drossall wrote:I'm kind of puzzled by this line of argument. I have read that the Council are all directors of the CTC. As such don't they have (legally) a collective responsibility for the decisions made, in spite of personal opinion, and a duty to promote the path that they are recommending?
Perhaps someone more expert in company law could advise?
In any case, they all seem to be referring to the pages on the CTC site, which in turn highlight the debate here. If I were being underhand, I wouldn't have done that...
Directors don't have 'collective responsibility'. That's a political thing - think 'three line whip'.
Directors have an individual responsibility to act in the best interests of the shareholders - in this case the members. They have a legal obligation to ask probing questions and to not just 'follow the herd'...
I am a councillor. I am against these proposals at this time, because I do not believe that they are in the best interests of members. Therefore, I am making my views known.
I must admit to being almost impressed by the co-ordination. E-mails sent to members from Inverness to Dover in less than ten minutes.
There can be no argument that councillors have a responsibility to get in touch with members and explain themselves - but certain questions present themselves
- some Councillors and not others were invited to send script to National Office. Is this fair? - will those Councillors who were not invited and who have now asked for the e-mail addresses for their regions be granted their wish? (and this is the best one) - did all the Councillors who submitted script appreciate what was going to happen?
Simon L6 wrote: - some Councillors and not others were invited to send script to National Office. Is this fair?
Once it became evident that was the case - the moment tame councillor's opinions were posted on message boards - it was also clear this debate had moved on from individual preference about future direction to something rather important. The exec was prepared to soil an independent magazine and turn it into the pamphlet which dropped through the letterbox in the same post: a picture of Dave Cameron with his sleeves rolled up and tie tucked in talking to old ladies in hospital.
As all similar party political junk goes straight in the recycling, the second skim through of the magazine lit every word within it in the same grubby light.
My councillor has done a mass email shot a couple of times before. In this case he was just introducing himself and asking people to get in touch with him concerning their thoughts and opinions - I see nothing wrong with this, indeed, I welcomed his attempt to find out what the membership wanted.
Then we get the charity email - this one is different, it's not asking us what we think but telling us what to think and how to act. I was not at all impressed with this.
But then I started thinking...what if the email had been about a different subject? For instance, what if it had been a plea for the membership to complain about the problems with the membership renewal system? Again, this would have been telling us how to think/act, but I'm sure that a lot of us wouldn't have been so upset by it?
However, the deciding factor for me was that when certain people have raised the membership renewal system issue they have done so by listing the problems in fairly neutral terms, and thus approaching it in a constructive manner. The charity email, on the other hand, ignores that actual 'anti' issues, merely stating that "they do not stand up to scrutiny" without subjecting them to any kind of scrutiny. It then tries to support the yes-vote by attempting to link it with events that have no obvious link to it. And it finishes off by just trying to rubbish the opposition by making out that they are a small minority of trouble makers, and it borders on accusing them of lying.
It's also somewhat disheartening that the Yes campaign has made a big thing about the level playing field of letting Simon write a page in Cycle but has then gone and taken advantage of the membership's email address lists to quickly counter Simon's article in a way that Simon can not reply to.
Just gives the impression that council is dictating rather than representing members' views. As I said elsewhere, if we had become a charity then fair enough - I could have lived with it. But the way that council has conducted this campaign really has caused me to start to consider the contribution that I make to the CTC.
All of the above Si, plus the fact half the country's members have now been alienated from their councillors. What good will become of that piece of business we wonder?
Yep - we also had the one from the Yorkshire councillor too - pretty much in the same tone (albeit attached as a word document to an email he sent)
In fact, I would go as far as to say it was less of a reasoned discussion as to why, but an assassination of Simon's article in Cycle along with a 'you must do this if you know what's good for you' rant.
Yes, the Yorkshire councillor's comments have been posted in full elsewhere on this board Mark. It's going to make for an uncomfortable time however the vote goes - a Yes will mean loyal servants and the rest on council, a No will put pro-charity email'ers in an unenviable position, namely representing a system they have no faith in and indulging in questionable tactics to force the vote.
