Cycling UK Forum

According to BBC Countryfile magazine, March 2010 issue, the Ramblers' Association (a charity similar to CTC in history and perhaps image, but twice the size with 125,000 members) has struggled recently due to the recession. like many charities, the Ramblers has faced severe financial difficulties d...

Whichever way you look at the accounts, large sums of money are being given to the Trust by the Club to prop it up. The fact that the CTC has given the Trust exactly the right amount each year to balance the Trust's accounts to zero is odd (see the "Financial history" page for the CTC Tru...

Once again.... Simon, could you explain what these accounts are, and how you obtained them? Are they "official" accounts or quickly-drawn-up estimates that may contain errors? The "re-forecast" figures for the annual donation from Club to Trust in 2008/2009 are different in each...

The key arguments which persuaded us to support the proposal are: q One CTC charitable body would become a united organisation speaking for all cyclists Which assumes that "the CTC" is currently not speaking as a united organisation. Apparently, as a CTC Right-to-Ride representative, I've...

Can I ask here about the official CTC page that this topic is linked to? The page says: [quote]As the Trust has grown and its contracts and grants make an increasing contribution to overheads, the Club has been able to reduce the amount donated each year.[quote] And yet the table has these figures f...

Those account figures are very broken :( I see a Donation from the Club to the Trust for 2008/2009 of £872,628 which mysteriously changes to become an amount of £873,562 when it arrives at the Trust. How on earth were these numbers calculated? And both these numbers are very different to the £453,00...

This came in an email from the NW councillors (Welna Bowden and David Robinson) just now: In the accounts, monies transferred from the club to the trust are for member services provided by the trust. Where can I find a breakdown of this Trust expenditure, so I can see the money coming back to the c...

This pretty fundamental and you would imagine should be a question of fact rather than opinion. Quite. It's a little worrying that there's so much apparent disagreement over the actual numbers involved. Either one party is knowingly misinterpreting the numbers, or the accounts aren't clear enough t...

Reading the for and against arguments in the latest Cycle , one sentence in the Yes column by Prof David Cox caught my eye. "The CTC should not become an exclusive club when it can encourage a new generation of cyclists from all our diverse communities to enjoy our type of cycling and ensure t...

I take it you have looked at the "How does the Council test whether its ongoing plans and activities are in line with members’ expectations?" http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=5362#six Yes, I have, as I think this is very important. CTC as a charity (competing with Sustrans?...

It really is peculiar that a representative sample of members haven't been involved in drafting these proposals. As a member's club you have to ask, 'why?' How would these members be selected? Using the normal survey methods, probably at random as you suggest. If selected at random how would we get...

bikepacker wrote:Why do some people insist on giving links to HQ's ambiguous propaganda?

Because some people don't consider it to be propaganda. One could equally ask why people add links to the opposing propaganda...

I want to see links to all aspects of the discussion, so that I can make my own mind up!

You may disagree but I think this spreads some light on the situation: http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=5363#three It doesn't really, as it doesn't say what the Trust is spending its money on. Also the comment "As the Trust has grown and its contracts and grants make an increasi...

The public accounts at the Charity Commission site don't help very much. Expenditure in 2007/2008 is split into: ⋅  Cycling development - £878,508 (42%) ⋅  Cycle training - £509,030 (25%) ⋅  Cycling information & helplines - £136,536 (7%) ⋅  Campaigning - ...

glueman wrote:What are the drawbacks to becoming a members charity?

According to the Cass advice, the main disadvantages are:

• Implementation costs and management of transition
• Need to protect incomes linked to old structures such as legacies.

There may well be others!