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West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by gwr4090, Nov 15, 2007.

  1. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    If the policies are in fact defective, and I am not in a position to judge this,

    1. Surely an announcement should have been made saying why they were withdrawn and giving a date for their replacement, and
    2. I would have expected that in the meanwhile some sort of stop gap arrangement should have been put in place, in particular for employees
     
  2. QB Cook

    QB Cook Guest

  3. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    So you agree that the WSR is currently not meeting the code. They may take time but a well run railway would have them in place. You are just making excuses for the board again.

    As for 2.5 and obliging the PLC to discipline its own members as well no? Or are such things only for the little people?
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2020
  4. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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  5. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    I would also add that if withdrawal of the process was necessary for those reasons , it looks extremely dubious for that to have happened during the conduct of a grievance case raised under that policy. When that happens and the individual has no obvious reason to seek to be covered by employee rights, and in the absence of any attempt to avert that particular outcome, on the face of it suggests bad faith not prudence.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
  6. Robin Moira White

    Robin Moira White Resident of Nat Pres

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    I’m sorry, but I am 14 days away from 25 years in practice as an employment lawyer. I can't let the above stand without comment. It’s just plain wrong.

    I actually acted in one of the cases that looked at employment status for volunteers. That related to Sheffiled Citizens Advice Bureau.

    I have assisted with at least 20 sets of internal process across the heritage railway world over the past 30 plus years.

    The 'mutuality of obligations' at the heart of an employment contract is 'you make yourself available for work' and 'we PAY you'. PAY.

    The only exception of which I am aware is the abuse of 'intern' type posts by certain types of companies. I acted in several of these cases which showed that ‘interns’ were being exploited and should be paid As employees. But these were young people being exploited as unpaid labour. Wholly unlike heritage railway volunteers.

    I checked the relevant case law before posting. There has never been any suggestion that I can find that providing equivalent disciplinary and grievance policies for employed staff and volunteers raises the risk of volunteers being taken to be employees. So the argument would be that volunteers have to be treated less favourably than employees to show the difference? That argument could only be advanced by someone who has never appeared before an employment tribunal.

    It is immensely risky for anything but the smallest, newest business not to have relevant employment policies freely available given the view that a tribunal would take of that. It virtually ensures a finding of procedural unfair dismissal.

    And in a volunteer organisation, the presence and effective operation of policies such as disciplinary and grievance policies is, IMHO, a significant litmus test on how the organisation views and respects its volunteers.

    Yours, staggered.

    Robin
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2020
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  7. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

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    I think myself there has been a lack of substance and detail of evidence over the current allegations since Sunday evening from the 10 new WSSRT board candidates. 'Running a hare'?

    Ok, the WSSRT board - or some of its members - and one is also a WSR plc board member - have made some monumental 'cock ups' of late.

    How the WSR Plc board factor into all this is pure speculation currently in the absence of hard facts over the WSSRT AGM/EGM under s.303 Companies Act (of which we have heard no more of this well considered and well thought out tactic).
     
