John Catt wrote: ... I would suggest that the real issue is does the Council properly represent the membership? This of course has nothing to do with whether or not the CTC is a charity.
Hole in one, but perhaps not in the way you intended.
It seems pretty clear that the CTC is not made up of 60,000 cyclists with a burning ambition to be a CTC councillor - many are elected unopposed and of those, some have been pressed. So the way the Council is elected is perhaps symbolic of the attitude of the membership, which is what counts.
There has been criticism of the way that this is being driven through - and I'd not count myself among the enthusiasts - but I think it is only fair to those doing the driving to look at this from with might be called a democratic analysis. David Robinson, who signs as Chairman, so I'll use that, is a very experienced local party politician and highlights that as one of his qualities for the role - it's on his electoral address on the CTC www. The whole point of representative democracy is that most of us pick others to make decisions for us, although different constitutions delegate different levels of authority. The reason for the existence of politicians is that somebody has to think up policies, have them accepted and then implement them. It is inevitable that they are familiar with the protocols of their own elected body and know how best to work successfully within them.
On that basis, it's hardly surprising that the Chairman has identified what he sees as the best policy and is now using the CTC's procedures to have it implemented. That's the basis on which he stood for election. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the absence of the equivalent of political parties means there is no organised opposition. No equivalent of MPs putting on an opera hat and shouting "I spy strangers" or US senators filibustering, or whatever. And in this context, no "Loyal Opposition" going tghrough his detailed manifesto before the election. In his Chaiman's bit in the current mag, he makes the point that many of the members he speaks to think the CTC is already a charity. (I'm on hol so quoting that from memory.) It could just as easily be said that many members haven't much idea at all of the legal status of the CTC (how many people could explain what a "company limited by guarantee" is?)
So in that sense, the answer to the question I quoted seems to be "Yes."
OTOH, reference is made above to "mutuality" which I tend to think is pretty much the opposite of "charity" in that it's not based on altruism and any benefit to a wider society is an accidental side-effect. To the extent that I fancy a lot of the membership would favour a mutual model (which has served the CTC since its foundation) if they thought about it, I think full charity status will come as a shock to many, especially if the allegations of hazy accountancy are correct. Many of the tangible assets have already been transferred and we are into "perfectly legal, time to move on" mode when allegations are made that the signatories of the relevant documents did not really know what they were doing. Only time will tell and I sincerely hope that I am shown to be completely wrong.
However, if the (dare I say it) 'hemorrhage' continues then amputation might be preferable to spending all our money on sticking plasters.