Cycling UK AGM questions

AndyK
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Re: Is this a good place to ask Cycling UK AGM questions?

Post by AndyK »

PS: to answer the OP's very first question, there's a whole board dedicated to Cycling UK topics, so this thread might have been better placed there, with the related discussions. Mods?
PH
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Re: Is this a good place to ask Cycling UK AGM questions?

Post by PH »

AndyK wrote:Lots of questions here, hard to know where to start. I'll try and tackle the status of Cycling UK as a charity and company (it's both), then election versus co-option of members, then the AGM.

Thanks for the clarifications and explanations. It would be nice to see some other trustees engaging more with the membership.
GideonReade
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by GideonReade »

Hi Andy, Many thanks for all that. A substantive & reassuring reply.

I didn't know about the forum sections at the bottom, even after my thread was - perfectly reasonably & courteously - moved there, I found it hard to find. OTOH, I suppose, like most members, I never took much interest in this side of things before, it's probably a tiny minority who do...
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Minority, vocal minority? Several people have joined just to comment on the cuk reforms
One imagines it was similar decades ago anytime suggestions for change were made
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AndyK
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by AndyK »

Cyril Haearn wrote:Minority, vocal minority? Several people have joined just to comment on the cuk reforms
One imagines it was similar decades ago anytime suggestions for change were made

"Several". No further comment.

Seriously I'd love to see more members take an interest in how Cycling UK is run but the vast majority don't. They have better things to do with their lives. :D Perhaps the biggest engagement is the trustee election, and that only sees a few thousand members voting. (Which, incidentally, is a pretty good level compared to many membership charities.)

And yes, any suggestions for change have always generated strong views from some. You should see the letters pages of the CTC magazine from the 1900s. (I think a few copies are online, but I can't remember where.) That doesn't necessarily mean they represent the majority or anything like it, any more than the letters in my local paper represent the views of the population of Hampshire.
thirdcrank
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Re: Is this a good place to ask Cycling UK AGM questions?

Post by thirdcrank »

AndyK wrote:
drossall wrote:
thirdcrank wrote:The benefits flow from the members to the charity, not vice versa.

That's in the nature of a charity. A charity must have charitable purposes and deliver benefit to the public. That's not incompatible with membership, especially if anyone can join, but there tend to be limits on the levels of benefit for members, especially if Gift Aid is involved (I'm not a lawyer; this is me paraphrasing my best understanding). Often, members are a vital part of the resources of the charity and join in order to contribute to the public benefit, as opposed to joining to receive benefits.

Promotion of community participation in sports was added as an acceptable charitable purpose some years back, which of course is what created the opportunity for Cycling UK to be a charity.

Well put. Like it or not, Cycling UK is a charity and its job is to deliver public benefit.


I'm not sure if the "like it or not" comment is addressed to me but as something I posted is quoted at the top of this I'll say that it's one of the mainthings I've been trying to get across. (see: Altruism) Any confusion over this is not on my part. It's obvious to me that a lot of the current upset is evidence that some don't get this point. I fancy some must have been misled by the spin used during the conversion debate. If so, too bad.
AndyK
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Re: Is this a good place to ask Cycling UK AGM questions?

Post by AndyK »

PH wrote:
AndyK wrote:Lots of questions here, hard to know where to start. I'll try and tackle the status of Cycling UK as a charity and company (it's both), then election versus co-option of members, then the AGM.

Thanks for the clarifications and explanations. It would be nice to see some other trustees engaging more with the membership.

You'll mostly get me here, partly because we do have differing skills and backgrounds in the board so we will focus on different areas. I am probably the only one who would sit up at 1am* answering CUK forum posts about AGM motions, because I'm a long-standing member of CTC/CUK and a long-standing contributor to this forum, so I think it's appropriate for me to put a trustee's viewpoint forward here. That doesn't mean other trustees don't engage with members, just that they do it in other ways.

* Obligatory XKCD cartoon: https://xkcd.com/386/
AndyK
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Re: Is this a good place to ask Cycling UK AGM questions?

Post by AndyK »

thirdcrank wrote:
AndyK wrote:
drossall wrote:That's in the nature of a charity. A charity must have charitable purposes and deliver benefit to the public. That's not incompatible with membership, especially if anyone can join, but there tend to be limits on the levels of benefit for members, especially if Gift Aid is involved (I'm not a lawyer; this is me paraphrasing my best understanding). Often, members are a vital part of the resources of the charity and join in order to contribute to the public benefit, as opposed to joining to receive benefits.

