Cycling UK Forum

Edwards wrote:If this part of the Trust funding dries, up can the Trust get out of the contracts that have already been undertaken.

We wouldn't have any reason for exiting from contracts we are already delivering, as they are bringing in income. It's not that they'll suddenly become loss-making if wider government funding is reduced, the contract originator still has an obligation to deliver the funding they committed to.

Graham wrote:Has Council / Management done any contingency planning ( yet ) ?

Yes - the budgets out to 2012 that have been drawn up have all been done so on the basis that present contracts continue but no new contracts are taken on. We therefore know the shortfall we face if we don't secure more contracts, and decisions can be made to reduce costs accordingly if new contracts don't emerge to fill the gap.

Also, contract pipelines are drawn up and provided to Council members so that they have an idea of what contracts are available for bidding.

workhard wrote:Meic raises a good point. I suspect many members don't know their local CTC councillors from Adam himself and that makes it difficult to form a judgement on which councillor, if any, to give a proxy to. The use of pseudonym's in forums like this doesn't help much either, though complaining about that would be rank hypocrisy on my part.

I believe I've at least met and ridden as part of a group with and thus chatted briefly to Greg Price and Barry Jordan either on a FNRttC or last year's 'CTC Ride to Pride'. Both left +ve impressions on me anyway. Not sure if I've met John Meudell or Richard Bates though Richard is well known as a local cycling advocate and activist.

Either way I'll be emailing all the London and South East Councillors to ask their opinions/position on this.

I agree that many members probably don't know their local Councillor, but all the details are on the website - http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4409

I don't go by a pseudonym for the exact reason you highlight.

For the record I am supportive of the unification proposal. I think the crux of the matter has been overshadowed by what has become a heated debate along far wider lines. The proposal is an attempt to tidy up CTC's structure, and this will address some of the more valid issues which have been raised. It's consistent with the overall aims of the CTC, and it'll deliver tax benefits which members are entitled to.

bikepacker wrote:If as I understand here, there is an expectance that wording or proposals will be changed in order to deflect proxy votes. I can't help thinking how bad this reflects on the integity of the Director and Council. If they are prepared to sink that low, in my opinion they all should resign immediately.

Utter codswallop - if the motion to be voted on changes materially as a result of debate at the AGM, all proxy votes pertaining to that motion become invalid. It wouldn't be in the interest of anyone to pre-suppose the result of any particular motion and 'deflect' the proxy votes, as there is a strong potential to shoot oneself in the foot.

Simon L6 wrote:I'm sorry if that sounds a bit intemperate, but, what with this and the constant drip, drip, drip in Newsnet and those dreary (and thoroughly misleading) articles in Cycle I'm getting just a little hacked off.

Yes, it does sound a little intemperate. I have similar feelings about constant unsubstantiated comments like these;

Simon L6 wrote:They want gift-aid to reduce the losses on the contracting work.

If you can demonstrate to me, using published CTC financial statements, that this is happening, I'll eat my Rapha cap

thirdcrank wrote:I speak as somebody who was rather too closely connected with the demise of the mighty Equitable Life Assurance Society which had one of the word's biggest and most respected firms of accountants doing the audit and who were later found to have acted properly. In layman's terms, it seems that auditors need do little more than certify that the accounts add up based on the information provided to them. I don't know anything about CV DFK and I've no reason to suppose they are anything but a pukka firm. OTOH to imply that having a first-rate auditor means that nothing can possibly go wrong seems to misunderstand the roles of company auditors.

(And in the recent past, it seems that the auditors have been satisfied by what you now describe as an insufficient level of granularity, whatever that means. I'll jump to the conclusion it means that the accounts were a tad vague.)

You are correct in your assertion, and I'm not assuming a clean audit meaning nothing can go wrong; more moving to pre-empt Simon L's historic complaint that CV are somehow in cahoots with CTC management. I've seen the way they run through internal processes, and they're pretty robust in their challenges.

I would draw a substantial distinction between statutory and management accounts - the former being what are audited, and which are strictly governed. Other than the capability of those accounts to allow interested parties to understand the financial functioning of the CTC, I have no complaints. Project accounting would fall into the same bucket as management accounts, which can (and will) always have some room for improvement, and is performed on a best-endeavours basis.

Simon L6 wrote:

simonconnell wrote:

Simon L6 wrote:I'm open to correction on this, but my belief is that so far this year the Club has donated about £750,000 to the Trust.

The accounts suggest £453,000 - this has funded 19 staff who work across;

Campaigning

Volunteer, event and member group support

Touring and technical

Marketing, promotion and publicity

.

I'm sorry, but I think you're referring to last year's accounts - I'm referring to the accounts for this year. This could, of course, be cleared up if projects were clearly identified and accounted for. And. for what it's worth, the list you set out above is simply not credible.

