace and then owning the rights to exploit the resources afterwards. Eventually Myspace realised that this was the wrong way to do business – and revised the terms and conditions so that the rights of ownership remained with contributors – not the site owners.

So what is the way forward?

In his Important Statement, David Clark expresses his intention that “we are going to put behind us what has happened and move onwards in a positive manner.”

For so many people, it is important that this can happen, but to ensure that it can and does, some outstanding issues need to be resolved.

Firstly, Clark really needs to remove his ad hominem and personalised attacks on those who seek to clarify the organisational structure and apologise to those who he has attacked on the website;

There needs to be an admission on the part of the Website editor that readers were misled as to the charitable nature of the website, and a clear statement of website ownership posted on the site.

While these two measures will help address the damage to date, further steps will be needed to normalise the situation in terms of accountability and charity structure:

To protect people who contribute to Wired In and those who fund the website, two things urgently need to happen. The first is that registration of the website should be moved to the Charity Wired International Ltd so that the website is wholly owned by the Charity. This will bring with it proper scrutiny of expenditure, donations and allow for transparency and accountability in terms of the recruitment and renumeration of staff. It would also leave a proper avenue for complaints, unlike the current situation.

Secondly the terms and conditions should be modified so that while the contributions to the website can be reproduced and used within the work of Wired International Ltd they cannot be exploited by private companies and the contributors have the right to veto use of the materials.

It is to be hoped that Mr Clark will have the humility to practice what he preaches, see where and how he has erred and take that important step to make amends.

Wired In: unanswered questions and censorship regarding charity status

2011-04-11T01:21:00.000-07:00

Update: Contrary to assertions made by David Clark on the Wired In site, this Blog has not been set up by anyone connected or associated with UKRF - or other people named by Mr Clark.

The Wired In website has become a significant player in the growing UK recovery movement. It was established by David Clark who also ran the Daily Dose news service and has continued since the demise of that service.

The Wired In community is primarily an on-line community. The website makes no reference to whether or not the Wired In community still has a relationship with Wired International Ltd. No reference is made anywhere on the site to the Charity, Wired International’s Charity Number or the identity of trustees. A reference is made to support which says “This website is supported in part by Wired In Ltd (Company No: 3958641). Registered address: Webs House, Woodborough Rd, Winscombe BS25 1AD, UK.” http://wiredin.org.uk/about-us/contact-details/

It is difficult to understand the Management structure of Wired International Ltd, and the relationship between the Wired International Charity and the Wired In community http://wiredin.org.uk/

The 2007 annual report explains the relationship thus: “The charity Wired International Ltd has been part of the overall WIRED initiative for the past eight years. WIRED has now been renamed Wired In and the new logo incorporates a strong commitment to helping people find their path to recovery from substance use problems."

The Charity “Wired International Ltd” lists the following directors: Canon Peter Williams, Mike Ashley and Jeff Zorko
The charity’s annual report for year ending May 2006 states that Mr David Clark stood down as a Director of Wired International in May 2006.After this, Mr Clark is described in the 2007 report as “Director of Wired in, who as acted as an unpaid consultant.”

This address is the same one provided for the Charity Wired International Ltd, and is the address provided for Wired International Trustee Mike Ashley. So it looks as though that there is some relationship between the Charity Wired International Ltd and the business Wired In Ltd, though the nature of this relationship is ambiguous.

Mr David Clark is the sole Director of Wired In Ltd, according to records from Companies House.
The Directorship of “Wired In” and Mr Clark
David Clark is described on the Wired In website as “Director of Wired In” http://wiredin.org.uk/about-us/our-team/

As has been established, he is the sole Director of Wired In Ltd. It is not clear from any of the available documentation as to if he remains involved with Wired International Ltd at all. If he is not, the situation has been left sufficiently ambiguous so that it appears that Wired In emerged out of the Daily Dose, and is a charitable vehicle supported by Wired International Ltd, under the supervision of Trustees, and monitored by the Charity Commission. In practice it may well now be the case that Wired In is now primarily operated as a private company run by Mr Clark. The dual use and labelling of the Wired In branding and the involvement of Mr Clark in both organisations is confusing and could create a conflict of interest.

Based on the above it is very difficult to ascertain if money received by Wired International (Charity) is then used to fund Wired In (community). Conversely it is not clear if money held by the business Wired In Ltd (business) is used to support the Charitable work of Wired International Ltd. There is a lack of transparency here.

Others have sought similar information from Wired In, and a recent blog on the subject entitled "Clearing Up Some Confusion in my Mind" looked for answers. The board editors moved this blog deep in to the website so it wasn't findable by general visitors, and despite the questions remaining unanswered the blog was then removed.

