New Membership Cycling Organisation

A place to discuss the issues relating to the proposed change in the national CTC’s structure.
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admin
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by admin »

The moderators will always make contact with people who post things that break the Forum guidelines. It's not that difficult to understand, I'd hope, what is acceptable and what isn't.
bikerpauline
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by bikerpauline »

Thank you for that explaination which is not strictly true. Posts are edited or removed for being critical and opposing the views of the GEO and Council. There is nothing in the forums rules that state such opposition isn't allowed.
Jimmy The Hand
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by Jimmy The Hand »

bikerpauline wrote:Thank you for that explaination which is not strictly true. Posts are edited or removed for being critical and opposing the views of the GEO and Council. There is nothing in the forums rules that state such opposition isn't allowed.

Simon L6, Regulator & others to many to mention I owe you an apology, here was me thinking you were opposing the view of council but as you weren't edited or removed I must have read all your post wrong and you were supporting council all along! :roll:
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gaz
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by gaz »

bikerpauline wrote:Thank you for that explaination which is not strictly true. Posts are edited or removed for being critical and opposing the views of the GEO and Council. There is nothing in the forums rules that state such opposition isn't allowed.


I'd suggest the following thread as a place to find guidance on forum rules with regard to discussions relating to CTC Policy. The thread was started a considerable time before the Charity Board, yet only seven members responded and only five were interested in having a separate board. Link.

Constructive civil debate is welcome and, by and large, that's what we've had on the Charity Boards, with a bit of good humour mixed in.
High on a cocktail of flossy teacakes and marmalade
Jonty

Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by Jonty »

bikerpauline wrote:How do we know when posts have been removed or edited?


Hi bikerpauline
If you are making the accusation then in my view it's incumbent upon you to come up with the evidence. You can't accuse someone or something of doing something simply because you are not aware of any evidence that they haven't done it.
Surely before making such a point one should establish the facts. :?
jonty
sadjack
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by sadjack »

To be fair is it an accusation or simply a question of "is there a way to tell?"
Jonty

Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by Jonty »

Yet another conspiracy theory to add to 1) the original vote was rigged because the proxy votes in favour were counted 2) offering modest prizes was a cynical attempt by the CTC to get a Yes vote 3) the wording of the ballot paper was biased in favour of the proposal 4) the vote was invalid because a majority of members didn't vote.
What sort of credibility can one attach to a case which relies on such vacuous misinterpretations? :roll:
jonty
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meic
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by meic »

There is plenty of evidence of a conspiracy, just look at some of the threads in this section of the forum.
If worded differently all of your four points are symptomatic of an attempt to get a vote to go in one direction, though not all the people pointing it out would stretch the point beyond the truth like happened in your bullet notes.

In my opinion nothing has been done outside of the rules.
I do have a problem with the basic attitude of the high command. They researched the situation and decided what was the best way to go and THEN tried to win the vote.
To my mind a committee of a membership cub should research the situation, describe the pros and cons of the choice and offer it up for the membership to decide.

"My" case relies on no such "vacuous misinterpretations" it is quite simply that I dont want the CTC to become a unified charity and I dont want the constitution that was put there to protect the club and its membership to be changed.
If the club is changed under my feet because I am out-voted then I will have to live with it.
If another club offers a deal better suited to me then I will move. As no such club exists at the moment, I think I will remain in the CTC.
Yma o Hyd
swansonj
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by swansonj »

Jonty wrote:Yet another conspiracy theory to add to 1) the original vote was rigged because the proxy votes in favour were counted 2) offering modest prizes was a cynical attempt by the CTC to get a Yes vote 3) the wording of the ballot paper was biased in favour of the proposal 4) the vote was invalid because a majority of members didn't vote.
What sort of credibility can one attach to a case which relies on such vacuous misinterpretations? :roll:
jonty


I don't think you serve your cause (or any other) by alleging these are conspiracy theories.

On 1), I think there was just confusion between casting votes and proxy votes: it had previously been stated, in the context of casting votes, that the Chair always voted to preserve the status quo, and it wasn't necessarily crystal clear to some people that this didn't also apply to proxy votes.

On 2), I think, far from being a conspiracy theory, it is absolutely correct. Council wanted to maximise the vote so offered an incentive, and it is rather obvious that the more people who vote without being previously engaged with the issues, the more likely they are just to follow the Council recommendation. (Why wasn't this also obvious to the petitioners for the postal vote I'm not sure, it always seemed to me inevitable that the narrow majority at the AGM would turn into a bigger majority in a postal vote.)

On 4), I don't think anyone is claiming the vote is legally invalid. But, as with any election won on a low turnout, that always raises questions about moral validity, and the wisdom (wisdom, not entitlement) of making drastic changes based on that mandate.
Jonty

Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by Jonty »

HI swansonj
1) On Proxy votes in favour, that's the way in works in law and rightly so. You say "that it may not have been crystal clear to some people" but that is no reason to accuse the CTC of underhand methods. It simply indicates ignorance of company law on behalf of some people on how these things are done. People should not accuse others of underhand behaviour because of ignorance or misunderstanding.
2) All members are entitled to vote whether they have been "previously engaged" or not. You seem almost to be implying that members who have not been "previously engaged" should be excluded from voting which is elist in my view, undemocratic and illegal. Perhaps members who don't understand how Proxy voting works should also be excluded from voting? IMO it was proper for the CTC to try and get more members to vote and offering modest prizes was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
4)I suggest you have to ask why did most members not vote? Surely the answer is that they were not very concerned either way. If that is so than the legal and moral positions are both valid. Another way of looking at it is of those people who were concerned and voted a large majority voted in favour and a small minority against. If your logic were applied to national and local elections I doubt if many administrations would have moral authority.
I've made these points several times previously.
Please note I'm not questioning your motives which I am sure are for the best; I am simply challenging your interpretations.
jonty
swansonj
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by swansonj »

Hi jonty

I think I can't have expressed myself clearly enough as you're misunderstanding what I was saying.

