Cycling UK Forum

JohnW wrote:However, before I go, the following was appended to my post.............what does it mean?

Some housekeeping has occurred. A minor faux pas was made by someone on the Moderator team who edited your post in error, this was corrected by Graham.

Last edited by Graham on Mon Dec 29, 2014 8:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Attribution of quotation now clarified and stated. Mod comment in text body removed.

Graham tends to leave an audit trail when he edits a post, presumably in case someone asks what action he took and why.

.what does it mean?

You included a quote in your post but accidentally (I assume) attributed it to the wrong person. Thus the erroneous name was removed so that it did not appear that you were trying to put words into someone else's mouth.

Some time later Graham, who was obviously less full of Christmas Pud and brandy butter, and more of a stickler for detail, looked back to find out who made the original quote and added their name to it in your post.

John W's original attribution was correct. IMO it was a moderator error, any suggestion as to the involvement of brandy would be speculative .

Pretty sure it was incorrect when I first saw it....unless it was a ripple from upthread!

Anyway, for some reason it's all been deleted so I guess we'll never know. I hope that Jon didn't get the hump just because of a bit of admin work on the thread....whether it was a correct or incorrect correction, it was merely that: a correction and not any kind of attack or telling off!

Si wrote:..............for some reason it's all been deleted so I guess we'll never know. I hope that Jon didn't get the hump just because of a bit of admin work on the thread...................

No, absolutely not Si - there were deeper issues than that which were nothing to do with moderators or admin errors.

Happy new year. And as for "get the hump" - well, I'm the second smallest bloke in the section but I'm bigger than that, even if there had been something to "take the hump" at...............which there wasn't.

Si wrote:

The general (although not quite unanimous) view of the committee members present was that this endorses what has been rumoured for some time, that the CTC has no interest in members or the reason for the founding of the club, and some said that they would remain members only as long as our own current local structure was maintained. In days of yore (and mine in the 50s/60s, and as far as I know long before that) the CTC was known among us as "this great family of ours".

In our section we retain our family atmosphere and approach but it was felt that the CTC at HQ level were not interested in that

Yet the money that was being paid to these specialist posts is now going to be spent on promoting/supporting Member Groups and doing things for those members not part of a group.

Ahh yes, that'll be why they've made redundant the only member of CTC National Office staff who has ever, voluntarily played an active part in running a local CTC group. (And the only member of staff who leads CTC tours, or would be proud to call themselves a touring cyclist... )

Let it be known that although several of CTC's management may profess to be some kind of cyclist, NONE of them cared enough for CTC to become a member prior to getting paid by us. (There is now only one prior member employed at CTC-NO, unfortunately not in a policy influencing role.)

Ideas from outside can of course be invigorating. But when ALL the ideas come from outside, un-tempered by knowledge of what's already inside and working just fine... or the reasons it didn't work last time...

Having spent my first 11 years in CTC on the other side of the employee/member fence, I frequently found myself having to remind these people how a CTC member group differs from an independent cycling club and how that is likely to affect the expectations and motivations of a CTC volunteer. I would draw attention to perverse policies, that make our local groups jump through all sorts of extra hoops (such as providing all your ride leaders' names) that affiliated clubs don't have to. This probably didn't make me many friends amongst the staff. But I've always thought of the members as friends and I cannot remain silent when people deprecate and patronise my friends. At those times I simply had to remind these people who pays their wages!

I'm actually rather glad to get out of that office. But I will miss my daily contact with CTC members.

pga wrote:On a personal level I hope that Chris is treated to a decent redundancy package.

A few others have expressed similar sentiments up-thread. Thank you all. Now it's done and dusted I can assure you that I received the statutory minimum redundancy payment. And a card.

I offered to negotiate terms for early retirement, as that would surely play better with the members, but nothing doing.

I also offered to provide a reduced combined touring and technical consultancy service, but they wouldn't even consider that.

I could still contribute to Cycle, but it doesn't pay enough to justify the time I like spend on getting things right.

He has served the CTC for many years and this needs to be recognised.

Those in charge don't seem to think so.

Perhaps now is the moment to repeat half a sentence of an earlier much longer post of mine: I have cancelled my CTC membership renewal direct debit.

Thanks, Chris, for putting us in the picture.

As Councillor representing members in Wales I try and have as much contact with members as possible and this includes individuals, member groups and affiliates. I get lots of positive feedback from members on the work that CTC does for cycling as well as great feedback on the work that clubs do for their riders.

What's clear from all this interaction is that we are an important part of many peoples cycling lives for a wide range of reasons. As Councillors and Trustees we take this all on board when looking at what's best for CTC.

I only got around to one email to all members at the end of the year but I use social media and contact details are available.

Always happy to talk!

