I was elected to my first governance role when I was eighteen.
It was as a member of the board of a teacher union, a branch of the NZEI.
I was elected to my most recent governance role – Deputy Chair of the Gender Equity and Inclusion Committee of the World Archery Federation – when I was eighty.
From 2019 until 2022 I was an elected member of the board of Archery New Zealand (Inc), from 2020 until 2022 as board chair.
I’m now 80, and I can’t recall a time when I haven’t been on a board or a committee or three.
Given all this experience you can imagine how many times I’ve been involved in resolving the complaints of members and non-members. It’s one of the primary roles of anyone involved in governance and it’s absolutely critical that it be undertaken with integrity and, to some extent, courage.
I call it ‘tidying the house’.
Complaints left unresolved are indicative of a messy house and trust is lost across the organisation. Without trust you have nothing.
Dr Stephen Covey put it a nutshell when he wrote, ‘Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships together.’
And governance is all about building, maintaining, and retaining healthy relationships. If you don’t have trust, you simply can’t do the job
It’s also about caring for your members – it’s why they pay their membership fees – and that’s why we have subgroups within our organisations that focus exclusively on inclusion, wellness, safeguarding, diversity, equity, and justice, along with structures, rules, policies and practices that enable us to manage these important aspects of our work.
And, for those who breach these policies, there should be consequences.
Disputes are damaging, expensive, and time consuming. They affect individuals, communities, and organisations. Preventing disputes, and resolving disputes earlier, and more effectively, benefits everyone.
Here’s a personal example of a failure to do so, and the unintended consequences.
I’m a member of Archery New Zealand (Inc) and, on 12 July 2024, I lodged a complaint.
My complaint relates to defamatory comments made on social media about my family and, by imputation and privately, about me.
As of 15 September 2025, it’s 429 days since I made my complaint.
My lodgement fee was accepted and banked, and I received an email that said the complaint was accepted and a promise from the writer that they to ‘get back to me’.
Since 12 July 2024, despite regularly asking – in writing – for updates and action, nothing has happened to progress my complaint.
The one anecdotal comment I have had obliquely relayed to me since, apparently from the then chair Katherine Watson, indicated that my complaint was ‘being managed’.
Since then, I have heard nothing.
As of today, as I have said, that’s 441 days of agonised waiting.
‘Agonised’?
Yes, my family is deeply engaged in the sport of archery – my son is a professional archer and coach, a national representative since 2018, and New Zealand’s most experienced and successful Olympic recurve archer, my wife works for World Archery as the World Archery Development Officer for Oceania, a role she has fulfilled successfully since late 2018, she is on the board of Archery New Zealand, and chairs the High Performance Committee. She is also a long-term member of the Auckland Archery Club Committee and is the tournament organiser. I am Deputy Chair of the World Archery Federation Gender Equity and Inclusion Committee and have been a member of that committee since 2021.
So ‘agonised’ is an accurate description for how I’ve felt for the last 541 days.
Often – every few days or so – I’d wake up in the early hours and try to work out why the hell anyone would make the accusations Robb made and why the board of Archery New Zealand would so stoicly refuse to address my concerns, concerns that it seems they themselves had when Robb made the post. Was it fear, simple incompetence, the fact that we’re queer and that I’m transgender (it often is), overwork, not wanting to rock the boat, or that, as humans, and members of the organisation, we simply don’t matter.
I’m reminded of the many relevant comments made by Martin Luther King Jnr who said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He talked about having the courage to stand up for ‘the things that matter, and that, “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“There comes a time when silence is betrayal”, not a betrayal of me, but of justice, of what’s right, and of the rules they signed up to observe and to stand up for.
What’s the point of having rules if you can just ignore them when you consider them to be inconvenient.
These are the things I lost hours and hours of sleep over.
My son is not a cheat.
My wife is not corrupt.
I am not manipulating everything from behind the scenes.
The honesty, integrity, and reputation of my family members have been sullied and accusations of cheating, corruption, manipulation, misuse of power, and dishonesty – yes, accusations of cheating, corruption, manipulation, misuse of power, and dishonesty – have been left hanging in the air for a year and a half and the gossip machine has had a field day.
Why?
Because the accuser is the President of the country’s second biggest club and was, albeit briefly, an ex-board member.
Due to this, he has some credibility.