Promotion of community participation in sports was added as an acceptable charitable purpose some years back, which of course is what created the opportunity for Cycling UK to be a charity.

Well put. Like it or not, Cycling UK is a charity and its job is to deliver public benefit.


I'm not sure if the "like it or not" comment is addressed to me but as something I posted is quoted at the top of this I'll say that it's one of the mainthings I've been trying to get across. (see: Altruism) Any confusion over this is not on my part. It's obvious to me that a lot of the current upset is evidence that some don't get this point. I fancy some must have been misled by the spin used during the conversion debate. If so, too bad.

It wasn't aimed at you, TC. And I agree absolutely.
PH
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Re: Is this a good place to ask Cycling UK AGM questions?

Post by PH »

AndyK wrote:That doesn't mean other trustees don't engage with members, just that they do it in other ways.

I won't press it, but there was a time where as a member of a local group I would know the local councillor and see them occasionally at CTC events local or national. That's gone.
PH
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Re: Is this a good place to ask Cycling UK AGM questions?

Post by PH »

thirdcrank wrote:I'll say that it's one of the mainthings I've been trying to get across. (see: Altruism) Any confusion over this is not on my part. It's obvious to me that a lot of the current upset is evidence that some don't get this point. I fancy some must have been misled by the spin used during the conversion debate. If so, too bad.

Although the charity conversion was an irreversible step and a clear point in time, it was IMO the culmination of what had been happening for the two decades before it. Kevin Mayne came in with a clear vision that the CTC should change from a members club to an cyclists organisation, it wasn't a secret, or something that was sneaked in via the back door, it was a stated policy. For me, and I've said this before, the tipping point wasn't the charity conversion but the handing over of the club's assets to the trust. This was something done not by those charity professionals that some are disparaging about, but the good old CTC grassroots councillors. IMO the charity conversion was about no more than confirming the reality that the trust had all the marbles and the opportunity to increase income with gift aid.
thirdcrank
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by thirdcrank »

I hope I don't come across as somebody with a rose-tinted rear-view mirror. Once upon a time, I was a loyal spear carrier - CRN, later RtoR rep - in the days of the Notional Cycling Strategy. Most of the country was duped by New Labour and integrated transport policy and Two Jags, now Baron Prescott (of Prestatyn?) was probably duped as much as anybody. But, when bold policies to increase cycling were kicked into the long grass, the CTC just rolled over to be tickled. (I've used those clichés because they would be search terms.) The fiasco of the last HC update did it for me: the club had the backing of a huge petition (1,000,000 signatures ?) and blinked.

However, on the narrow point about conversion, it was spun as a no brainer: steady as she goes but a tax wheeze. And as I've posted on this thread or another, that seems to be why so many posters don't understand what has fundamentally changed. A charity is for the benefit of the public, not the membership.
Oldjohnw
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by Oldjohnw »

A charity is for the benefit of those the charity deeds say it is for and it has to be for the public benefit. A subtle but significant difference to it being for the benefit of the public.

The trustees are meant to ensure that it's charity rules are met.
John
Jdsk
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by Jdsk »

thirdcrank wrote: A charity is for the benefit of the public, not the membership.

And similar above.

AIUI, and having just created a CIO which involved extensive communication with the Charity Commission, it must be for the benefit of the public but that doesn't restrict the benefits it provides to the membership.

Jonathan
thirdcrank
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by thirdcrank »

AIUI, benefits to members cannot be at less than cost. IIRC it was only in the 1980s that the government tried to clamp down on this, especially with private health care. I'm not saying that individual benefits cannot be loss leaders, but the tax advantages enjoyed by charities cannot be used simply as a way to run a membership organisation at a discount.

The National Trust has been mentioned. That organisation must really be capital rich - in the form of all the properties - and income poor to maintain them. One way it generates income is to charge for admission and as has been pointed out, members aren't charged the same as ordinary visitors but AFAIK, the "season ticket" approach is profitable overall.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Cycling UK AGM questions

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Jdsk wrote:
thirdcrank wrote: A charity is for the benefit of the public, not the membership.

And similar above.

AIUI, and having just created a CIO which involved extensive communication with the Charity Commission, it must be for the benefit of the public but that doesn't restrict the benefits it provides to the membership.

Jonathan

Care to tell us more about your new organisation?
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