Cycling UK Forum

PH wrote:

reohn2 wrote:Any committee or member of such,chairman,president or head that has more than one vote or uses more than one vote should be dismissed forthwith.

People who don't vote,don't vote,whatever their reason is their affair,stealing their votes and using them against their will is plain wrong,end of.

They have voted.

Forgive me if I have got this wrong but AIUI the chairman has more than one vote,I'm just voicing how I think that's wrong and undemocratic.
If I am wrong please explain the process and how it is democratic.

Bez wrote:I've no idea to be honest. I might hazard a guess based on prejudices resulting from observed form on similar matters in the past, but we can all do that

The reason I asked you was that I jumped to the perhaps unwarranted conclusion from your detailed post that you had some knowlege of the subject. Anybody who doesn't get the point of what I'm saying about Ms Davenport need only look for her name on here or in Martin Porter's blog. eg Her comments on camera footage to the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Charade still form the basis of summary rejection of evidence of that type.

eg

viewtopic.php?p=1098159#p1098159

IMO, if there's to be any hope that the police nationally will adopt this, this officer is in an influential position to make it or break it. (I'm talking only about E & W of course. Scotland and NI will have others in similar positions, but won't ignore what happens here.)

With regards to primary position, see Highway Code, overataking
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway ... 159-to-203
I think we disagree about this issue.

With regards voting procedures, we have discussed it before in detail. Some feel the procedures are OK. I feel it gives a bias towards Council. The voting procedure makes it easier to vote for the Chair and more fragmented for others and harder to counter. UK law may hinder changes.
Members are asked to vote on specific motions and go to the trouble of wording and putting the motions, plus usually attending and speaking on the motion. Council/Chair put their point of view in Cycle on motions and then arrange the voting papers and procedure. It is disappointing for members to find the Chairs discretionary votes prevented a motion from passing. Even if passed Council may still not engage to deliver the motion, e.g. asking for Council candidates to have at least 12 months membership. In effect it makes the whole procedure questionable and does not inspire confidence and trust in Council or the Chair. Council could choose to not to use a discretionary vote and make this clear in Cycle. This would leave only members voting specifically for or against I suppose, with some minor proxy votes. After the vote Council could then consider the overall membership vote and act having both the details of the motions and the membership voting details. This would make it easier to do a U turn if desirable or to say it is under review.
Some changes may be possible, see
https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourcei ... ons+at+AGM

Mm, I figured that was why you asked but as I say, I've not had any conversation about this where she's come up. I'm broadly aware of her previous opinions, hence the previous remark

The interesting thing about this is that it's been very much ground-up. It started with two officers, who made a compelling case up the command chain, who then found the operation attracted attention. Not just from the public and the media, but directly from other forces. And not just a few but a lot. And not just in the UK but around the world. The point here being that if Davenport wants to block the progress of this operation then she'll be swimming against not just one but a lot of tides (to stretch the metaphor somewhat).

As per the linked article my main residual concern with this operation is the fact that the two officers who have conceived and run it both completely understand all the issues from all sides and are seemingly extremely competent at explaining them to people who don't. Whether other forces can replicate these "soft skills", which IMO are crucial to the quality of the operation, remains to be seen.

But in terms of general momentum and buy-in I'm broadly of the opinion that we've at least caught sight of the Rubicon.

reohn2 wrote:

PH wrote:

reohn2 wrote:Any committee or member of such,chairman,president or head that has more than one vote or uses more than one vote should be dismissed forthwith.

People who don't vote,don't vote,whatever their reason is their affair,stealing their votes and using them against their will is plain wrong,end of.

They have voted.

Forgive me if I have got this wrong but AIUI the chairman has more than one vote,I'm just voicing how I think that's wrong and undemocratic.
If I am wrong please explain the process and how it is democratic.

The chairman only has one vote and wouldn't normally place that unless it was to decide a tie.
All members (Not necessarily the chair) may hold other peoples votes by proxy, these are either mandatory where the principal has directed the proxy how to place it, or discretionary which is just what it says. If I want to let someone else decide where my vote is placed that's my decision. I don't know what you'd consider undemocratic about that, you might not like that choice but it's as valid as any other. This is common across all organisations, Unions, business, charities, clubs...

PH wrote:

reohn2 wrote:

PH wrote:
They have voted.

Forgive me if I have got this wrong but AIUI the chairman has more than one vote,I'm just voicing how I think that's wrong and undemocratic.
If I am wrong please explain the process and how it is democratic.

The chairman only has one vote and wouldn't normally place that unless it was to decide a tie.
All members (Not necessarily the chair) may hold other peoples votes by proxy, these are either mandatory where the principal has directed the proxy how to place it, or discretionary which is just what it says. If I want to let someone else decide where my vote is placed that's my decision. I don't know what you'd consider undemocratic about that, you might not like that choice but it's as valid as any other. This is common across all organisations, Unions, business, charities, clubs...

A discretionary vote is undemocratic and wrong,whatever organisation uses it.
That's the truth of it.

