Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

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Absolutely! Differing views within a board should be encouraged so long as once a majority decision is reached everyone on the board accepts it. I also agree that ignoring members' wishes is bound to create problems including loss of financial and other support. It's not something that should be done lightly but as 21B pointed out there can be admittedly extreme circumstances where the trustees don't "ignore" members' wishes......it's just that their duty as trustees may be that they should not to implement them. If as, suggested by 21B, the trustees don't succeed in explaining and convincing the members why something should not be done, but the members still vote that it must, then, if the trustees judge that going ahead is not in the best interests of the charity they should not proceed. It's not a case of ignoring the members wishes, rather it's that their duty to act in the best interests of the charity takes precedence.

 

Whether true or not it has been mentioned that the changes wanted by some of the current trustee's will fall in line with how @Lineisclear has mentioned on many an occasion that the trustee's will have the power to choose/ remove other trustee's as they feel fit and the members will have no say

 

But a successful board - and the skill of a good Chair - is to bring people together in pursuit of common goals, rather than leading a faction on the basis that "I've got the votes, bugger off", @Lineisclear .

Your repeated proposition of acquiescence or resignation is humbug under these circumstances, especially when the Trustees retire by rotation. In the L&B's case, two of the three Trustees elected by the Members this year stood on a reform platform, suggesting that the Membership's views are far from 100% behind the existing Trustees.

Rather than build consensus behind the shared goal of extending the railway - something that everyone agrees on, making your repeated legalistic incantation of 'but what if the Charity's objects conflict with the Members' wishes' is purely a canard - the current Chair and his friends have a track record of:

• abusing their power (e.g., keeping Anne Belsey's valid nomination off the ballot),
• pursuing personal vendettas using Trust funds t0 the tune of thousands of pounds (against Anne Belsey again),
• refusing to work with their newly elected colleaguesand then not meeting for months
• lying to the members about the resources available for the extension
• illegitimately making loans at a sub-market rate to a trading subsidiary in contravention of the CC gudiance
  
• wasting more Trust funds in mailshotting an inaccurate and libelous "letter" to the membership

Is this the sort of behaviour Trustees in a minority should simply acquiesce with or resign? Time to remove the rose tinted glasses, John.

 

So for an ordinary member who voted for reform trustees, what are they doing? How are the three discharging their responsibilities? They are in a position to force the issue ref meetings and they could galvanise members into an EGM. They have had 6 months....

 

Well, you'd have to ask them, Ian. But the amount of important information that is now available to us Members as a result of the Minority Reports is a very signifciant achievement, and has empowered us as Members to understand what the actual choices we face. The fact that the 'six' continue to propogate at best misleading data (see the section on LBBC/OSHI in the "letter") and to waste Trust money on it, tells me that the reformists are making progress. Keep going!

 

As i understand it, trustees retire by rotation, Can the members vote in other trustees each time, and oust the 5 people that way over time, it would take three new trustees to remove their advantage of numbers,and give reformers the advantage, possibly to oust the remaining two, then sack the secretary.

 

Yes they can, but.....that idea is dependant on (a) suitable 'new' candidates putting themselves forward for election and (b) them actually getting elected. Nothing is guaranteed....

 

This also brings into action the use of proxy votes and how they are handled, IMHO no trustee or CIC director should be allowed to use proxy votes

 

If in the future there are to be free and fair elections, then this whole process needs to go out to an independent 3rd party.

 

Membership of a charity can bring real benefits both to the work of the charity and for society more generally. When a charity's members are active in shaping the agenda and objectives of their charity, the trustee body is refreshed and its accountability to its members is improved. Membership charities which are effectively run can also enable individuals to be more involved in their local communities and can contribute to fulfilling the Government's agenda to increase individual participation in civil society.

This is from the CC book RS7

 

My understanding is that, where the key decisions are concerned, collective responsibility is not engaged because the trustees in question were not party to those decisions as the meetings preceded their terms of office. We also have the odd position that, since the last election, only one board meeting has been held, and that this was inconclusive because one (old) trustee refused to work with one or more of the “three”.

I was not aware that any trustee had veto power over decisions, or whom they might work with. It also seems rather more pressing a matter than the fine print of the legal limits to what members may or may not approve at a general meeting - especially where trustees are using charitable resources to emit personal propaganda.


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No board of trustees should ever find itself at loggerheads with the membership, and if it does then the principal fault is most likely to lie with the trustees.

Is that a bold statement? I don’t think so, because my experience is that ordinary members also want what is best for the organisation. Where serious and lasting differences of opinion occur they are usually the result of poor or completely missing communication and consultation. Trustees have the information and it is their responsibility to communicate that to their members.

Often the disagreements between trustees and members would be avoided in trustees were better communicators.

