It turns me off.

[reohn2]

I'm afraid the the root of this antagonism towards the encroachment of green politics into our various group and institutions, whether mainstream politics, NGO's or cultural groups like the National Trust or CTC, is the deep distrust of what the green political agenda implies.

I'm not sure that's the case with me, we could all do with being more sustainable and less polluting. The concern is the CTC as a cycle touring organisation is at a few steps of remove from dietary preferences. If those personal conclusions are allowed to resemble club policy, where will it end? Do we tell people where they can live or work? What they should do with their free time? How many children are carbon sustainable for a family?

On club runs I've listened to all shades of political thought and opinions on most topics while realising they in no way represent Club thinking. Once something like food choice is seen as synonymous with cycle touring in an official forum we're going down a very exclusive and PC view of cycling.

Exactly! and thats (as far as I can tell) what the OP was meaning. The CTC (Cycle Touring Club) was a cycling club last time I looked at any rate,

[kwackers]

I'm not sure that's the case with me, we could all do with being more sustainable and less polluting. The concern is the CTC as a cycle touring organisation is at a few steps of remove from dietary preferences. If those personal conclusions are allowed to resemble club policy, where will it end? Do we tell people where they can live or work? What they should do with their free time? How many children are carbon sustainable for a family?

On club runs I've listened to all shades of political thought and opinions on most topics while realising they in no way represent Club thinking. Once something like food choice is seen as synonymous with cycle touring in an official forum we're going down a very exclusive and PC view of cycling.

Exactly! and thats (as far as I can tell) what the OP was alluding to. The CTC (Cycle Touring Club) was a cycling club last time I looked at any rate,

I think this whole thread is blown out of proportion, on the one hand we've got the issue of someone "preaching" a "short sermon". To me the emphasis is on "short". I go to lots of conferences and there are lots of people who stand up and "preach" things I don't or only partially agree with, often I don't feel they have any relevance at all. Seems to me the OP took offence and allowed himself to get wound up about it.

On the other hand there's the CTC's stance on all this - that's a different issue. You could argue that people like the 'preacher' are trying to change this - and imo as members then that is their prerogative. Like all organisations the CTC is a group of people with their own agenda's and if the majority want something then I'm afraid the remaining minority either allow it or vote with their feet.
However, ultimately I can't imagine the CTC ever having a stance on peoples diet and I suspect that wasn't the 'preachers' intent, I reckon he'd organised what he considered a decent meat free meal and was simply using the time he'd been given to tell people.

On the other hand selling the green issues of cycling as ONE of the good aspects is most definitely a good thing imo and the CTC is right to do so.

A lot of this thread is simply taken up with the fact that only one option was provided - and a non-meat version at that. Well I'm afraid that's tough, but welcome to the world of the vegetarian - I've lost count of the times I *can't* eat at all, let alone have the choice of something I may consider inferior.
This issue is actually a far more 'tea-shop' - "should events cater for every food group" type thread.

[glueman]

The reason the CTC has continued to receive my subs for nigh on 30 years is in the title. I appreciate there has long been a campaigning strand to the club's work and there's an increasing emphasis on the metropolitan utility agenda. Nonetheless I view CTC principally as a cyclists' touring club, a way of getting people to see the world (whether that be beyond their own suburb or across the Nullabor Plain) under their own steam. Everything else is at the service of that agenda.

The menu provider for the conference should have made no ideological assumptions about the delegates ideas on food, less used them as a group bonding device. If for whatever reason he felt himself compelled to provide a vegetarian only menu, some light hearted banter about bearing with his choices and a hope people enjoyed the nosh, rather than a polemic attendees hadn't signed up for, may have been appropriate.

[kwackers]

The reason the CTC has continued to receive my subs for nigh on 30 years is in the title. I appreciate there has long been a campaigning strand to the club's work and there's an increasing emphasis on the metropolitan utility agenda. Nonetheless I view CTC principally as a cyclists' touring club, a way of getting people to see the world (whether that be beyond their own suburb or across the Nullabor Plain) under their own steam. Everything else is at the service of that agenda.

This is the bit where it gets interesting for me, should I not be a member? After all touring is something I only toy with doing, I'm primarily a utility / commuter cyclist who's primary concern is what can the CTC do to make things better for cyclists in general. I wonder how many of the CTC's members are like me? Is that ratio changing?

[Si]

Everything else is at the service of that agenda.

I tend to agree with this (i.e. that the CTC should be about cycling in it's various forms). Green/vegan issues might help to lure some to cycling, thus there should be no harm in using it in these cases. But they might put some off (as in the OP) thus they they should be avoided in those cases. They are just tools that might be used for promoting cycling and shouldn't be allowed to take priority over the cycling within the CTC.