The voting papers make it clear how to vote for the Chair and easy with a tick box function. To pass votes to other people, they have to be specifically named. So you may have 20 people with proxy votes with various views, some for and some against and the Chair with many more vested in one person. This process helps Council to gain a majority even if most members did not support their view. Some cyclists may vote for their elected representative to decide how to vote, but under charity rules they may feel committed to supporting the charity position, as a legal requirement being a trustee. The end result does not inspire confidence in delivering a fair outcome.

Steady rider wrote:The voting papers make it clear how to vote for the Chair and easy with a tick box function. To pass votes to other people, they have to be specifically named. So you may have 20 people with proxy votes with various views, some for and some against and the Chair with many more vested in one person. This process helps Council to gain a majority even if most members did not support their view. Some cyclists may vote for their elected representative to decide how to vote, but under charity rules they may feel committed to supporting the charity position, as a legal requirement being a trustee. The end result does not inspire confidence in delivering a fair outcome.

It just gets worse dunnit?

Glad I'm out

Steady rider wrote:This process helps Council to gain a majority even if most members did not support their view.

Those members had the choice what to do with their vote, didn't they?

PH wrote:

Steady rider wrote:This process helps Council to gain a majority even if most members did not support their view.

Those members had the choice what to do with their vote, didn't they?

No,they abdicated that right to the discretion of others,that isn't choice it's giving their democratic right away and shouldn't be allowed by law,it's worse than selling it.

EDIT:- imagine if that were the case in a GE

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gaz wrote:

reohn2 wrote:No,they abdicated that right to the discretion of others that isn't choice it's giving their democratic right away .

No, it's a choice of how they exercise their democratic right. It may be a choice that you don't like but it's still a choice with equal validity to all the other voting choices available.

reohn2 wrote:Glad I'm out

Glad I'm in .

I'm happy for you but my mind remains unchanged
PS,what of the same rule applying to GE voters?

Bez wrote:Mm, I figured that was why you asked but as I say, I've not had any conversation about this where she's come up. I'm broadly aware of her previous opinions, hence the previous remark

The interesting thing about this is that it's been very much ground-up. It started with two officers, who made a compelling case up the command chain, who then found the operation attracted attention. Not just from the public and the media, but directly from other forces. And not just a few but a lot. And not just in the UK but around the world. The point here being that if Davenport wants to block the progress of this operation then she'll be swimming against not just one but a lot of tides (to stretch the metaphor somewhat).

As per the linked article my main residual concern with this operation is the fact that the two officers who have conceived and run it both completely understand all the issues from all sides and are seemingly extremely competent at explaining them to people who don't. Whether other forces can replicate these "soft skills", which IMO are crucial to the quality of the operation, remains to be seen.

But in terms of general momentum and buy-in I'm broadly of the opinion that we've at least caught sight of the Rubicon.

I can see that this started with a couple of PC's in Brum - I've already made that point - in the context that it shows how much discretion they get, now that traffic policing is such a low priority: outside the Metropolitan Police, I doubt if their are many specialist traffic supervisors of inspector or even sergeant rank, never mind anybody at policymaking level. Until this began to attract interest, I fancy few in WMP management will even have known about it.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that Ms Davenport is somehow anti-cycling: I simply don't know, but I doubt it. She's just drawn the short straw.

The thread has attracted quite a lot of comment - some of it bitter - about Cycling UK's policymaking. I'm saying that the way policy is decided nationally within the police is much more important on this issue. I know from personal experience of doing it, that if there's local pressure to introduce some policy initiative, the first question is "What do ACPO say?" That's likely to be even more so if the person stuck with looking at it isn't a specialist - and as I've said, traffic specialists are a threatened species.

I'd love to see drivers generally giving riders a wide berth (Cue for a song ♫ And so say all of us ♪ )
I can see that more police involvement would be invaluable. (I think I can still hear the sound of music.)
I think the successor of the ACPO Traffic Committee has much more influence here than Cycling UK seems to appreciate.

As is always the case with something like this, I would love to be proved wrong; I'm not an "I told you so" merchant. As I said, I'd love to see drivers generally giving riders a wide berth. That's the aim / big issue / whatever.

Finally, I wonder how much of the world-wide interest has been caused by a wish to promote cycling, rather than something which might make good clickbait?
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PS It doesn't really matter if the CTC decided this policy by consulting an oracle, witches' coven or whatever. The biggy is to have drivers giving riders a wider berth.

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thirdcrank wrote:I wonder how much of the world-wide interest has been caused by a wish to promote cycling, rather than something which might make good clickbait?

Always worth questioning motives, but in the context of police forces knocking on WMP's door I don't think clickbait is relevant. (To be fair, I don't think "promoting cycling" is per se a police motive either, but as WMP explain it's about dealing with threatening behaviour: to extrapolate their own analogy, promoting local high street shopping wouldn't be a police matter, but tackling threatening behaviour that made people afraid to shop on foot would be.)

Interestingly, the media coverage I've seen so far (normally local media picking up on local forces starting to deploy either aspect of WMP's operations) has been fairly balanced. I don't think I've seen it crop up yet in the Mail/Sun/Express/etc yet, though. But a bit of hysteria from the reactionaries is inevitable with any worthwhile change, of course.