I agree the matter of the Chair's voting is a matter of company law.
I agree it was an entirely legitimate tactic for council to offer an incentive to increase turnout.
I agree that when elections are decided on low turnouts, we nearly always accept the result anyway (though we often debate the moral right of a government to persue policies, we don't dispute their legal right to do so).

What I was trying to say is that it doesn't help the debate to label people raising any of these issues as "conspiracy theory" advocates.
Jonty

Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by Jonty »

swansonj wrote:Hi jonty

I think I can't have expressed myself clearly enough as you're misunderstanding what I was saying.

I agree the matter of the Chair's voting is a matter of company law.
I agree it was an entirely legitimate tactic for council to offer an incentive to increase turnout.
I agree that when elections are decided on low turnouts, we nearly always accept the result anyway (though we often debate the moral right of a government to persue policies, we don't dispute their legal right to do so).

What I was trying to say is that it doesn't help the debate to label people raising any of these issues as "conspiracy theory" advocates.


If you read posts on this topic on this and other threads you will see that many members who were against the proposal have stated or implied a conspiracy by the CTC to mislead members and obtain the result they wanted.
So the chairman in casting the proxy votes he has received from members expressing support for the proposal, which he is required to do under law, has behaved inappropriately and the result of the poll is therefore invalid.
Or the wording of the resolution has been deliberately framed ambiguously so as to deceive and confuse.
Or the offering of modest prizes to encourage members to vote has been an attempt to get members to vote who "were not previously engaged" and therefore get the result they wanted.
I'm not saying that eveyone who has posted along these lines have accused or implied the CTC of conspiracy but many have.
jonty
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gaz
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by gaz »

Jonty wrote:
bikerpauline wrote:How do we know when posts have been removed or edited?


Hi bikerpauline
If you are making the accusation then in my view it's incumbent upon you to come up with the evidence. You can't accuse someone or something of doing something simply because you are not aware of any evidence that they haven't done it.
Surely before making such a point one should establish the facts. :?
jonty


Well in all fairness to bikerpauline I can verify that at least one of my posts has been removed. I was advised of this by the mods and I fully accept their decision and reasons. I was advised as to how I could amend the post to comply with forum policy but I chose not to re-post. I could provide a link to the removed post but if you're not a mod it won't open so there's not much point. I have seen other posts removed from the Charity Board, in so much as I know I read them but they disappeared shortly afterwards. One example was a sort of "blanket bombing" of multiple threads by one member, urging everyone to vote "No" and outlining his reasons why. IIRC this was reduced to a single post on one thread.

The thread that followed my removed opening post was retitled, and it still makes sense. That's a form of editing but there is nothing within the thread to say it was done. In this thread robgul suggests the wording of his post was edited, I imagine he'd used a more colloquial version of micturate which the mods chose to remove (good call IMO). Again there is nothing in the thread to say it was edited, though I don't doubt robgul's claim.

The OP for this thread also appeared on the Member Groups board. I asked the mods to remove that thread as it was a duplicate post and, IMO proposing to start a new club is hardly relevant to a board for discussion of CTC Member Groups. The thread was removed, I suspect only because it was a duplicate post as the subject seems appropriate for discussion on the Charity Board.

Removal of posts happens, removal of whole threads happens, editing of posts happens. I believe it ONLY happens where forum policy has been breached, that's fair and impartial moderation.
High on a cocktail of flossy teacakes and marmalade
Jonty

Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by Jonty »

Hi Gaz
I accept what you say. Posts are changed where appropriate in accordance with good moderation policy. What I and others were challenging was the assertion of bikerpauline that "There has always been a Big Brother on this forum. His job is usually to remove any post even mildly critical of council and management."
In my experience this is simply not the case and I suggest that if bikerpauline has evidence to back this up she makes it available. My experience is that members have been able to criticise the CTC in quite strong terms as evidenced by the content of many of the posts. In fact some members have commented on the "vindictiveness"of some of the criticisms and found it quite upsetting.
IMO there has been no attempt to stifle open debate on the Charity proposal by the CTC either intentionally or unintentionally. In fact the CTC has bent over backwards to stimulate debate. IMO to suggest otherwise is unjustified and misleading and suggests to me that any case which is predicated on such an accusation must be a weak one.
jonty
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Re: New Membership Cycling Organisation

Post by Regulator »

Jonty wrote:
IMO there has been no attempt to stifle open debate on the Charity proposal by the CTC either intentionally or unintentionally. In fact the CTC has bent over backwards to stimulate debate. IMO to suggest otherwise is unjustified and misleading and suggests to me that any case which is predicated on such an accusation must be a weak one.
jonty


Council and National Office may have been happy for there to be open debate on here - they certainly weren't keen on there being an open and frank debate in 'Cycle' or through 'CycleClips', both of which are seen by far more members.

Articles and letters sent into Cycle were either heavily edited or not printed. The coverage was far from fair or balanced. With CycleClips there wasn't even the pretence of balance.
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