Could someone please explain

[Whimwham7]

The current Cycle magazine includes the minutes from the 2015 AGM. Motion 6 at that AGM stated that "CTC Councillors shall take the wishes of the membership into account when interpreting the Articles of Association of the club and when deciding how to implement the objectives of the club". This motion was carried (almost unanimously).

How then have the Councillors taken the wishes of the membership into account over this issue of completely changing the focus and image of the club, when they have not actually bothered to ask what those wishes are?

Has Council not simply ignored the approved motion carried in 2015?

Please explain.

W

[gaz]

Council will argue, and have published those arguments in Cycle, that there was an extensive consultation process that informed the rebrand decision.

[Karen Sutton]

Does anyone know of a member who was consulted?

[gaz]

Everyone who received Cycleclips 16 August 2013 was invited to take part in a survey with reference to refreshing the brand.

As CTC celebrates its 135th anniversary at next week’s Birthday Rides, we would like all our members and supporters to take part in a short survey to help shape our future. We are looking at refreshing our look so please let us know your thoughts. Thank you.

I responded.

That was the start of the process. IIRC there were focus groups (Si was invited to one) and presentations. I have no other knowledge of those events.

[Vorpal]

And there were also membership surveys around the time of the charity conversion that were about the focus, and asked about the importance of campaigning and some of the other other things (organised tours, member groups, etc.) the CTC does. I don't remember details, now but I recall filling in a couple.

[gaz]

The October 2013 Membership Survey is still available to view. This is not the survey linked from the August Cycleclips, it is one of the more general type as mentioned by Vorpal. Council does use the results of such surveys to inform policy choices. I think the results were published in Feb/March 2014 Cycle but I don't keep back issues.

[Karen Sutton]

I responded to the 2013 membership survey. But I didn't subscribe to Cycleclips. I suppose if the trustees were given the go ahead to select a new name they thought that meant that it was their choice what it should be.

[gaz]

As communicated to the membership by the announcement in December/January 2013/14 edition of Cycle.

[fishfright]

The October 2013 Membership Survey is still available to view. This is not the survey linked from the August Cycleclips, it is one of the more general type as mentioned by Vorpal. Council does use the results of such surveys to inform policy choices. I think the results were published in Feb/March 2014 Cycle but I don't keep back issues.

I've just revisited that survey, I can see how they saw it as a mandate to rebrand a club with a long proud history into ..... I'm at a loss what its trying to be as its rebrand makes looks like an local charity leaflet at the public library.
Look at those 100's of questions that plainly pointed to how much money members have and how much more they will pay to lose their member status and gain a contributee status, oops i meant all those questions explaining the future plans to get more money so meetings with MP's can be upgraded into dinner in Central London with ministers. Oops sorry i meant something about cycling maybe.

Who cares the fools will still stump up the cash. Open another bottle of Claret chaps !

Anyway the clubs dead and buried and I'm just kicking a corpse, pointless i know as nothing will get the club back.

[gaz]

I've just revisited that survey, I can see how they saw it as a mandate to rebrand a club with a long proud history into .....

The linked survey from October 2013 is one of those regularly conducted by CTC to determine which matters are most important to members and guide Council as to the future direction of the Club.

It is most definitely not a direct part of the rebrand process. The links to the rebrand related survey of August 2013 are closed and I have access to neither the questions posed within it nor the responses received from the membership.

[Whimwham7]

The October 2013 Membership Survey is still available to view. This is not the survey linked from the August Cycleclips, it is one of the more general type as mentioned by Vorpal. Council does use the results of such surveys to inform policy choices. I think the results were published in Feb/March 2014 Cycle but I don't keep back issues.

I have re-read this survey's questions, and I see that as the heading page says - As part of our on-going review of the services and benefits that CTC offer we're keen to learn more about you and your experience of CTC. All the questions were indeed about me and my cycling activity. I could not see ANYTHING about my impression of the CTC name or logo and whether I thought they should be scrapped for something new. I recall completing that survey as I (mistakenly it would seem) believed that I was helping Council to understand the character of the Cyclists' Touring Club membership.

I tried to re-open the Cycleclips survey that Gaz also referred to, but that is now unavailable, so I can't comment on that. I can't say that I remember it, but Cycleclips is hardly my priority reading anyway. Those that I have read contained little if anything of touring interest to me.

As far as the (brief) note reproduced from the 2013/14 issue of Cycle, the few lines highlighted give no clue as to Council's intention to even consider scrapping the CTC name and logo as the primary presentation to the public. All that I inferred from that was that a "marketing exercise" might be forthcoming to publicise CTC to a wider audience. No suggestion whatever of a root and branch re-naming.

The results were published in the Feb '14 Cycle (I do keep back issues - sad I know, but sometimes useful to refer back to topics of touring interest). The final highlighted panel says - "WHAT SHOULD CTC BE DOING? Planning/infrastructure and government spending were the two most important issues that members thought that CTC should be working on". Absolutely NO mention of any suggestion that the members thought the name/logo/branding needed to be changed.

So, I still fail to see where Council gets the idea that the members wanted to change the name of the club.

W

[gaz]

... I recall completing that survey as I (mistakenly it would seem) believed that I was helping Council to understand the character of the Cyclists' Touring Club membership. ...

I'd agree that the broad purpose of the October 2013 survey is as you describe.

... I tried to re-open the Cycleclips survey that Gaz also referred to, but that is now unavailable, so I can't comment on that. I can't say that I remember it, ...

The link itself went here (the equivalent page on the old website) but as posted above (whilst you were typing) I cannot link to the survey detail (closed) and have no recollection of the content.

[Bicycler]

I've stated elsewhere that I really do wish the information about that consultation could be made available. If it shows what it is alleged to show then it ought to allay some members' fears.

My other thought is that the result of that type of consultation is not guaranteed to be representative of the CTC membership as a whole. Cycleclips is, after all, the CTC's campaigning newsletter, likely only to be read by members with an interest in that side of the club. Thus, there is likely to be an inherent selection bias which would make any conclusions drawn about the membership at large somewhat flawed. Given that the CTC has a more general interest membership magazine, Cycle, which is likely to be read by a more numerous and representative cross-section of the club, it seems bizarre that they would choose only to consult the much smaller and narrower readership of Cycleclips. Assuming, of course, that a representative sample of the membership was the desired outcome...

[gaz]

... Cycleclips is, after all, the CTC's campaigning newsletter, ...

No it isn't.

Cycleclips is described as the "Main CTC email Newsletter". Campaign mailings are a separate subscription option.

There were over 7,500 responses to the survey linked from Cycleclips and the website.

[Bicycler]

Sorry, of course you're right. I'm opted into too many! I still think that it is more likely to attract a particular type of reader. In any case, Cycle would have been a better place to seek responses because AFAIK it is sent out to all UK members. Though there is always a problem of self selection with any of these kinds of opt in consultations.