Episode Description
Care. Loyalty. Obedience. Three words that sound a bit like an old-fashioned wedding vow — but it turns out they’re the foundation of every committee member’s legal duties. In this episode, Kate and Kate unpack what those duties actually mean in practice, what happens when they’re ignored, and why the reasonable person test is both the standard you’re held to and genuinely your best protection.
Show Notes
From the moment you’re elected to a committee, you carry legal responsibilities — whether anyone told you about them or not. Most people join a committee because they care about the organisation. Very few of them have ever had anyone sit them down and explain what they’ve actually signed up for. This episode does exactly that, in plain English, without the jargon.
In This Episode
- Why the duty of care is about being engaged and diligent — not about being an expert
- Groupthink: how good committees fail not through malice or laziness, but through nobody wanting to be difficult
- Why ‘I assumed someone else had checked it’ is not a defence
- The duty of loyalty — what it means to put the organisation first, always
- How to handle a conflict of interest properly (and why the appearance of a conflict matters just as much as an actual one)
- The duty of obedience — following the rules, and changing them properly when they don’t work
- The reasonable person test: the standard you’re held to, and why it’s more reassuring than it sounds
Free Download
📥 The Three Duties — Quick Reference Card Care, Loyalty and Obedience — the three legal duties every committee member carries. Print it out and share it with your committee.
This Week’s Challenge
Ask yourself honestly: has your committee genuinely met all three duties? Not to beat yourself up — just to have an honest look. Think about care: are members actually reading the papers and asking questions when something doesn’t look right? Think about loyalty: are decisions being publicly supported once they’re made? Think about obedience: are you following your constitution and your legal obligations, or quietly working around the bits that are inconvenient?
The committee that asks this question is already ahead of most.
About Your Hosts
Kate Hartwig has spent forty years working in and around not-for-profit and membership organisations — as a CEO, director, and independent consultant. katehartwig.com.au
Kate McPhee has three decades of hands-on experience helping small clubs and associations get more done with less stress. She is also the author of Just a Tick, a plain-English governance guide for committees and boards. liquoriceallsorts.com.au
This podcast provides general information on best practice governance for small to medium not-for-profit associations. It is not legal advice.
Timestamps
00:05 — Knowing what you’re getting into — or not
00:52 — Welcome and intro
01:38 — The three duties of committee members
02:02 — Duty of care
03:04 — The dreaded groupthink
03:31 — Duty of loyalty
03:47 — Conflicts of interest
04:44 — Speaking with one voice
05:13 — Duty of obedience
06:19 — The reasonable person test
07:48 — Recap
08:32 — Free download — three duties summary card
08:45 — This week’s challenge
09:03 — Wrap-up and next week’s episode
Next Episode
Next episode: elections. How to run a process that gets the right people into the committee room, why nominations from the floor at the AGM are a disaster waiting to happen, and what a well-run election looks like from start to finish.
Got a Question for the Kates?
We’d love to answer it on the show. Submit your question at thecommitteeroom.com.au/ask-us-anything.
Resources & Links
- The Committee Companion Essentials — practical governance for committees starting out: katehartwig.com.au/essentials
- Just a Tick — Kate McPhee’s plain-English governance guide: liquoriceallsorts.com.au/just-a-tick
- Fresh Allsorts — good governance for associations of all sorts: freshallsorts.com.au
- Kate Hartwig Consulting: katehartwig.com.au
- Liquorice Allsorts Consulting: liquoriceallsorts.com.au
- Kate Hartwig on LinkedIn
- Kate McPhee on LinkedIn
- Got a question for the podcast? Ask us here
You don’t need good luck if you’ve got good governance.
The Committee Room | thecommitteeroom.com.au