In my old congegration, the Chief Elderrette was very, very disliked. Ruled with an iron fist and a steely eye, as someone else commented before. Her own daughters, however, grew up to rebel and were the demise of their father, which is kind of sad since he was a pretty nice and level-headed Elder. He wasn't vindictive, he listened, he never judged anyone (and trust, there were many chances for him to do so without reciveing reprieve), but he was a weak man against his wife. The Chief Elderrette did not believe in 'gossip' as she liked to say, and mostly stuck to telling you in your face if you did not act appropiately or what have you. She once cornered me after a meeting and told me "Honey, you need to wear more make up, maybe dress up a little more? You look a little sick without it." I was depressed, anorexic, last thing on my mind was how I looked, but the District Overseer was visiting that week so I guess I wasn't making our congregation look good, huh. In the end, the Chief Elderrette was mostly avoided and behind her 'strong woman' persona, while my mother was a 'wanna-be elderette' I got to see the sadness, the alienation she suffered daily.
I had heard about the problem about the blabber mouths. I remember two ocassions were they were actually in the 'needs' talk, so I guess that's surprising since Elders and MS are usually not publicly reprimended. In that way, I guess we were lucky in our congregation. It was their kids and the wanna-be kids that did the bullying.