Nutcote’s board coup shakes up the world of May Gibbs

A boardroom coup has upset the quiet at Nutcote, a little museum maintaining the legacy of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

2018 will be the 100th anniversary of May Gibbs’ Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

Until the latest meeting of the board of Nutcote, the baddest thing in May Gibbs’s former home was the ghost of the Banksia men, the ­villains of her popular children’s books.

Nutcote was a sleepy little house museum on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, quietly maintaining the legacy of the much loved Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, until a boardroom coup led to the resignation of three directors.

Shauna Jarrett, a former vice- president of the NSW Law ­Society and an experienced not-for-profit company director was shocked when, out of the blue, North Sydney councillor Stephen Barbour moved a motion for her removal.

Later, she realised her removal was a breach of the Corporations Act, as it could be done only at a general meeting. She intends to refer the matter to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission.

Ms Jarrett had been chairwoman only since April and had been trying to modernise and professionalise the running of May Gibbs’s Sydney harbourside home.

Despite believing her removal was invalid, she resigned anyway, along with the treasurer and ­another director, because “they don’t want to be involved in an ­organisation that behaves like that’’.

After getting the job, Ms Jarrett set about introducing professional management practices.

“There were no employment policies in place, no delegations, There was no proper reporting back to the board about what was being done,’’ she said.

She insisted that the fact a ­director’s daughter was employed by the trust had to be declared.

Ms Jarrett wanted to improve the tea room. After consulting tour operators, she wanted to open every day, but the volunteers didn’t like that idea. She wanted to rent the house out to exclusive functions to raise money for research and a retelling of May Gibbs stories in time for the 100th anniversary in 2018 of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

She wanted to modernise the constitution, which she said was not compliant with the Charities Act.

Ms Jarrett, who is married to former NSW finance minister Greg Pearce, joins a long list of ­ex-board members, including former federal treasurer Joe Hockey, Stella Downer, sister of former foreign minister Alexander Downer, and Heather Ruddock, wife of former immigration minister Phillip Ruddock.

“It’s a storm in a teacup, but it’s ­emblematic. Good people want to get involved and give their time to a national treasure, and then it gets undermined,’’ Ms Jarrett said.

Mr Barbour, who has ­become chairman of Nutcote, said he could not comment ­because it would get into “all sorts of difficult areas ... it was felt necessary at the time by the ­majority of the board”.

“We just felt Shauna’s vision for Nutcote wasn’t exactly what the board of Nutcote wanted,” he said.