Cycling UK Forum

As a follow up to my original post, I gathered from some of the responses here that Adrian Lawson is the Local Groups guy at NO.

So I emailed my original query directly to Adrian yesterday, also mentioning that the auto-reply on the "groups" email address is a little out-of-date. I'll keep you informed when and if I get a response.

That's a great site.

I'll have to nick some of your ideas.

Karen Sutton wrote:I discovered today, whilst at the CTC Council meeting, that a lot of CTC staff were at a conference most of last week; which may be why the Adrian has not been responding. It seems a bit odd that the member of staff I spoke to did not know that. I'll try again on Monday. There is stuff I urgently need before our Group AGM on 5th November.

As stated up-thread, in this day and age, being away from the office on business is not a valid excuse for being incommunicado. After all they did manage to put a msg on Twitter that most of them were in Sheffield for their annual conference. That was 11 days ago.

Regulator wrote:Hi JT
I am the Member Groups Champion for Council. If you'd like to forward me your e-mail, with a covering note explaining what has happened so far, I will follow it up - I promise.

I know who you are, Greg, and I know that you will follow it up, however, the very fact that a Member Groups Champion exists, speaks volumes about the CTC's attitude to its Member Groups. It also doesn't reflect too well on the guy who gets paid to do that job.

I've got an LHT and it's a great frame. My "good" bike is a carbon affair with ultra-light wheels but I still love riding the Surly even though it's heavy. I have only toured twice with it, both times with large (and full) rear panniers and camping gear on the rack, and it handled superbly even when I was honking up hills out of the saddle.

On Monday morning I emailed National Office (events@ctc.org.uk*) with a question regarding my local group. It's now Thursday afternoon and I haven't had a response yet - not even a quick reply to say that they're looking into it. Maybe I've worked too long in a corporate environment but to me this is unacceptable. And this is the second email that has been ignored recently: the last one by the press officer of all people.

I didn't want to phone - it's the time for keeping your head down, not making very obvious personal calls - but it looks like I have no choice so could anyone tell me who I need to contact?

*Used this email address as directed by the auto-reply from groups@ctc.org.uk

George Riches wrote:There's a danger in generalising from the experience of one or two member groups to all.

The member group I'm active in, CTC-Coventry has an average attendance of 12 on Sunday rides and 7 on mid week rides. That, together with a programme of a dozen slide shows every year, about sums up our activities. I haven't got the number of CTC members in our catchment area to hand, but if you assume 1 CTC member for every 1000 inhabitants, we should have more than 300.

We are thinking of closing down the DA, as it consists of only 2 member groups and there is nothing it does which couldn't be done by one or other of its member groups (or even ad-hoc groups of members).

Perhaps the national office should investigate what proportion of CTC members have what sort of attendance at what sort of CTC activity.

BTW. I think the national webspace has significant potential for helping local groups to build themselves, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

If your figures are anywhere near correct that's a lot of riders you're missing.

Either they are unaware of your group or they don't want to go on all day rides at the weekend (I looked at your website). I've PM'd you about the latter but if they don't know about the group, then give your registration officer a kick up the buttock

Personally, I'd like to see National Office formally introducing new members to the local group they've been automatically assigned to, either by letter or email. Relying on the voluntary efforts of a registration officer is dangerous if you're serious about your membership.

Karen Sutton wrote:I recall a reasonably recent (within the last 5 years) CTC Member survey in which 24% of the members said that Member Groups were one of their reasons for joining.

That's why my wife and I joined. We've been sorely disappointed ever since.

I think it's only my first-hand experience of how good some groups can be (West Kent and South West London spring to mind) that has stopped me from abandoning the CTC.

1/ What would you like to see the CTC HO doing for the DAs/Sections/Member Groups that it doesn't currently do, such that they could be improved?

Firstly, the main CTC website could be a lot more useful than it is - It is very poorly organised and has too many documents that are in Word format. The main home page (and Newsnet) should promote the activities of Member Groups.

National Office should provide hosting and a themed content management system for Member Groups - this is neither difficult nor expensive. For example, it is frankly ridiculous that member groups are paying to register domain names when sub-domains or directories could be used. Take my group, for instance, rather than registering cpeterborough.org.uk, ctc.org.uk/peterborough could have been used or peterborough.ctc.org.uk. This would also stop the local group webmaster having to know about search engine optimisation to get their site high up in search results (or not). Fortunately, I do.

I would like to see council members and key staff using these forums to answer questions and be generally helpful. Not everyone is able to phone National Office during office hours - some of us work. And in my experience they seldom reply to emails - not even the Press Officer.