At the time of my making my complaint the board was:
Katherine Watson (Chair – retired as chair mid-2025 but remains on the board), Frasier Cho (Acting Chair since mid-2025), Melissa Soh-Newstead (appointed 2023, Deputy Chair, recently resigned,), Lauren Barnes (appointed 2023, resigned 2025), Mykel Turner (left the board in 2024), Gordon Harris (elected 2024), Murray Prowse, and Cushla Matheson.
Yes, it’s all a bit ‘musical chairs’ but, if you think 2024/2025 was less than ideal, 2023/2024 was much, much worse.
And, yes, Cushla Matheson is my wife.
Cushla also has an unresolved complaint that’s even older, and even more serious, than mine. The actions that Cushla complained about happened to her on 15 March 2024. The process to resolve her complaint was begun but was never completed
I might, at some point, comment on Cushla’s complaint, but I must emphasise that we are not the same person, and that our complaints are quite different. My comments will relate to the fact that I was there when the actions Cushla complained of took place. I was a witness.
But let’s not go there just now.
I should state that, while my complaint is only indirectly related to Cushla’s, the same event is at the heart of both and it has to be acknowledged that my family has been, and continues to be, under concerted attack, since March 2024.
These attacks are not new for me, sadly they go with the territory for transgender people, but they are monumentally unfair to Cushla and Finn and should have been addressed according to the rules within the required time frame.
I believe it’s also fair to say that, on the occasions when the matter of my complaint has been raised, I have been seen as just a ‘bloody nuisance’ by the board.
‘Group think’ at work.
Now for some context:
As of 01 October 2025, it’s 541 days since Graeme Robb published his defamatory claims on the Archery New Zealand (Inc) Facebook page accusing my family members of cheating, corruption, manipulation, misuse of power, and dishonesty.
I didn’t see the post initially but was contacted by then board member Mykel Turner and chair Katherine Watson assuring me that the board did not agree with what had been written, that Katherine would deal with it direct with Mr Robb and would instruct the admin assistant to take the post down.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
It wasn’t.
I am, anecdotally, led to believe that, while Katherine apparently did contact Mr Robb, he doubled down on his comment saying, ‘everyone agreed with him and he stuck by what he’d written’, and that the administration assistant, despite being instructed to take the posts down, initially refused to do so because ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion’.
It’s archery though, and nothing is ever simple in the domestic archery world. It’s not unusual here in Aotearoa for the tail to wag the dog, in fact it often feels as though this is the norm.
Here’s my complaint as submitted to the board on 12 July 2024. I have redacted some names:
FORMAL COMPLAINT FROM LEXIE MATHESON ONZM
I wish to lodge a formal complaint against ***********, Archery New Zealand (Inc) member, ex Archery New Zealand (Inc) board member, and ********* of ********* Archery Club Inc.
I have attached a substantial amount of evidence to support this complaint.
Why am I going to such lengths to provide evidence?
Because without our reputations we are nothing – and ******* has attacked the reputation of those running our sport and two of its highest achievers. This cannot go unquestioned nor, if ******** is to be held truly accountable, can his actions be without sanction and publicly advertised consequence.
The fact that both are members of my family does matter because both devote their waking hours to the sport, and this is rare.
They are both outstanding.
The fee to lodge this formal complaint has been paid – I have shared the receipt with board chair Katherine Watson.
Receipt of both my complaint and the fee has been acknowledged.
UPDATE: The fee had been banked.
I have attached the appropriate forms and additional material as referred to in this document.
This document will be in two parts:
Part One will deal with the facts, the people, and the impact of Mr ****’s accusations
Part Two will show how the facts, as cited, interface with the rules, policies, and practices of Archery New Zealand (Inc) and recommendations re sanctions.
Part One: the facts, the people, and the impact of Mr Robb’s accusations
My complaint is as follows:
That on 12 April 2024, Mr ********** defamed (and libelled) the following:
- the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC)
- the Chair of Archery New Zealand (Inc) Katherine Watson
- the board of Archery New Zealand (Inc)
- the High-Performance Subcommittee of Archery New Zealand (Inc)
- the Archery New Zealand (Inc) Selection Panel
- an employee of World Archery (the World Archery Development Officer for Oceania), Archery New Zealand (Inc) board member and chair of the High-Performance Subcommittee of Archery New Zealand (Inc) *************************************************************************************
- an Archery New Zealand (Inc) World Cup representative archer, NZOC Long List athlete, and the NZOC Athlete Representative on the Archery New Zealand (Inc) board **************
- and has brought the sport of archery and the above listed members and official functionaries of the organisation into disrepute by:
- defaming the integrity, honesty, and reputation of those listed in ways that have damaged their reputations and their standing within the sport of archery both worldwide and domestically by posting the following on the Archery New Zealand (Inc) Facebook page which is accessible by anyone anywhere, a post that remained visible for five hours and was seen by over 900 people before the chair of the board of Archery New Zealand (Inc) instructed the Administration Officer to remove it, an action the Administration Officer initially resisted but eventually complied with.