The menu provider for the conference should have made no ideological assumptions about the delegates ideas on food, less used them as a group bonding device. If for whatever reason he felt himself compelled to provide a vegetarian only menu, some light hearted banter about bearing with his choices and a hope people enjoyed the nosh, rather than a polemic attendees hadn't signed up for, may have been appropriate.

Bang on the money. I'd have no problem with someone telling me a bit about veganism in a gentle/light hearted/informal way, but I would object to them trying to ram it down my throat - if you'll forgive the pun. Perhaps it's the difference between someone explainig why they have made their choices, and someone telling you what choices you should make?

[kwackers]

The menu provider for the conference should have made no ideological assumptions about the delegates ideas on food, less used them as a group bonding device. If for whatever reason he felt himself compelled to provide a vegetarian only menu, some light hearted banter about bearing with his choices and a hope people enjoyed the nosh, rather than a polemic attendees hadn't signed up for, may have been appropriate.

Nothing wrong with a broad range of topics. Obviously not being there I can't tell whether his spiel was over the top, in my experience though most people blow their grievances up well beyond anything that actually happened. Perhaps it was half a dozen of one and twelve of the other? The OP was incensed and overreacted, the 'preacher' thinking it was just light hearted banter...

[CJ]

"A "green" forum where some boff like me was obsessed with cycling?" - Hey, they'd love you for all that knowledge Thirdcrank.

Actually I did once attend a conference on sustainable transport a few years ago, where cyclists and cycling tended to dominate. In the Q&A after the morning session one of the atendees raised their hand in objection. She didn't want to ride a bike and felt very strongly that she should not need to ride a bike, since she, like most of the UK population, lived in a big built-up area where a combination of walking and public transport could and mostly did fulfill all of her transport needs. So she was getting rather fed up with all this stuff about cycling!

She made a valid point and it made me think. In built-up areas public transport and walking are potentially a complete solution for the majority of the population. It's actually the countryside, where people are too thinly spread for viable and frequent mass transit, that the bicycle really comes into its own.

Speaking of communism, that was precisely the transport situation we found on a cycling tour we made in Poland in the 1980s: lots of bikes in the countryside and none at all in the cities, but lots of very cheap trams and buses. Some of the Polish cyclists we spoke to (for the first week of our trip we attended an AIT Rally in Silesia, so we met lots of them) opined that the authorities actually discouraged cycling in cities, although the means they employed was not clear - apart from a complete lack of parking or other facilities and littering the streets with lethal tramlines. (Parallels with the People's Republic of South Yorkshire may seem ironic at this point!) Anyway: the politics of using bicycles in an urban context would appear to be more right than left. Just look at Ken and Boris.

But I've drifted off my original point, which is to agree with Thirdcrank that where cycling is the issue, no one reason to cycle or style of cycling, should be so strongly promoted as to obscure all the others.

[CREPELLO]

But I've drifted off my original point, which is to agree with Thirdcrank that where cycling is the issue, no one reason to cycle or style of cycling, should be so strongly promoted as to obscure all the others.

...my understanding is that a meeting about the promotion of cycling was said to have been hijacked by what I've termed a "subsidiary" interest. If somebody wants to know about promoting cycling, what we might call the green benefits are just one of the aspects to be considered, as well as physical fitness, self-esteem, companionship, economy (a doubtful one for some ) competition, and probably more (there's a whole thread running on reasons for cycling.) Emphasise any one of those benefits to the exclusion of everything else and you risk losing a lot of people (and alienating some who agree with you.)

So I've emphised too much maybe. Perhaps, but not exclusively. This is the Campaigns and policy board, is it not? We are able to debate and analyse a subsiduary topic without loosing sight of the whole picture? Forgive me if you thought I'd done otherwise.

I've felt the need to highlight what's previously been said, because I sensed that thirdcrank seemed to be implying that I'm first an environmentalist and that I'm seen as rather hijacking the forum to simply promote my political views above those of cycling. Or perhaps he was simply refering to the Vegan at the cycle conference. I didn't read it that way. The

All this talk about whether Mr Vegan should have said this or that is a complete red herring. Ru88ell also went on to state that in general he found the emphasis on the environmental attributes of the bicycle off putting. I've read other comments by cyclists on here say they couldn't give a flying fig whether cycling was green or not - they do it for other reasons. Okay, it is their choice. But what I am arguing is that we should be able to promote cycling as a wonderful form of transport that is also a safe and environmentally friendly choice to make. To those here that are not really interested in being green, I just want to assure you that what you are doing is still a good choice for your environment and that you should really be feeling good about that.

