Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I am treasurer for a couple of membership organisations and it can take months for renewing members to pay their membership fees - in some cases we are still chasing payments 6 months later. It is also very easy to miss an email where a member states that they are not renewing.

 

Perfectly legally. It’s for the purpose of managing the organisation and, in the absence of a formal resignation, the trust could not be aware of the intent to resign.

This is why, when I decided not to renew membership of another society, I emailed to advise that I would not be renewing. It saved me post and them admin.

If I’d wanted to be petty, their sending me a copy of their magazine a year later might have constituted a GDPR breach. Recognising the reasons given by @hcloutt, I let that pass with an “are you sure” email.


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Further to my previous comments about a Trust from which I 'resigned' (by not renewing), for at least 2 years thereafter they kept sending me raffle tickets to sell! It turned out that the raffle was organised by a member who held his own copy of the membership list for that purpose, but when the MemSec took my name off the 'master list' either no-one told the raffle organiser or he failed to action any updates from them. It make me wonder therefore how many copies may exist of the L&BRT membership list and who holds them and for what purpose.

 

I agree. Endorsement is a guide, but one amongst several available to any member willing to read the materials provided. There is plenty of information available to help assess the candidates, and the impact that they are likely to have on the Trust.

Where the board have provided endorsements, they have to be considered in the context of the board making the recommendations. As others have suggested, that is a negative for me and so I’ve looked more widely at the profiles, especially the extended profiles.

Personally, I’ve voted for 4 of the 5 new candidates. With governance a key concern, I could not vote for someone who has been part of the problems of the last few years, no matter how important a contribution he’s made over decades.

Of the other 5 candidates, who all appear to have a lot to offer, I’ve then been brutally ageist with three of my choices, and purposely gone for candidates still in paid work - a board comprised of a single demographic (in this case retired men) is dangerously at risk of groupthink. All three are excellent candidates, combining valuable professional skills with excellent heritage railway knowledge. That logic, with the emphasis on governance, also leads me to place my final vote with Jose Kimber over Ric Auger, both because she has governance experience, and because Ric Auger’s statement has too many echoes of previous missives from “the six” in its emphasis on board discipline.


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Exactly. I found the comments about 'board' behaviour telling.

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That question also occurs to me - but is I suspect a common issue for many membership organisations. From church experience, there are a number of companies selling systems that will hold contact details; the two key hurdles are money and understanding of how to use the capability most effectively.

 

Rob, thank you for your open and honest take on this matter. Whilst as others point out, is is not unusual to see charity Trustee candidates recommended by an incumbent Board, I think in this case, and where we have a very divided membership, it would have been prudent for the current Trustees not to express a preference.
I wish you and Giles well in the forthcoming vote and I hope that your chances of success have not been adversely affected by endorsement from a Board that many members see as damaged and discredited.

 

Democracy in action seems to be evident - choices properly made - most refreshing. Let's hope we end up with 5 'good' people as Trustees on May 11th, to sort out a sensible way forward. Or is that wishful thinking ?

 

I fear that it may be wishful thinking. Normally, I'd say that an AGM of a parent company shouldn't get into detail on a subsidiary - it has/should have it's own AGM, and the accounts go to it's shareholders.

However, this situation is slightly different in that the Trust is massively exposed to OSI and, if I were of cynical cast of mind, the meeting timings are such as to prevent feedback from OSI feeding into discussion at the level of the Trust.

 

In this situation I'd be expecting to get monthly management accounts.

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Except that we are only electing 4.

 

As an individual shareholder in OSHI, possibly. As a member of L&BRT, where the Trust is the parent, that responsibility devolves to the board - with all the concerns that associate to that.

 

The assumption must be that there is already one 'good' trustee in-post.

 

I read the original comment as 5 trustees being elected.

 

I’m dropping this here as an example of just how good a restoration project website can be …

If only the L & B factions could get together and produce something similar (apologies if they already have).


https://chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk/restoration/new-restoration-sections/

 

True, but.....there is already 1 on the Board whom most of us would regard as 'good', so 4 + 1 = 5

 

I don't think that adding to the catalogue of morally dubious behaviour will help anybody.

I just hope that this is not another example of incompetent administration that results in an expensive rerun yet again

 

Per my earlier post, I'm inclined to give the Trust a bye on this one - and also to want it to be fixed going forward so that there can't be any ambiguity.

 

My point precisely - Mike Whiteacre, already a Trustee, pitched in to be Chairman for the dismissals resolutions, convinced me that he is level headed, and that I might be able to rely upon him to be one of the 'good' guys. A potential 'permanent' Chairman, supported by 4 new appointments, hopefully.

 

But if the Treasurer has to get the accounts produced by an Accountancy Firm, is he up to producing management accounts for Board meetings ? (monthly is probably unnecessary)