Cheers

Gwenda

JohnW wrote:...
A National Cyclecampaigning Organisation to which CTC et al is affiliated may have something to commend it, but there is a problem in that, having become a charity, all hell can break loose if that organisation tells the truth, and tells the government that they're not wonderful and marvellous, that their splather and rhetoric are meaningless if not supported by effective woks and policies, and the government takes offence. Our status, and by association our very existence, can be cleaned from the slate at a whim.............and then CTC loose all their assets.
......

I suspect that this situation that John describes will come to a head when (if) there is a review or re-write of the Highway Code.
When the Code was last reviewed CTC were the at the forefront of getting some of the worst excesses of the drafts either removed or diluted.
I can't somehow see the charity doing this (a) because they are taking the governments shilling and (b) they won't have the expertise to be able to mount this type of campaign.

millimole wrote:

JohnW wrote:...
A National Cyclecampaigning Organisation to which CTC et al is affiliated may have something to commend it, but there is a problem in that, having become a charity, all hell can break loose if that organisation tells the truth, and tells the government that they're not wonderful and marvellous, that their splather and rhetoric are meaningless if not supported by effective woks and policies, and the government takes offence. Our status, and by association our very existence, can be cleaned from the slate at a whim.............and then CTC loose all their assets.
......

I suspect that this situation that John describes will come to a head when (if) there is a review or re-write of the Highway Code.
When the Code was last reviewed CTC were the at the forefront of getting some of the worst excesses of the drafts either removed or diluted.
I can't somehow see the charity doing this (a) because they are taking the governments shilling and (b) they won't have the expertise to be able to mount this type of campaign.

a) Were they not getting Government grants at the time of the last revision? I'm pretty sure they were.
b) I'd have though with the emphasis moving more and more towards campaigning they're likely to develop more expertise.

CJ wrote:Ahh yes, that'll be why they've made redundant the only member of CTC National Office staff who has ever, voluntarily played an active part in running a local CTC group. (And the only member of staff who leads CTC tours, or would be proud to call themselves a touring cyclist... )......

Don't get me wrong Chris - I would much rather you and the others* were still at the CTC and continuing to do good work there. On the other hand, I am** also for them doing more to support MGs, and individual members on the inclusioncy front- something that I think that you'd also argue for if you were a neutral. My issues are: 1/ that they may be sacrificing the wrong assets to fund the new support for MGs, etc, 2/ that they could have publicised it better, and 3/ a good number of people on here and elsewhere who have demanded more support for MGs, etc, and as such using the "we need more support for MGs" argument doesn't really work in this case because that's what N.O. are apparently*** trying to do. To be honest Chris, to my eye, the value of all the excellent work that you did/do stands for itself without having to rely on trying to link the redundencies to some non-specific charity conversion plot and the dissolution of the MGs.

As for how they handled the redundencies with the victims, well, as is always the case there will be at least two sides to every story and I've no real knowledge of either and so cast no aspersions.

Regarding intimate knowledge of MGs and membership - is this not what National Council are meant to bring to the table? If they are not doing this then I think that there are much more serious issues (for the CTC) that we should be looking at.


*we should remember that it is not only CJ who has gone.
**actually, I'm not for more support for MGs as they currently stand, but as my views on them have no chance of coming to pass then this would be the next best thing.
***we wait with baited breath to see what form this actually takes.

Si wrote:**actually, I'm not for more support for MGs as they currently stand, but as my views on them have no chance of coming to pass then this would be the next best thing.

That's an interesting comment, maybe worth a thread on it's own. If a change is possible, now seems to be the likeliest time to bring it about. Though I'm not sure what could be changed, I do know that unless something is done the survival of some groups doesn’t look like outlasting the present generation.

millimole wrote:I can't somehow see the charity doing this (a) because they are taking the governments shilling

Doesn't seem to get in the way for lots of other charities that campaign against policies they don't agree with.

and (b) they won't have the expertise to be able to mount this type of campaign.

Why? Have they laid off Roger Geffen and co too?

Vorpal wrote:Well, I wish Chris (and the others being made redundant) well, and I hope he ends up with something that benefits him. It sucks to be made redundant, but both times it's happened to me, it has turned out well, even to be a good thing.

I am concerned about the loss of expertise to the CTC, but it's hard to say, now, how that will turn out, either.

I would like to echo the above thread but add that I feel that CTC has been diminished by this change of tack. Chris's contributions to Cycle magazine were always the best bits. I wish Chris the best of luck and hope that his being made redundant works out as well as mine did (best thing to happen to me in 2012!).

Sorry to hear they only did statutory which is not overly generous so I hope the card was nice.

I hope that Chris continues to be part of this forum but I can Imagine that he might not want to.