So what to do about the L and B though? Here we have a membership which is increasingly concerned that the trustees are not willing (in 6 instances) or not able (in 3) to act in the best interests of the charity.

There is no doubt in my mind that the governance of the L and B has ceased to function at all. It was never very robust I feel as there are many policy and procedural gaps. The great tragedy is of course that if the trustees weren’t so insecure (a sign so often of incompetence) they would find plenty of help available from with the membership.

 

@RailWest recently quoted part of the Charitable objectives of the Trust:
"..To advance the education of the public .... by the acquisition, restoration, preservation, creation and exhibition of railway locomotives, carriages, rolling stock, equipment, artefacts, documents and records, together with any appropriate land, buildings and structures in particular but not exclusively those of the former Lynton & Barnstaple Railway in Devonshire ('the railway') and to provide educational and training facilities to those engaged in the restoration and operation of the railway or railways generally..."

My offer to one of the Trustees to sponsor accurate lamps on the coach currently being constructed has been declined. As this was designed to fulfil the objects of the Trust I have ceased my donations towards restoring the carriages (or anything else) until this attitude changes. Meanwhile the Yeo Valley Trust seems a worthwhile destination for the few hundred pounds of the recently enhanced interest on my savings.

 

That sounds like a very understandable and pragmatic reaction to current events, Michael. Of course, now I may well get blamed for 'encouraging' you to support some organisation other than the Trust

Recent rate rises on savings interest has yielded a little bit of 'extra cash' for me too, which - under other circumstances - might well have gone towards (say) the restoration of the ex-BT signal-box (no surprises there!), but certainly not until there is far greater clarity about its future. At the moment it is hard not to get the impression that the task is being approached in a "make it up as we go along" manner, rather than by adherance to a well-defined structured plan. Now I know there will be those who will say "but we've only just got it, it needs time to make a plan", but....the existence of this structure has been known for a long time and I would have expected it to be reasonably high on the list of "L&BR relics we would like to acquire if/when we can", so it would seem prudent IMHO to have had at least some form of basic plan already drawn up 'just in case'.

 

Yes, but you must remember, as mentioned elsewhere, that

 

I can't "like" that; I respect it tremendously, but can only mourn the attitudes that gave rise to it.

 

And, if the 'secret 6' were consistent, then you should expect the same kind of abhorrent, unjust treatment that Anne received. Lets hope they've learned their lesson and that doesn't happen.

 

Hiya Michael,

I don't want to cause upset because I have huge respect for you being one of the fantastic walking encyclopedias of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway. I am so looking forward to seeing your finished books!

I do though feel I need to give a bit more of a background to the lamp tops as it makes it sound as though there was a flat refusal to entertain your very generous offer of having more accurate representations of the lamp tops mentioned.

Your offer has been known and considered for some time, mainly left to the Trustee in question to make the final decision on what we use and where but we have had a couple of informal in house discussions on the lamp tops in general too.

Some years ago a lamp top was found squashed. The lamp top was reconstructed and from that one we had a fair number reproduced. These were made with funds raised within the East Group. Carriage 9 uses up the last last of those lamp tops which we have had in stock, which although are not perfectly accurate, have been paid for by donations etc.

As far as I know the Trustee has said to you that your very kind generous offer would be put to use on Number 1, which then apart from being the grand affair that it already is, would also be the first to sport the very fine accurate lamp tops.

In time, as funds allow, perhaps the existing carriages, including 9, can then have the refined lamp tops retrofitted.

In the big scheme of things we do try and make sure we are as accurate as we possibly can be with the carriages, but in this instance that accuracy wasn't quite right. But we do have to think on the funds that have already been spent now some 10 years ago now with donations from our group and by many who are now no longer with us. It does seem silly for them to go to complete waste.


More generally to all, it was a real treat to catch up with everyone I could over the Open Forum/Armistice Weekend. Old friends, new friends, tea, cake, pasties, rain, wind, sun, the usual for North Devon!

Very busy now so won't be here much, lots to do! Til next time!



Edit:Spelling

 

If I were to be a trustee I would be frustrated if I were asked to be involved in the minutiae of carriage lamp pots. The role of a trustee is to enable and govern. It is not to act as micromanagement. The only circumstances in which they should have had any involvement was if this was the first instance of needing to consider trust policy where the opportunity to replace an older less accurate “thing” with a more accurate one had come up. Otherwise there should be a policy about this that the organisation can follow. If this is the level of detail the trustees involve themselves in it is no wonder the railway hasn’t edged forwards by so much as an inch in 16years!

 

Given which trustee I assume this to be, and without supporting the decision, that is both legitimate criticism of the structure and a little unfair on the trustee in question - he has recently been awarded the BEM specifically for his work on the carriage fleet.