Cycling UK Forum

The 'thank you's in the February issue were from two members and from Dan Joyce, editor, not from CTC Council nor from the executive.

A second open letter to CTC Councillors

The April 'Cycle' dropped on my doormat a few days ago. Just as in the February issue, there is no 'Thank you' from CTC to Chris Juden for an outstanding thirty years contribution to cycling. What is the matter with you people? Where are your manners? Where is your common decency? Why are you silent, every single one of you? What is hidden behind the false, rosy picture presented in 'Cycle'? Has CTC gone rotten at the core? What is really going on? Why are members being kept in the dark?

I should have said that the Cinelli parts were direct replacements - they were classic components when I built up the Roberts, in February 1985, the handelbar then costing £8 from J. D. Whisker.
You could take a look at http://www.classicrendezvous.com/Italy/Cinelli/Cinelli_parts.htm

Would a Cinelli Giro d'Italia handlebar and Cinelli 1A stem suit? (As fitted as replacements on my 1984 Roberts a couple of years ago.) Available from Wiggle.

TonyR wrote:

paulholmes wrote:Although I am very disappointed that the CTC feels that it does not need a Technical Officer, what annoys me most is the devious way in which it seems to have been done. Chris Juden has been sacked. It is as simple as that. And yet the latest Magazine does not mention that at all, giving the deliberate impression that he has left of his own accord. The impression also given is that the Management will be sorry to see him go....

When I have had the difficult and unenviable task of making someone redundant I have usually allowed them the dignity of being seen to be leaving and not fired. And yes, apart from the few that were dismissed for cause, I was sorry to see every one of them go and wished that it could have been different. So I don't see it as being devious or disingenuous but rather trying to make the best of a difficult situation for the individual.

Chris Juden was not sacked, his post was declared redundant, which is very different. It is clearly an indication of how the organisation is changing direction. The question of Chris's dignity does not arise; neither National Office nor Council has even stated that he has left, let alone that he was made redundant. (The letter in the February 'Cycle' came from two ordinary members who know Chris.) The continued silence is both astonishing and appalling.

MartinC wrote:

Mick F wrote:I would expect that Feb's Cycle was being produced back in early Jan or late Dec.
Maybe something will be said regarding CJ in the next edition.

Mick F, check the date of the OP. No excuse, it's appalling.

It was known before the OP. News of the redundancies leaked out in West Surrey CTC in mid-November, and councillors knew about it then. There was plenty of time to put something in the February 'Cycle'.

Open letter to CTC Councillors

The February 'Cycle' dropped on my doormat this morning. There is still no 'Thank you' from CTC to Chris Juden for over 30 years of loyal and outstandingly effective service.

Shame on you!

And this is Jon Crosby's facebook post dated 19th January

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I endorse Chris Jeggo’s account. I also observed National Council for the first 2 hours and was excluded from “financial” agenda items, and missed any substantive discussion (if any), so my concerns that CTC has lost its authoritative position and source of advice on technical and touring (or adventure) aspects of cycling have not been allayed.

We know that as supporters of a charity, CTC members cannot receive benefits of more than 25% of their membership fees (maybe that just covers the magazine costs), as this informative article by IWA explains http://goo.gl/4Wm6Nl. But as a CTC charity, I believe the technical and touring aspects are fundamental and should not be seen as member benefits, but should have been maintained and made entirely open for all cyclists to
(a) support initiatives to get more people cycling (e.g. big bike revival) and
(b) to retain the clout of CTC in campaigning for sensible design standards both for bikes and for infrastructure.

Instead, staff and costs have been increased on communications and marketing. My impression from the meeting was this was not so much to assist member groups in promoting their activities, but to profile all CTC members and push direct marketing (such as resurrecting “Five Miles to Fabulous”) to them, bypassing member groups (“we might not wish to burden member groups with this…”). Incidentally, my member group (South Herts CTC) has been running Five Miles to Fabulous for the last 5 years.

Chief executives run charities and it takes a strong board of trustees (CTC Council) to keep them on track. And, to be fair to them, trustees are bound by the rules of charities and are responsible for promoting the organisation's best interests and its aims, and are not responsible for promoting the interests of members. Charities that lose touch with their grass-roots supporters are ultimately doomed, so member groups need to be respected more and this can only be done top-down in a climate of openness and trust, not one of subterfuge and alienation.