2/ What would you like to see the CTC HO doing to the DAs/Sections/Member Groups that it doesn't currently do, such that they could be improved?

Simplify and modernise the structure. Impose (and enforce) some minimum standards.

3/ What would you like to see it stop doing that you think might be hindering DAs/Sections/Member Groups ?

Stop some of these half-buttocked "campaigns" that amount to little more than a few press releases. Safety in numbers - a nice PDF, Stop Smidsy - well intentioned but again, where's the level of activity that will make this register in the conciousness of the driving public?

What is CTC doing to actually increase membership levels? The CTC will not be the representative organisation that the media or government turn to if they have no members. Look at the photographs of CTC events in Cycle, look at how old everyone is (generally). If we're not careful, British Cycling are going to nab everyone under 40 with the help of Sky while CTC trundles on with commitees, AGM's and treasurers, etc.

Finally, I'd like to see the Membership Service insourced as the current poor level of service is reducing the membership if anecdotal evidence is to be believed.

I'm pleased to announce that CTC Peterborough have launched their new website today.

http://www.ctcpeterborough.org.uk

If you are a local member or are interested in joining, please take a look at the site and perhaps even complete our survey.

It's early days but there are plans to expand the site and make it relevant for all Peterborough's cyclists. However, the first priority is to get a regular weekend ride organised for our existing members.

My girlfriend received the original email because she subscribes to the local e-cops service. Normally they send out bulletins about local crime rates, parking issues, warnings about bike thefts in the area, etc. - normal neighbourhood stuff.

We've sent a reply pointing out that helmets are not compulsory and also asking what has prompted the email in the first place. Yes, there is a problem in the city centre on the pedestrianised street mentioned, however, in my experience pavement cycling is not an issue in the area covered by the police responsible for this email.

Karen Sutton wrote:

Jimmy The Hand wrote:

byegad wrote:If we really need five officers then that's the final straw. However, is the 'big five' really necessary?

You don't need five officers, one person can hold more than one "office" the only stipulation is that the secretary can't, or shouldn't, be welfare officer.

I may be over simplyfing but doesn't the "new" member group equate to the "old" DA and the informal group equate to the section? If that's so then there isn't a great deal of actual change apart of course from name changes and of course the introduction of a welfare officer.

No, the old DA isn't now simply a Member Group and the old Section isn't now simply an informal group... for heavens sake that would be too easy. A member group can be either the old DA or the old Section, but they must have the specified 3 main officers, and two others which can be two of the main officers. A Member Group must also hold an AGM within a specified timeframe. A Member Group, in short, must comply with the new Policy and Rules for Groups.

An informal Group does not need to comply with the rules and policy, but cannot operate completely independently, it must be part of a 'parent' Member Group. For example, in Manchester DA, the Bolton Section was very small, so last November opted to be an informal activity of Manchester & District CTC (our new name). They are registered on the M & D CTC Volunteer list to be covered by the Organisers' Liability Insurance. This is one of the reasons that an Informal Activity cannot operate independently; they do not have an official structure and the 'parent' Member Group is expected to ensure that events/rides of the informal activity comply with CTC Rules and Guidelines.

An informal activity cannot hold funds in its own name, either; its account must be included and audited with those of the parent member group and then submitted to National Office.

As a relative newcomer to the CTC (member for 2 years, never heard of it before that), I have to say that I find it all very old fashioned and faintly ridiculous. And reading the above does my head in: a member group has to have an AGM? Why?

Apologies to the youngsters among you (Simon) but no wonder the membership is ageing. If you have a job, a family, some other interests (a life essentially), who the hell has time for all these policies, DAs, sections, "informal groups", councils, welfare officers, membership secretaries... it reminds of Martin in Ever Decreasing Circles.

It's all about going for a bike ride with some like minded people and it should be as easy as possible to set up a group. And it should be dead easy to find out how to set up a group.

I'm sorry, I'm ranting. It's only because I care and I believe that the CTC has the potential to be a lot more than it is currently.

Jac wrote:Went into my local (well not very local but worth the extra distance) bike shop yesterday to buy spare inner tubes for 3 different size wheels.
First, all the makes that he kept brought down from the shelf with pros and cons, an explaination of the sizes, then catalogues and an offer to order any others if I would prefer. Even a small set of scales were fetched to weigh which was the lightest.
An unhurried chat about other goodies in the cabinets.
A cup of tea as well - and %10 discount.
Exclusively Bikes just outside Peterborough - always excellent service

Sometimes Sam at Exclusively Bikes offers too much good service. I often pop in during my lunch hour as I work nearby and every time I do, I'm always late back to the office as we've been chatting too long.