By the way, in the hierarchy of priority for transport choice, the pedestrian comes first, above the cyclist, so I can perfectly well understand why the woman at the green meeting felt affronted by the dominance of cycling on the agenda.

[jan19]

Slightly off-topic...

I've just been on a 2-day course (you really don't want to know about what for...) and at lunch each day we had three choices. On day 1, 2 choices were (I think) vegan,(mushroom risotto and vegetable chilli) one was fish. On day 2, there was a vegan, a vegetarian (I think as I suppose the sauce was made with milk) and a meat option. Vegtables and salad were also available.

Now I was slightly surprised that two choices were non-meat, especially as most people seemed to go for the non-veggie option. To my surprise I went each day for the non-meat option. On day 1, I was having a similar meal for my supper so went for a different option, and on day 2 I just really fancied the pasta.

Nobody preached, but in light of the OP it did make me think many of us will each pretty much anything, especially if its nicely presented (which it was).

had to evaluate the course at the end of it - the catering got the highest mark

Jan

[kwackers]

Slightly off-topic...

I've just been on a 2-day course (you really don't want to know about what for...) and at lunch each day we had three choices. On day 1, 2 choices were (I think) vegan,(mushroom risotto and vegetable chilli) one was fish. On day 2, there was a vegan, a vegetarian (I think as I suppose the sauce was made with milk) and a meat option. Vegtables and salad were also available.

Now I was slightly surprised that two choices were non-meat, especially as most people seemed to go for the non-veggie option. To my surprise I went each day for the non-meat option. On day 1, I was having a similar meal for my supper so went for a different option, and on day 2 I just really fancied the pasta.

Nobody preached, but in light of the OP it did make me think many of us will each pretty much anything, especially if its nicely presented (which it was).

had to evaluate the course at the end of it - the catering got the highest mark

Jan

I think the majority of people these days are a bit more 'enlightened' than to assume that a 'proper' meal has to have meat in it.

Where I work, we sometimes need to do overtime and the company bring in a chef to make the food on an evening, he makes both a meat and a vegetarian option, interestingly as a general rule people split up roughly 50:50 on which they take and yet the number of vegetarians is probably just a few percent.

Good food is good food, the only time it needs to be an issue is if you have intolerance of the ingredients or belong to a group that has moral, religious etc objections.

[reohn2]

..............Good food is good food, the only time it needs to be an issue is if you have intolerance of the ingredients or belong to a group that has moral, religious etc objections

The whole point here is,it seems to me,that someone stood up to tell people how(by way of a short sermon) veganism is the way people "should" be eating.
Its the words "short sermon" which make all the difference.
Its simple, people don't like having a righteous drum banger by the side of their head!
That, after 13 pages is the point!
Oh and the fact that it was a bl@@dy cycling convention.

[thirdcrank]

If you'll excuse the pun, it's the difference between offering people a choice and ramming your own prefernces down their throat, and that applies to a lot more than food. IMO.

[kwackers]

The words "short sermon" were chosen by the OP to be deliberately provocative. Doesn't really have weight if he said, "they served vegan food and then someone told us why!".

As for choice, well would the world be perfect roast Siberian tiger would have been on the menu. IMO, a single choice does seem a bit mean spirited but then I'm not the person that planned it and can only presume they had their reasons.
I'm sure a letter asking why and sent to the relevant person would yield far better results than a rant on a forum.

As for "it was a bl@@dy cycling convention" my response is; And?
Since we've already established that some of us do in fact cycle for green reasons and cycling does indeed have some green merit then shouldn't a convention cater for us too? Or does choice only count when it suits?

[reohn2]

The words "short sermon" were chosen by the OP to be deliberately provocative. Doesn't really have weight if he said, "they served vegan food and then someone told us why!".

As for choice, well would the world be perfect roast Siberian tiger would have been on the menu. IMO, a single choice does seem a bit mean spirited but then I'm not the person that planned it and can only presume they had their reasons.
I'm sure a letter asking why and sent to the relevant person would yield far better results than a rant on a forum.

As for "it was a bl@@dy cycling convention" my response is; And?
Since we've already established that some of us do in fact cycle for green reasons and cycling does indeed have some green merit then shouldn't a convention cater for us too? Or does choice only count when it suits?

You've missed the point again.

[kwackers]

You've missed the point again.

Have I?

You mean this?

Its simple, people don't like having a righteous drum banger by the side of their head!

If so, I think you'll find I both know that and I haven't...