Who for the next CTC President/Vice President

[Philip Benstead]

Many people from other place are unhappy of the performance of Jon Snow and Josie Dew do we need new CTC President/Vice President


IMHO We people who are serious thinkers and are unable to think on their feet. we need some serious brain power for the job of either next CTC president or vice president


I suggest


Martin Porter QC

He is my choice, he is anti helmet compulsion and is racing cyclist and can argue a case, and a serious person.


http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.2tg.co.uk/barristers/member. ... mber_id=64

http://www.cyclenation.org.uk/resources/winning.php

http://www.cyclenation.org.uk/documents ... bCases.pdf

[JT]

What other place?

[Regulator]

I quite like the idea of Martin Porter but I think Clare Balding or Chris Boardman would be good as well.

Perhaps we should suggest to National Office and Council that it should be a democratic decision and put to a poll of the club?

Oh no - we can't do that, as they plan to abolish that provision of the Mem and Arts...

[thirdcrank]

Interesting that tucked away in the Cycling Lawyer blog there's a very polite and diplomatic piece about Jon Snow with the implication that he has it wrong.

[Karen Sutton]

What other place?

http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=58961.msg1217661#msg1217661

[JT]

Thanks Karen. That's one of the boards I "ignore" so hadn't seen the discussion.

[henshaw11]

Interesting that tucked away in the Cycling Lawyer blog there's a very polite and diplomatic piece about Jon Snow with the implication that he has it wrong.

This bit ?
http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... cycle.html

Snow's blog wrt the select committee here:
http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/time ... ling/17592

Bit of a pity he can't remember Josie Dew's name :/

Perhaps this is a silly question, but anyone know why is Jon Snow making an appearance anyway ? - he may be president but his views on segregation aren't (IMO) very representative and he described himself as being there as an individual..whilst he made some decent points, those of Josie Dew on driver behaviour (a bit rambling, sadly) seemed to take very much a back seat (as far as I've heard from the first 20 mins or so...). Surely there's someone way better/representative of the CTC ?

Hum..doesn't seem the first time there's been grumbling about him:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4755&start=210

[thirdcrank]

...This bit ?
http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... cycle.html

Yes, and more specifically, the third para from the end, beginning "This brings me finally to Jon Snow’s contribution, ..."

... Hum..doesn't seem the first time there's been grumbling about him ...

How time flies.

[thirdcrank]

There's now another piece about this on The Cycling Lawyer, couched in the familiar well-mannered style, but the criticism of Jon Snow is growing.

It's interesting how the all the enthusiasm / conviction has gone. Look at henshaw11's link to the 2007 thread about Jon Snow becoming CTC President and it ran to 15 pages (and it wasn't the only thread on the subject, here and elsewhere.) Now he seems to have done exactly what some of us feared - using his personal standing combined with the CTC Presidency to promote his own (IMO misguided) theories yet it raises hardly an eyebrow on here.

There's a bit at the end of that thread from simonL6 predicting that the CTC would become distanced from the membership.

[Si]

Possibly so, but....
1. IIRC at the time there was a bit more coverage of the presidency in Cycle and cycle-Clips. We've not had that yet, when we do we might get some more interest.
2. I think that people are becoming a bit more distanced generally (not just cycling) from taking part in any kind of debate on who runs things...given that whoever is in charge of the country tends to make a mess of it and spread sleaze as they go, perhaps people are just suffering an all round disenfranchisement. For instance, after several years of good turn outs and vigorous debates at my allotments AGM, this year it was a very low key affair with a small turn out. I asked a few why the lack of interest and a common answer was that there was so much crap going on in all aspects of their lives that they just couldn't be bothered to get involved with something else.
3. We have to ask if those most likely to go to the trouble of debating the pres' position are mostly the same group that went to the trouble of finding out a lot more about certain other aspects of the CTC and after doing so have become less eager to participate? If so, this would not reflect a general loss of interest across the CTC but rather just among one small but vocal group.

On the other hand, you might well be right. Although my suspicion is that some people have misjudged how close to the 'national' CTC the membership have ever been.

[thirdcrank]

I'll put it as a question, or rather a series:

When the CTC President talks about cycling in the highest forum in the land - the Houses of Parliament - does anybody believe his words will be taken to be anything other than CTC policy?
When was that policy adopted?
On what basis does the CTC presume to represent all cyclists when this IMO absurd viewpoint is peddled?

[admin]

Not wanting to fan any flames, but the majority of people think bicycles and cars don't mix very well on our roads. Most people thus do not consider cycling a safe mode of transport. I'd agree that most cyclists prefer the roads to the crap segregation we get in the UK, but there's a strong groundswell of opinion that many, many, more people would use bicycles to get around if they didn't have to mix with fast-moving cars driven by inattentive drivers.

So perhaps John Snow didn't speak according to the views of the majority of CTC members (who probably tend to be keen, existing, cyclists) but he does seem to speak for all those people who would ride a bike but don't because they consider it to be too dangerous.

Personally I'm a long-term vehicular cyclist, it's the only thing you can do in the UK if you want to go cycling. But I am extremely nervous of taking my six-year-old children on their bikes on the road, even though they've ridden capably since they were four and a half, and rode balance bikes with much enthusiasm before that. My twins are perfectly safe cyclists (they now know what falling off feels like!), and I know the statistics say cycling is relatively safe, but the daily near-misses are just too hard to ignore when it's your own children's lives at stake. Away from the traffic, on the south coast bike route, or on tracks in the New Forest, I have no such fears and we cycle as a family very happily.

[thirdcrank]

So, we have an ideal candidate to be president of Sustrans..............

[admin]

Yes, or perhaps the president of the new 100% charitable CTC...

[mattsccm]

Surely a touring club should have a tourer as it's leader eg Beaumont?