West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Do the webcams at Minehead station work? If they could be pointed at the former GM's office, it would make for a great new episode of WSR TV - "Chairmanwatch Live: The re-writing of history. The warping of logic. The burning of bridges. A fast-paced tragicomedy from the makers of Some Fathers Do 'Ave 'Em"

 

Based on the documents published by the Plc, they show absolutely amazing foresight on the part of the Plc board not to transfer the agreed funds to the WSRA on 31 December 2019, knowing they could use the then unknown and unforeseen Covid-19 pandemic and lock-down as an excuse for withholding those funds. Really!! Why/how did the rest of the world not see this coming?

Even Clinton's denial of his relationship with Monica Lewinski is more believable than the excuse offered by the Plc.

It's such a shame that the WSR's committed body of employees, volunteers and supporters are being mislead and let down - they deserve better.

 

The WSRA has been expressing a degree of concern in it's board minutes concerning the WSR PLC - over maintenance of the Quantock Belle coaching stock.

As to today and yesterday's events, some lawyers will recognise a manufactured dispute of this sort in other scenarios. I am not suggesting that this is a manufactured dispute in this case.

Not related to the above, 'performing' a contract does not necessarily have 'time of the essence', neither does it require a contract to be paid at the point of transfer of products, stock, or asssets.

 

The more the WSRA promotions saga unfolds the more you begin to question what could have happened here. Given the full, frank and honest letter from the WSRA chairman yesterday I truly believe that the issue must reside with the PLC. I cannot see the WSRA proceeding with the sale / transfer of the assets earlier this year without some form of written evidence from the PLC’s accountant. Transfer of stock and the TUPE of staff to the PLC was done in good faith that the money was there to be transferred. I would have expected the money to have been held in ESCROW, ready to be released on completion of a stock take (is this the 1%). I can’t imagine this was not done.

All this was pre Covid-19 by more than 3 months. Many businesses would love to have 120 day credit terms, for the plc to extend this to now 240 days is far beyond that of any company, let alone a charity.

There appears to be far more to this than a simple accounting error.

 

I can't like your post John but from catching up with the last few pages, I can't help but agree.

 

I will add:This does not apply to The GWR 813 Fund.

 

Mention of the QB in fairly recent WSRA board meeting minutes also referred to efforts to obtain their overdue 50% share of the dining train's 2019 trading profit from the plc. This payment should have been made as per the terms of a 3-year (2017-2019) QB operating agreement, the proceeds due to go entirely towards last winter's QB maintenance costs.

I've no idea whether due payment was subsequently made but don't recall seeing any reference to the matter being resolved. A new operating agreement also appeared to be outstanding. The new business model would have likely required a re-write.

 

I don't think anyone wishes for the plc to go down, nor the support organisations, or SDRT, etc etc

However, there have to be concerns as to the suitability of plc Directors, & WSRA/WSSRT Directors & Trustees that keep being either elected or appointed, & that is the responsibility of shareholders & members.


Rodders/Rodney was a Director & Trustee of the WSRA (a registered charity!) & a Director of the plc, & he seems to have no knowledge as to what those roles involve & the responsibilities that go with them.

The newest Director at the plc has been appointed by the board, not elected by shareholders. He is already surely busy enough being Secretary & Vice Chair of the WSSRT?
He had already been a plc Director for 5 years prior to June 2017. Did 2 stints at the WSRA.

Similar with MS, previously had a 26+ year stint on the plc board. 13 years at the WSRA.


At the WSSRT;
the Chair has been on the board for 10 years, & did at least 18years on the plc board.
another board member has 26years, & at the same time managed 3years on the plc & 2years at the WSRA.
It's similar with most of them.
The WSSRT has about 70 members (& declining), yet it's considered important enough to get a seat on the plc board.


The WSRA has about 4000 members, but also declining. (they have more members turn up at an AGM than the WSSRT has in total)


This went well didn't it
https://www.west-somerset-railway.co.uk/news/detail/board-director-vacancies
"We are keen to attract candidates that can extend the diversity of the current board"
10/12/2019


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If the members, & shareholders, want the changes that need to happen to actually happen, they have to stop putting back in charge the very people that are either responsible for the problems facing the whole of the WSR, or did nothing to fix the problems when they were last in charge.
There is no moving forwards if you keep doing the same things over & over & over again.

 

What would be the outcome if an administrator then received an offer to buy the PLC out of administration? (Is that called a pre-pack?) Would the existing shareholdings have been extinguished? Just musing aloud.
Pat

 

Well I've noted on several occasions he has referred to it as ''My office'' on facebook...

I find it quite interesting a volunteer director/chairman position has a paid member of staff as his PA. Is this normal practice in other railway organisations, or other non-railway organisations with a similar setup?

 

Methinks the phrase "In our view, with a constructive approach it will be possible to speedily resolve this matter to the satisfaction of both parties.” is a bit of an oxymoron; which party to date has shown the least constructive approach ? IMHO "a constructive approach" does not include obfuscation; partial truths and blackguarding those who seek to make contact in order to facilitate a "constructive approach".

 

Apologies for the thread drift, but as a small business owner I can tell you that it's not uncommon to find much larger companies which you supply have ways to stretch the normal 30 day terms out as far as they want - technical rejections of invoices, change of outsourced accounting units, obscure sign off chains, we never got it (often contradicting early confirmations they had), the dog ate it, etc, etc, etc. Quite frankly I don't know how some people can sleep soundly in their beds at night...

 

On my work computer, the user accounts are set up so that metadata like that is specific to the logged in user. That is rather important, not least as a way to ensure some traceability of who has done what in the event of dispute. By the same token, using other people’s user ids and recycling account credentials is an absolute no no.

And as the metadata shows that the software is subscription based, the argument that it’s just been carried forward from the previous user of the computer doesn’t entirely convince.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I suspect that the WSR IT setup is not as well run as your workplace. The only Paul I know of who has been associated with WSR management in the last few years was the former GM.

Not absolute proof, I agree, but pretty likely in my view.

Sent from my SM-T590 using Tapatalk

 

Richard I feel you have no idea what being a director involves,

When you become a director your legal responsibility is to the company that you are a director to. This means you are unable to share information and have to abide by corporate responsibility. This simply put means that if a director of the PLC is a trustee of the WSRA and learns something that could affect the WSRA they cannot convey the information to the WSRA so they would be conflicted. Same the other way. Being a director of PLC and knowing what the WSRA were planning conflicts the director. I cannot see how anybody can be a director of both boards and get around the problem. the only way out is to excuse themselves from the discussions and therefore may as well not be there in the first place.

 

That reply disregards the question of the role of a trustee of a charity to that charity. Your previous post on this suggests a view that the WSRA should just accept whatever the plc is willing to offer, on the basis that the risk of losing everything outweighs all other considerations.