No, this is extracted from the soon-to-be-published 2008/9 accounts, which for the record have been audited by an independent auditor. And before you complain about Chantrey Vellacott DFK LLP having been CTC's auditors since God was a boy, do you really think that a firm whose parent group had $951m in fee income in 2008 would really risk its reputation by giving CTC anything less than a full and thorough examination?

bikepacker wrote:The same problem exists now. As members, some of us would like to see the project Profit and Loss and all the Budget Forecasts for the joint venture. So far they have not been forthcoming and in my opinion never will. Reason they will show that it is not a good deal for the members.

But who cares for members? They are just a necessary evil.

Right;

1. I'm not for or against a unified structure at this point, I'm enjoying watching the debate unfold and have yet to decide either way. I say this in part because some have suggested I represent the National Office party line;

2. When I post, I'm trying to post facts to counter suppositions which I believe to be incorrect;

3. In this context, I'd absolutely love proper project accounting within the CTC. It needs to be understood that;

a) We can't have this for historic projects, no matter how much we want it, because the data simply wasn't recorded at a sufficient level of granularity to be able to build a correct project-level record

b) There is work underway to develop a project accounting methodology within CTC. Much of this work is around understanding how the Sage accounting package is presently configured, and how it can be configured. I'd dearly love a couple of CTC members who are Sage experts to step forward at this point and help out...

c) That notwithstanding, it is my utmost belief that "reason they will show that it is not a good deal for the members" is incorrect, and that no accounting mis-statement is being made for 'political' reasons

drossall wrote:

Karen Sutton wrote:As the National Office premises belong to the Trust I hope the "loan" for this purpose by the Club will be repaid. Is there a timescale for repayments of loans made by the Club to the Trust?

The Trust's accounts say that it was repayable on 30 September 2008 (note on page 15).

The facility is repayable on demand, and my understanding is that the Trust has sufficient resources to repay it immediately. I'll state for the record that I'd rather this was done so, if nothing else to remove it from the list of things that seem to be causing concern on this very forum....

Simon L6 wrote:I'm open to correction on this, but my belief is that so far this year the Club has donated about £750,000 to the Trust.

The accounts suggest £453,000 - this has funded 19 staff who work across;

Campaigning

Volunteer, event and member group support

Touring and technical

Marketing, promotion and publicity

Why did the Club loan the Trust £388,000 last year having made a donation of just under half a million?

The loan was made to fit out the newly-acquired (at the time it was made) National Office.

Simon L6 wrote:a majority of the Council have a fear, and it's not an entirely unjustified fear, that the CTC membership is getting on in years, and that when we hand in our toeclips the organisation will die

I love nothing more than having fears ascribed to me, especially when I don't hold them, and have never seen any evidence for their existence, much less discussed in any council meeting I've attended.

1/ I was recently told by someone who is in a position to know these things that "the CTC is as rich as Croesus".

By the standards of the 'third sector' (sorry, couldn't resist!), CTC is financially very well placed - we have substantial cash reserves, own our operating premises, and enjoy a steady income stream from memberships (and a slightly less steady income stream from contracts).

However, I see no reason why we wouldn't want to maximise our resources, so long as it places no greater burden on the organisation.

Do you know what? We don't know how many members these projects have attracted because we don't ask members why they're joining - just like we don't ask them why they've left.

We do conduct exit surveys - you know this as well as I do, because you'll have received the results from the past two surveys from Nick Fish as a result of your seat on Management Committee. I will agree with you that the tools to survey new joiners is disappointing - I've been asking for some time for a precise figure on new memberships taken out at the York Rally, which shouldn't be hard...

What we tend to get is "guesstimates" or very narrow sample surveys from which rather tenuous conclusions are drawn. I've suggested doing significant (but not necessarily costly) population surveys but those suggestions have been shouted down. Sometimes it almost seems as if some people don't want to find out what is going on as it might shatter their illusions...

Again, I think you're being disingenuous here; you have made a series of suggestions of varying practicality on surveying members, and to the best of my recollection it has been agreed that the annual Member Survey in the magazine (see http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4060) will be improved next time round.

The value of the house would have been indexed (in a roundabout Inland Revenue kind of way).

Indexation would have reduced or removed the capital gains tax payable, but not the requirement to pay Stamp Duty.

Independent accounting advice puts the number of figures as.....four.

A quick Google shows the cost of the new N.O. to be £1.54m - that may include non-property costs, but even assuming £1.25m that's a £50,000 Stamp Duty bill which a charity doesn't have to pay.

But please, if you get the written advice from the then financial adviser to the Council, could you publish it?

Certainly - I'll see if I can dig anything up in the new Year.

he stated reason was the avoidance of CGT. My professional advice is that the gain wasn't that great.

I'm not going to put a number on this because I don't have one to hand, but I have been told it was a six-figure sum. That's a lot of membership subscriptions that would otherwise have gone straight to settling the tax bill.

mark_w wrote:Sadly it also seems as though certain senior people within the CTC have alterior motives within this, which is sad. (edited - see my reply further below for wider reasons for the short comment)

Could you please elaborate on the "ulterior motives" you are assigning to "certain senior people"?