This is what ******* wrote:
‘I think this is absurdly, wrong and places have been coldly calculated and manipulated towards one athlete to the detriment of better or higher achieving archers.
I have absolutely nothing against ************ and wish him the very best.
However, ArcheryNZ is supposed to be an association for all archers in New Zealand not just for a small minority, who know how to play a flawed system whilst being in positions of power and responsibility for the sport in New Zealand. Come on board, you know I am not the only one who thinks like this. Things have to change.”
Mr ****** was responding to a post loaded by Webmaster ********** acting on instruction from the post’s author Archery New Zealand (Inc) Administration Officer and then Chair of the Archery New Zealand (Inc) Selection Panel *************.
Her post reads as follows:
“Archery NZ wishes to bring its membership up to date concerning the male and female quota places for the 2024 Paris Olympics won by New Zealand at the WAO CQT earlier in March.
On confirmation of the results of the CQT, World Archery wrote to the New Zealand Olympic Committee asking them to accept or decline the places. NZOC consulted with Archery New Zealand (Inc) to determine which of our athletes on the NZOC long list have a pathway to meeting selection criteria. The criteria for selection include meeting the World Archery Minimum Qualifying Score and the NZOC requirement of achieving a top16 finish at international tournaments, e.g. World Cups.
Among the women, ************* and ********** met the qualifying score but lacked a pathway to secure a top-16 finish, having opted to not enter World Cups this year, leading to NZOC’s decision to decline the female quota place. Among the men, Finn Matheson has gained selection for World Cups 1,2 and 3 while ********** and *********are not attending any World Cups this year so are unable to achieve a top-16 finish. ******, ******, ****** and ****** have spent many hours and have made significant financial sacrifices on their journey. We wish them well as they now set their sights on LA28.
As Finn continues to have a pathway to meet the selection criteria, the NZOC has provisionally accepted the male quota place, to be reviewed after World Cup 1 in Shanghai. ********, we wish you all the best in Shanghai. It is a tough journey that you have chosen but we know you have plans in place to make it happen and to “Earn the Fern’.
NZOC notified World Archery of these decisions, resulting in the return of the female quota place. The Fiji Archery Association was offered the reallocated female quota based on the CQT event. They have accepted. We wish their nominated archer ******** ********* all the best in her quest for Olympic glory.
Board members were sufficiently concerned about ********’s post that they immediately contacted me (and perhaps others) about it (emails available on request) and my understanding is that the Chair contacted Mr to express the board’s negative opinion of his comments. I have not seen this, nor any other, correspondence between the board and Mr ****** and do not know if anything has evolved from these exchanges or not.
The scuttlebutt among club members in Auckland suggests that Mr ***** has doubled down on his comments and that no further action has been taken, but this is merely conjecture, anecdote provided by members not otherwise linked to the board or any other officials.
I listen but do not respond,
My job is to support my wife and our son who are baffled, hurt, and concerned about ****’s unsubstantiated attacks. While history would suggest that having faith in the Archery New Zealand (Inc) complaints process would probably be unwise, there is seemingly no alternative recourse to recover lost and damaged reputations.
IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS RELEVENT TO THIS COMPLAINT
Corruption = dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power
Collusion =secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy to deceive others
Cheating = gain an advantage over or deprive of something by using unfair or deceitful methods; to defraud, deceive, use deception, behave dishonestly
Manipulation = controlling someone or something to your own advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly
Using these definitions, Mr ****** has accused ***********, and all other parties of
“engaging in fraudulent conduct while in positions of power by manipulating the Archery New Zealand (Inc) selection process to deceitfully benefit ************, an ‘unqualified’ family member, and doing so by engaging in conspiracies with others that were designed to gain advantage by fraud, deceit, and dishonesty.”
That’s certainly the crux of Mr ******’s accusations.
The evidence is available on request.
dykiegirl 