Jon

Here is what I posted on facebook on Sunday 18th February. The final paragraph refers to a previous facebook post of mine - "Perhaps this is the 'crunch' question - who is the greater asset to CTC, Chris Juden or Paul Tuohy?"

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CTC National Council meeting, 17th January 2015, London

I've been out on my bike this afternoon; it does wonders for clearing the head, as we all know. I've had a hot shower and a mug of tea, so I'm in a really good mood. It's time to start writing.

I attended this meeting yesterday as an observer. Here is an excerpt from an email sent to me after the meeting by Richard Bates, the South East Region Councillor who has had most contact with West Surrey CTC: "Chris – thank you for coming to the meeting to-day and sorry you had to sit out the 'difficult' part". He refers to a confidential section of the meeting lasting some 20 minutes. This despite my pre-meeting email to Councillor Barry Flood saying: "I do wonder whether I might be asked to wait outside during the controversial parts of the meeting. If so, I will report that fact publicly. However, my career was spent in the defence business, roughly 50:50 in MOD and a major defence contractor, so I understand confidentiality very well, and if I am told anything in confidence I will respect that confidentiality absolutely."

Note that I am quoting excerpts only for brevity; I take care not to mislead.

So, the topic that took me to London for over half a day got barely a mention in my hearing, which was the gist of my comment after the end of the meeting when I was finally asked for feedback to Council. I did get to speak informally, because I arrived nearly an hour early, and accepted the invitation to join the Council for their light buffet lunch after the meeting.

Before the meeting I was cornered by David Cox and Barry Flood, more literally than figuratively because the coffee table and chairs were actually in a corner, but we were a few metres away from the path between the front door and the meeting room, so there were just a few shouted "Hello"s as other Councillors arrived. I got the impression they were sweet-talking me as if I represented a significant pressure group, so perhaps now is the moment to refute that. I am not a member of West Surrey CTC committee; they are formulating their own response to events. I discussed the meeting beforehand with a few friends, but I attended as an individual not as their or anyone else's representative. As members of this facebook group know, I set it up to disseminate information and facilitate discussion. Yes, I have posted to it, but I have accepted as a member anyone who applied, and have not tried to exert any influence on what others post.

Here is another excerpt from my pre-meeting email to Barry Flood: "What do I expect from the meeting? I expect to understand the current situation much better than I do now. I think a lot has been done to inform you Councillors in advance of the meeting, and now it is down to you. As to the outcome of the meeting, well, politics is the art of the possible. I've never been great at politics, and I'm on the outside, so I don't know what is possible, nor what is reasonable, because there are obvious constraints but I don't know what they are in detail. I think the CTC should still have a technical officer. Chris Juden has described the three main threads of his work, and how they are intertwined."

One thing I wanted to find out was, whose was the decision to make the Technical Officer redundant? Who agreed to it? Who was party to it? I did not get a concrete answer, but the woolly response during the informal chat basically confirmed what has already been stated elsewhere. The strategy was agreed between Council and Chief Exec and it was down to the latter to implement it with no need to seek Council approval for detailed decisions. I think nearly all the Councillors were unaware of what was happening until it was too late. I cannot be more precise, and if the foregoing is inaccurate, will any Councillors reading this please inform me and I will edit this post. I wish not to mislead. (That is probably why I am not great at politics.) It is a great pity that communications between National Office and Councillors have been so poor.

During the informal chat I was also told that the intention was to continue to provide a technical service, but to provide it in a different, more cost-effective way, with no in-house staff. Thus it was an executive matter rather than a policy one. When I pressed for more detail, concrete stuff, I got more woolly, seemingly spur-of-the-moment stuff, good intentions rather than a thought-through plan.

CTC top management has thrown away a USP, a Unique Selling Point. Chris Juden has the qualifications and the ability, and his 30 years experience in the post make him unique. The Ming vase has been dropped, and I am not impressed by the sellotape.