As a result of this blog removal, we have decided that the issues, which remain too important to ignore should receive a wider airing and so are reproducing the "clearing some confusion" below:

Clearing up some confusion in my mind

A blog from marcymarcymarc today raised a question that’s been nagging away in my mind for a while now so I thought I might as well go ahead and ask.

In a response to a question from Marcymarcymarc (Is this site profit-making or recovery based?) Michaela says “Wired In is a charity”.

Now, as far as I’m aware Wiredin is a Community Interest Company (CIC), a form of social enterprise and was registered as such on the 11th of May last year. A CIC is not a charity so I’m confused by Michaela’s response. Is the ‘Wired In to Recovery’ on the ‘List of Community Interest Companies’ another company?

For a long time I thought Wiredin was a charity and it was only recently that I learned it apparently became a CIC. It bothers me a little that (if it is indeed a CIC) it was described as a charity today.

What was Wiredin’s status prior to the 11th of May last year? It says in the ‘About’ section that “The ‘WIred In To Recovery’ Community is run by Wired In, a unique initiative developed ten years ago by Professor David Clark as a way of empowering people to tackle substance use problems”

As far as I’m aware ‘Wiredin’ was set up by David Clarke as a private company 10 years ago with “General Trading” aims. Was ‘Wired in to Recovery’ a private company prior to May last year or was it a charity? I’d be interested to know why there was a change of status, if indeed there was one, last May.

Sorry if this sounds a bit picky but I think it’s important, especially when seeking donations, that people know what exactly they are donating to. I think we should all be clear about the organisation’s we represent and make absolutely certain that people know exactly what we are.

Comments

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Maybe, just to make it simpler; Is Wired in part of Wired International Ltd the charity that David set up – Charity No 1077312 ? If so, it would probably be a good idea to display the charity No on the website to avoid confusion. I’m certainly confused.

By Alistair on 15/03/2011 at 6:57 PM - Report this comment

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I would like to respond to this blog by providing more information about Wired In and its constituent parts.

The online recovery community Wired In To Recovery you are referring to is run by the initiative Wired In, which I set up 12 years ago (as WIRED) to help empower people to tackle substance use problems.

Wired In has three financial parts, one which has NOT been operational.

1. Wired In (CIC) set up by Michaela and I as we thought might be needed (this has not traded)

2. The charity Wired International Ltd – with Trustees (one of whom is Wynford Ellis Owen) – which used to run Daily Dose. The Trustees suggested that this charity/company was placed in abeyance for a short period after Daily Dose was closed (as this was the only income at time), but recently made active again so it would become the main recipient of funding received for Wired In To Recovery.

3. Wired In Ltd is a standard company, but does not make a profit. To the contrary, it has received a large amount of my personal money over the past years in order to keep Wired In running. Wired In received some sponsorship whilst the charity was in abeyance but made no profit.

The community has been funded with around 30,000 pounds sponsorship since we started developing the site nearly three years ago. As you can imagine, this is a very small amount of funding relative to the scale of what we are doing. The community has been able to continue because of the considerable amount of time weekly that Michaela and I have devoted for free, as well as the personal money I have contributed (which I could ill afford to do).

I am disappointed that there should be questions as to whether this is a profit making enterprise when there has been so much personal commitment for no personal gain.

By David Clark on 16/03/2011 at 12:04 AM - Report this comment

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Firstly, I wasn’t asking questions as to whether Wiredin is a profit making enterprise. I was asking asking what company Wired in to recovery is part of. I’m sorry if this question is disappointing but, as I said, I think it’s important that people are clear as to a companies status particularly when donations are invited and people provide services for free. I myself supported Wiredin at a time when I believed it to be a charity but, from your reply David, it appears that the website sat at that time within Wired in Ltd, a private limited company. I would have liked to have known this at the time.

I haven’t necessarily got a problem with private enterprise. There are many private companies that provide useful services, jobs and valuable social functions. I would just expect them to clearly identify themselves as such.

I’ve still got a few questions that remain unanswered. When you say Wiredin is “run by the initiative Wired In” are you referring to Wired In Ltd your private company? From what you say this company received income generated by the website whilst Wired International Ltd (your charity) “was placed in abeyance”. You say the charity was “recently made active again”. When did this happen exactly and what exactly does this mean? I note that the ‘Annual Return/Annual Update’ (for the Charity Commission) for the charity is 350 days overdue. You say that the charity was made active “so it would become the main recipient of funding received for Wired In To Recovery”. What other “recipients” are there? I think this is a reasonable question to put to a site that asks for donations and seeks sponsorship. Transparency and all that.

Maybe the simple question is (I’ll ask it again): What company actually owns the Wiredin website? If it is owned by the charity (which seems unlikely given that the website continued/developed whilst the charity was in “abeyance”) why isn’t the charity number displayed on the website? The ‘Donate’ button invites people to give to ‘Wired in to Recovery’. This is actually the name of the Community Interest Company that you and Michaela set up last May (not ‘Wired In’ as you say above) and is therefore confusing. It also states in Wiredin section ‘Our Team’ that Michaela Jones is “Community Director of Wired In to Recovery” which is the name of the CIC. Again this is confusing. What exactly is the relationship between this website and Wired in to Recovery CIC?

