Cycling UK the results of the 2021 trustee elections

[Philip Benstead]

Cycling UK the results of the 2021 trustee elections


https://www.cyclinguk.org/sites/default ... 211102.pdf


https://www.cyclinguk.org/about/cycling ... -a-trustee

[Philip Benstead]

So much for the increase in the number of CTC members voting in these election and attendance at the AGM of 33 members that included CTC Trustees and staff.

It look like as said by a previous chair of the CTC Council , there is a democratic deficit in the CTC.

[Philip Benstead]

So much for the increase in the number of CTC members voting in these election and attendance at the AGM of 33 members that included CTC Trustees and staff.

It look like as said by a previous chair of the CTC Council , there is a democratic deficit in the CTC.

[mjr]

2343 out of how many? If still 66000, then that's a turnout of about 3½%, which must bring the legitimacy of their mandate into question.

[Philip Benstead]

CTC Membership as at August 2021 I think was 71,180

[AndyK]

3.5% is a respectable turnout for a large membership organisation. It's a pity it's down on previous years, of course, and not something to be complacent about - but the hard fact is that so long as the board is doing its job, very few people are bothered. "Democratic deficit" though? Do me a favour. Compared to what?

Let's compare it with some random examples from other organisations:

This year's YHA trustee election turnout was similar, at 3.4%.

The National Trust AGM not only elected national councillors but also included votes on several high-profile policy resolutions which were hotly contested and widely publicised in the media. Despite all that attention, "about 2%" of eligible members bothered to cast votes.

If I understand the numbers, it appears that the nationally-elected councillor posts at the BMC (British Mountaineering Council) were voted on by about 900 of the 75,000 members (1.2%) .

British Cycling's National Board contains 4 elected directors, but when they say "elected" they mean that local BC-affiliated clubs get to elect reps to a regional council. The various regional councils then elect reps to national council, and the national council members get to vote on those 4 director posts. In other words only a tiny handful of the overall membership has any direct vote on board candidates. And those 4 only make up one-third of the board.

Here's a list of the top 100 membership organisations in the UK.Feel free to seek out one of a similar size to Cycling UK where members have the right to elect a majority of the board members directly and a significantly higher proportion of them actually exercise that right.

[mjr]

It is strange to write that it is "not something to be complacent about" and then write a long post being very complacent about it, justifying that low turnout is OK because several other similar-sized organisations are also out of control and disconnected from their members.

[Bonefishblues]

I think the poster's final para refers.

[mjr]

I think the poster's final para refers.

The one that sets several conditions that exclude most of the given top 100 list, including the student unions which routinely see 20+% turnout in their local elections but whose national board is elected by delegates (with typically high turnout of them), and I think the trade unions for similar reasons?

As you know, I come from the co-op movement, where mainly the retail co-ops have such low turnouts and this is seen as a big fault needing repair, as it leaves them vulnerable to executive capture (where the exec run the organisation and the board is a talking shop mainly deciding how to spend the surplus) and carpetbaggers (where the exec liquidates or sells some or all of the organisation to improve the balance sheet before they move on).

Probably part of the difference in perception of low turnout is what we see Cycling UK as now: is it a membership charity, or a charity that happens to have a membership?