I think a decision to ride a bike as a deliberate choice in a modern society especially somewhere hostile to cycling like the UK says a lot about somebody. I imagine many of us have been at a public meeting where some highwayman or similar has chosen to equate cycling with a children's activity and tried treating cyclists as though they were children and then wished the floor might open to swallow them. People like the snivelling Parris have been surprised by the depth of feeling provoked by poorly chosen words about cyclists. I don't know how representative this forum is of CTC members or cyclists more generally in terms of levels of knowledge but you could ask a question on here about all sorts quite unconnected with cycling and get a well-informed set of replies PDQ.
How sad then, when people who really ought to know better come up with this sort of stuff or use these sorts of tactics. It's just insensitive and clumsy. And almost certainly counter-productive.
"some Councillors and not others were invited to send script to National Office. Is this fair?"
Are you saying that those councilors who are not supporting the movement have not got access to the mailing list for their region in the way that those who have sent out these emails have?
meic wrote:"some Councillors and not others were invited to send script to National Office. Is this fair?"
Are you saying that those councilors who are not supporting the movement have not got access to the mailing list for their region in the way that those who have sent out these emails have?
this is my belief
- some councillors were invited to send script to the National Office - but John Meudell and Greg Price were not invited. I don't know about Helen Vecht. - the script was then mass-mailed by National Office to the membership in the relevant regions - London, being represented by Greg Price and Helen Vecht didn't receive an e-mail. The e-mail to members in the Southeast was not signed by John Meudell (obviously) - Greg and John have now asked for the e-mail list of members in their respective regions so that they can e-mail members. - I believe that at least one Councillor who was asked to provide the script was not aware that it would be e-mailed to members in his region
Regulator wrote:Directors don't have 'collective responsibility'. That's a political thing - think 'three line whip'.
Again, I'm not going to push this too far. I was simply trying to understand the position that says that Councillors will promote the decision reached by Council. However, for examples of what I mean from other organisations, which may or may not be comparable, try section 14.4 here and section 3 here.
A message has been received by some members in another part of the country, and which seems to me to have been written for a similar purpose to the one initially featured in this thread.
I have posted that message on a new thread titled "Another Message to Report".
My email came from Richard Bates, who is apparently an SE Councillor. It's quite obscurely-written, to the point where it's not clear at all why he thinks we should all vote Yes. Phrases like "to match cycling in the 21st century", and "an organisation that matches cycling aspirations" don't actually mean anything. My favourite line is: "Charity Status sends out the message to the public of what we are about." Right. And the message the public sends back will be: "Yeah, whatever."
Personally I'm all for proper charitable status for the club, but if my Councillor can't make a coherent case for it then I do have to wonder.
I don't mind my regional Councillors having access to my email address provided they're going to use it responsibly. I'm not impressed if this is the first time they've seen fit to use the facility. Richard is supposed to represent the interests of members in the south east: if he wanted to do something constructive with email he could have canvassed our views on the subject before he voted in Council, rather than lecturing us after the event.
AndyK wrote:................regional Councillors .............supposed to represent the interests of members in the south east: if he wanted to do something constructive with email he could have canvassed our views on the subject before he voted in Council, rather than lecturing us after the event.
AndyK wrote:................regional Councillors .............supposed to represent the interests of members in the south east: if he wanted to do something constructive with email he could have canvassed our views on the subject before he voted in Council, rather than lecturing us after the event.
Good point Andy.
I am afraid that the attitude of many Council members is that they have been elected and therefore they should take the decisions without further reference to the membership. On a number of occasions I have made suggestions about engaging the membership and enfranchising them. The response has been overwhelmingly that 'Council knows best'.
A small number of councillors had to fight hard to get any form of consultation on the current charity issue - there were councillors of the view that it was nothing to do with the membership and that council should just 'get on with it'. It was only when they realised they'd have to get the consent of the membership for any change that they changed their tune.
I suppose the fact that a number of Councillors are former local politicians might explain the disconnection from their 'electorate'...