If agreement could have been reached with Chris Juden to work part-time, coupled with a decent early retirement package, things would have been so different. Chris is 60. Three years at 60%, 1.8 man-years, say, would have been a substantial saving compared with five years at 100%, 5 man-years. Everyone would have been happy; there would be no fuss, no stink. Why didn't this happen? I think it's because we have converted to a charity, and there is a strong push to be able to Gift Aid membership subscriptions. That's why Mr Tuohy has been making so much of the reduced number of technical helpline queries. That's a benefit for members rather than for cyclists in general. A membership benefit has been axed without reference to the members. The money is more important than the members. That is why so many members are so angry about it. Surely it doesn't have to be this way. Councillors, you can change this if you get your act together. It is the members who elect you.

Nothing yesterday altered my expectation of whether I shall renew my membership on 1st August, and right now that expectation is that I shall not. Yesterday the Council wasted a good opportunity to change it. Now I have to hope the AGM will. So, sharpen your pencils, boys and girls, you have till 1st February to hand in your homework, motions for the AGM.

The AGM is on 18 July, unusually late. (Scotland will be on holiday; it is almost the holidays in England - end of term in Surrey is 21 July.) That gives six months for this wretched business to rumble on, for the stink to spread.

If I cease to be a CTC member I shall continue to lead rides and informal tours, but outside the CTC. I am not the only West Surrey CTC authorised ride leader or ride group leader of this mind.

Finally, and "about time too" I hear you shouting, I am going now to give my personal answer to my 'crunch' question. Chris Juden was a greater asset to the CTC than Paul Tuohy is. Mr Tuohy has only been in post a few months, but, by golly, has he made his mark!

There were two observers present in the meeting, Jon Crosby and I. We have both posted stuff on facebook about it, and many people have posted comments there. Do you want my post repeated here?
All the controversial stuff was discussed in a 20-minute confidential section of the meeting, so only a Councillor can tell you about that. If they won't, they're either complicit or very effectively manipulated. I don't know which, nor do I know which is worse; they're both bad. It's a sorry mess.

TonyR wrote:

meic wrote:Somebody is agitated enough to have taken action. So for those of you that are not on the mailing list (or if your group doesnt forward it) this is what has been sent out.

Of course it should be noted that it comes from fellow ride leaders of CJ's DA so not exactly a spontaneous independent action. But with the CTC HQ being in their patch you might have thought they would have wandered round and had a word first.

http://westsurreyctc.co.uk/ride-groups/ride-leaders/

David Woods and Angela Byrne are not registered on the forum and have asked me to post the following:

TonyR is correct. David and Angela are with CJ's DA, but please note the following as David did follow correct protocol:

1) David had repeatedly tried to get a face to face meeting with Paul Tuohy
- phoning more than once but only getting as far as his PA who said Paul refused the meeting.
- and then also emailing Paul directly, more than once, and never getting a reply from Paul.

2) David and Angela did not hear the news of the redundancies at CTC from or via Chris Juden.
That reached them via other means entirely.

I can confirm that the news of the redundancies at CTC reached West Surrey CTC members not via Chris or Helen Juden.

Save our CTC!

Re meic's recent post, posting.php?mode=reply&f=45&t=92645#pr854272, here is a copy of a further email from Angela Byrne, quoting Paul Tuohy's response to her and David Wood's email.

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Hi Chris,

This is what Paul did in response to the missive we sent to the Group Secretaries.
- asked to NOT forward it to members
- said our statement was inaccurate - without any specifics at all.
- used the official contact emails for these secretaries, but did not allow them to see those email addresses
(some of the email addresses David could not find, and others bounced)

So he is trying to stop any member from communicating with other members, OR any secretaries from communicating with each other.

I will forward to the Councillors too

Angela

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Tuohy <paul.tuohy@CTC.ORG.UK>
To: Paul Tuohy <paul.tuohy@CTC.ORG.UK>
Sent: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 18:39
Subject: FW: Message from CTC Chief Executive

Dear CTC Group Secretaries,

Following David Woods round robin email we feel it necessary to clarify the position of the CTC as much of Mr Woods email to you is factually incorrect, therefore please do not send it on to members. Matt Mallinder shared the message below identifying the background to recent changes in his team to increase our support for Groups, we will be doing the same to the full membership in Cycle magazine. To reiterate;

With leisure and recreational cycling increasing significantly in the UK, the first change that we've made is to create a team dedicated to supporting CTC member groups, campaign groups and other cycling groups. Julie will be joined by Mark Slater and Ben Rowley.