I’ve recently discovered that the Wired In to Recovery CIC (which was incorporated only a few weeks after the UKRF was established as a CIC; a process Michaela was actively involved in as a Director) was set up to undertake the following activities:

“Provision of information, support and tools to practitioners, policy makers and other people working in the substance use and mental health fields. Create a virtual environment in which people can learn from each other and provide mutually beneficial (peer) support. Celebrate the achievements of people in recovery, or travelling along the road to recovery. Develop education and training programmes focused on recovery. Support the development and establishment of enhanced recovery capital within communities and the provision of infrastructure support to recovery networks, communities and organisations”. This last activity in particular seems rather familiar.

I appreciate that you and Michaela have put in a lot of time for free (as I gather many people have in the past who have supported your ventures) and that you have put a lot of your own money into your company. Many other people have also supported Wiredin in the past and continue to do so including my fellow UKRF Director Anne-Marie Ward. You are not alone in making a significant personal commitment. I’d suggest that in making such commitment there is always an element of personal gain. We are none of us saints.

You might think I’m being unnecessarily pedantic about all this stuff but actually I personally find this stuff important. It states in Wiredin’s ‘Terms and conditions’ that: “You grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide license to republish the contribution you submit to us in any format, including without limitation print and electronic format.” It matters to me whether I’m giving this ‘license’ to a charity, social enterprise or private company. It might not matter to others but it matters to me.

By Alistair on 16/03/2011 at 1:28 PM - Report this comment

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Some fair questions here from Alistair. Any chance of some straight answers?

By Ray Covery on 18/03/2011 at 6:23 PM - Report this comment

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You know I really hope we get some clarity on this as trust is more important than ever for the UK recovery movement. Well what do I mean by trust?

” Webster’s dictionary defines trust as the “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.”

Without trust there can be no sustainable recovery movement. Trust is a strategically critical issue in any type of relationship because a relationship without trust is not really a relationship at all. Over the long-term, this movement will be dependent upon a network of positive relationships.

As we have seen and experienced trust is invariably the critical component in enhancing any relationships. The moment a person is not trusted by an individual or team, their chances for success within that group are diminished dramatically.

Research has shown that trust is the basis for creating healthy work environments because it forms the foundation for effective communications, associate retention, motivation, and contributions of discretionary energy (from Susan Heathfield, Trust Rules! The most important secret. 2002a).

Our working relationships that have been built on trust are an important sustainable competitive advantage because trust is so valuable and so rare. The level of trust any leader is able to achieve with his or her associates is contingent upon the associate’s perceptions of the leader’s ability, honesty, and integrity.

There are several levels of trust in a professional relationship. For me the first level of trust is trust in competence and know how of our field, although even if someone doesn’t have this in great abundance I will work hard to up skill them and still go on to have trust.

Another level of trust is trust in ethical conduct and character. Our reputation is paramount and our honesty and integrity must be impeccable, I’m sorry but for me this is non negotiable, unless I am forced to work with someone in circumstances I can’t get out of it will be very unlikely that I will trust someone who has been less than honorable but again that’s not to say that trust can’t be rebuilt if the initial circumstances that led to the trust being broken are admitted and amended.

Another level of trust is trust in us being transparent and open in our business/professional relationships. A lack of transparency will make us much more vulnerable to damaging our business/relationships.

Another level of trust is trust in us being a “person of our word” and holding ourselves accountable in all actions within your business/ relationships.

So can we see a answer to the questions above please?

By Annemarie on 20/03/2011 at 7:34 PM - Report this comment

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Just wondering why my (fairly innocuous) comment has still not been published.

I’m also becoming increasingly disturbed about the lack of answers to these questions. I don’t think a reputation for evasiveness about this kind of basic governance information will do Wired In much good. Indeed, as Annemarie suggests, it will be corrosive to your reputation as a trustworthy operation.

By Ray Covery on 22/03/2011 at 12:38 PM - Report this comment

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I will try again for the third and last time. Please can we have an answer to Alistair’s questions?

If donations have been solicited on a false or misleading basis, that’s actually a pretty serious matter, so if there’s no response here in the next day or so I won’t be leaving the matter.

By Ray Covery on 23/03/2011 at 3:02 PM - Report this comment

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Source file – Google Cache of Wired In Website 11.4.11

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ujerh2Oa8j4J:wiredin.org.uk/member/blog/801/entry/10502/clearing-up-some-confusion-in-my-mind/+clearing+up+some+confusion+in+my+mind&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&source=www.google.co.uk