This special double issue is almost certainly the last edition of PN that will be produced by the current staff team. It may also be the last edition of PN produced as a regularly-published paper magazine – that will depend on what Peace News Trustees decides to do with Peace News. Many other radical publications have gone online-only.
If you have a subscription, you will no doubt hear from Peace News Trustees about its plans soon, and they will also present you with their version of reality.
Staff appeal
The PN staff expect to be fired immediately, without notice and without any form of redundancy, as a result of publishing this issue.
We have given up the possibility of receiving these payments in order to be able to tell you, our readers, the truth as we see it about what has happened to PN.
We think that redundancy pay would have amounted to over £17,000 between the four of us, if we had gone quietly.
We had been guaranteed employment until July 2025 as part of a transition period. We have also lost that income, over £20,000.
If you would like to contribute to a gratitude fund for the staff, which will be used to fund their next steps and possibly their new projects, please visit the website below, which used to belong to the peace group Justice Not Vengeance, but which is now being used solely to support the resigning staff and whatever new projects they come up with.
We will also be posting on this site the Options for a New PN that we have been developing as part of a strategy review, and would have been shortlisting soon.
All donations will be gratefully received.
'What just happened?' meeting
We expect that readers and supporters will have questions and thoughts about the end of this particular version of PN.
We will be holding two open forums on Zoom at 7.30pm on Thursday 5 September and Tuesday 17 September. If you don’t have access to Zoom and want to attend the meeting by phone (audio-only), please call 07980 748 555. There may be more meetings in the future.
Here are the online registration forms for the two meetings:
tinyurl.com/PN-resignations
tinyurl.com/PN-resignations2
What PNT think of the staff
On 19 August, outgoing PN editor Milan Rai sent a formal request to Peace News Trustees for the ‘register of members’ of PNT, the company. (‘Members’ are almost like shareholders; they don’t own PNT but they do choose its directors.)
He explained that he wanted the register in order to ask the members/shareholders to call a general meeting to dismiss the current directors of PNT and to replace them. He also reminded them that they had a legal duty to supply the register.
That evening, PNT director Andrew Rigby commented to other PNT directors, accidentally sending a copy to Milan Rai:
Subject: Re: Request for the PNT Register of Members from Milan Rai – Andrew / Date: 19.08.2024 18:16
Evil and devious. On what basis can someone with no relationship to PNT make such a demand. Legal advice required asap. I will help cover costs if required.
What a bunch of evil fucks!!!
Andrew
The next day, Andrew Rigby sent an email to apologise for having ‘expressed views and used language Which might well have caused you unnecessary distress.’
This is not the first time that Andrew Rigby has exploded in anger and then had to apologise to a PN staffer.
[The decision to publish these emails was taken by the editor and production worker.]
Complaints and comments
If you would like to make a comment or complaint to the outgoing staff and board members, please write to us c/o 29 Gensing Road, St Leonards-on-Sea TN38 0HE or email:
support@j-n-v.org
If you would like to make a comment or complaint to Peace News Trustees, please write to them at 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX or email:
chairPNT@gmx.com