In order to help us all reach out to these new cyclists the team, over the next few months will be talking with you and be putting together a programme to support and facilitate the diversity of CTC events, rides and member activities. We plan to provide you with additional marketing support and training and we'll also be looking at specific IT tools to help you maximize your own promotion and social media reach to these new cyclists.

Another change is the creation of a new Communications Manager and marketing support which allows us to publicize the wider achievements of CTC's groups, through all of our comms channels- Cycle, website and social media.

To be able to make these changes we've had to look at the limited resources that CTC has and how we can best support our 67,000 members. With every greater access to online information and with demand significantly decreasing, we've decided to cease a dedicated technical/info helpline.

Members will continue to enjoy Technical and Touring features, Q&As and reviews in Cycle magazine, on CTC website and by dipping into the breadth of CTC members' experience via the CTC forum.

We will also looking at how we can increase participation in CTC's various Touring competitions and 'reasons to cycle' such as the British Cycle Quest. The IT team are already making improvements with individual pages dedicated to your group on the CTC website so visitors can easily find out about you and a search box for group rides and events directly on the homepage.

It is unfortunate that a small minority of people feel unable to support these changes but with so few people actually using technical and touring telephone support we felt justified in redirecting our limited resources for greater member benefits outlined above. These are tough economic times and we need to make choices about how we use our resources to support all our members but clearly we can't keep everyone content.

Best wishes

Paul Tuohy

Paul Tuohy
Chief Executive
CTC, the national cycling charity

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So " ... much of Mr Woods email to you is factually incorrect ...". That is the sort of blanket denial sent out by a totalitarian government, but surely the CTC Chief Executive is not like that. Surely you can do better, Mr Paul Tuohy. Please correct the inaccuracies for us.

And, as we know from Mark Waters' post, if we didn't know already, the technical and touring services were far more than manning a helpline. CTC top management say the web pages supply the information people need in this wonderful information age. Not if there is no-one to keep those pages up to date.

Thirdly, how many member groups have asked for these wonderful new appointments to support them? I would really like to know.

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Cross-posted from the facebook group page, since not all of you are on facebook.

TonyR wrote:

Chris Jeggo wrote:

AndyK wrote:What does shock me is that the CTC exec thinks it can work effectively to safeguard the rights of cyclists without a full-time technical officer on its staff. That's so wrong-headed that I hardly know where to start.

Hear, hear!

TonyR wrote:What aspects of safeguarding the rights of cyclists can't be handled by Roger Geffen and colleagues?

What are Roger Geffen's engineering qualifications and experience?

I thought we were talking about safeguarding cyclists' rights, not fixing their bikes so how are engineering or other technical qualifications relevant?

I was talking about safeguarding cyclists' rights. If you think Chris Juden's contributions were limited to fixing bikes then you must have swallowed CTC top management's weasel words.

I note that no-one has so far proffered Roger Geffen's engineering credentials. I am not disparaging Roger's work, far from it, but the overlap between his areas of expertise and Chris Juden's is not large enough for CTC to dispense with the latter, IMO. See

CJ wrote:

TonyR wrote:What aspects of safeguarding the rights of cyclists can't be handled by Roger Geffen and colleagues?

I'll give you a recent example of something pretty important that Roger was very happy to leave to me.

......

The next time something like that needs to be done, CTC will not have anyone qualified to do it. And even if they come back to me, since I shall by then have been out of daily contact with cyclists' technical problems and queries, through emails, phone calls and this forum (where I shall surely spend less time in future), I would not be so well informed regarding your diverse needs and views.

AndyK wrote:What does shock me is that the CTC exec thinks it can work effectively to safeguard the rights of cyclists without a full-time technical officer on its staff. That's so wrong-headed that I hardly know where to start.

Hear, hear!

TonyR wrote:What aspects of safeguarding the rights of cyclists can't be handled by Roger Geffen and colleagues?

What are Roger Geffen's engineering qualifications and experience?

Perhaps now is the moment to repeat half a sentence of an earlier much longer post of mine: I have cancelled my CTC membership renewal direct debit.

Thanks, Chris, for putting us in the picture.