Wow... way to listen to your attendee's...

When you keep trying to shout down, "I disbelieve!" when people bring up issues in a concise, understandable manner... and then when five staff members resign, one after the other, and almost all state the problem and why they're resigning... and others start going (quite loudly) Whiskey Tango Foxtrot...

...switching the mailing list to 'moderated' status does not engender goodwill, IMHO. I've never seen that work.