  8. Andy Norman

    Andy Norman Member

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    John

    As you rightly say you were not involved at the time, but I was. Clearly you have been told the story from one side regarding the reasons which you are taking at face value. However I can’t agree with your explanation. so in answer to your comments I would make the following points.
    1. The HR Policies were removed in February 2019, 20 months ago.
    2. There is a clear email audit trail of me raising a complaint and the HR Policies being withdrawn, the WSR PLC HR Department made that connection themselves, changing the reasons for withdrawing the polices as I undermined their reasons one at a time.
    3. I raised a complaint and the resultant email chain sets out the timeline and reasons. One part of one email from the then HR representative stated on the 25th Feb 2019: “You have launched a complaint against the WSR PLC (redacted) under the WSR Bullying and Harassment Policy. However, the WSR is under no obligation to follow any HR policies in relation to volunteers. We have had them in place historically, but in dealing with your issues here and going forward there will be a much simpler complaints process that we will follow. This is not to devalue the great service we receive from our volunteers, but rather to simplify HR matters."
    4. There has never been a simplified policy issued.
    5. My reply was that the existing policies specifically stated they did cover Volunteers and I pointed out the various clauses concerned, the PLC reply to that dated 26th Feb 2019 stated: "All HR policies will be formally reviewed in the coming months and as I have mentioned previously one of the anticipated objectives is to simplify them where possible. If any changes are thought to be necessary, all appropriate procedures to put them in place will be adhered to."
    6. The policies were then ‘greyed out’ and became inaccessible on HOPS to all staff/volunteers with no announcement to anybody other than me and have remained that way since. The message was clear from the PLC that HR Policies did not apply to Volunteers and the simplified policies would in the future give the PLC the option of not progressing them if they didn’t wish to.
    7. The rationale and reasoning of having to change Volunteer HR Policies due to the technical possibility of accruing of employment rights came later and Robin has given her views on that above which I agree with, as you say the HRA haven’t seen fit to have to change their advice either.
    8. The landmark case of the athlete you refer to is I assume that of Jess Varnish (it’s the only one I could find) who tried to take British Cycling to court claiming she had employment rights because of the way she was funded and was nothing to do with HR Policies.
    9. Jess Varnish lost the case on hearing and appeal in any case. The appeal was not heard until May 2019, 3 months after the WSR withdrew their policies so I don’t see your connection or the timeline.
    10. I was of course sat in the middle of it at the time, it was a clear attempt to stop a complaint, my complaint has never been heard even although in the end the HR Department had to agree my complaint was valid and they acknowledged it.
    11. As somebody who is involved with HR and employment for a living my estimate for the time needed to re-write the policies (if they needed doing which is in question) to separate paid staff and volunteers is around 2 days of research and re-write, followed of course by an internal consultation process and amending, so let’s say 6-8 weeks max. Surely you must agree that to leave a volunteer organisation without any Volunteer HR Polices for 20 months may be seen as bad governance.
    12. You mention the HRA clause 2.5, regarding staff & members posting on social media. You can’t have your cake and eat it. The PLC HR Polices included a Social Media Policy which applied to all, the PLC removed this as well as the other ones, stating it does not apply to Volunteers. Therefore you can’t now dangle that as an implied threat, any member of staff can post anything they wish (within Nat Pres rules here of course) because there is no policy to control anybody's comments. My original point a couple of posts back to Ian Coleby is that by removing all the HR Policies it works both ways, and that’s a problem and has been for 20 months.

    John, the WSR currently has lots of issues which are brewing up all at the same time, most of them self-inflicted, but in this case how much longer do you think it is acceptable for volunteers and the WSR management not to have the protection of HR Policies ?
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2020
  9. As The WSSRT Ltd rescheduled AGM date fits within the statutory timescale for our s.303 Companies Act General Meeting request, it has recently been agreed that all resolutions proposed by the '10' will be included on the forthcoming AGM agenda. In the meantime new membership applications continue to be accepted by the Trust.
     
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  10. Bayard

    Bayard Well-Known Member

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    Are you suggesting they are lying? What evidence could they possibly give if they had been informed verbally? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as you should well know.
     
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  11. Bayard

    Bayard Well-Known Member

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    Ian, the behaviour of the PLC board disgusts me. It also obviously disgusts Andy Norman. It is therefore a simple matter of description to call them disgusting.
     
  12. Snifter

    Snifter Well-Known Member

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    Here's a staggeringly simple suggestion. Why not share the policies on your railway with the WSR. I presume that given you are connected with the legal profession, they are wholly fit for purpose. If you could do that then you will have made a contribution to the recovery of the WSR. It should take you no longer than a week so how about it ?
     
  13. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    So if a WSR employee were to be dismissed, as @Robin Moira White points out they would almost win a case at an Industrial Tribunal.

    That in turn would clearly raise some interesting issues as to the competence of the board for allowing such a situation to occur.
     
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  14. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    I would expect he will be told to keep his nose out by the PLC, not to meddle in things beyond his remit, if it happens not to be with in the view point of the glorious leader, if it did, he would be praised from upon high, ;)
     
  15. WSSRTcandidates

    WSSRTcandidates New Member

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    Pulling Together

    The simple and elegant way of creating ‘One Railway’ in West Somerset

    pullingtogether.png

    All the organisations in the West Somerset Railway ‘family’ have recently agreed the need for structural reform. This is desperately needed in order to unlock fundraising potential, streamline governance arrangements, and make better use of shared and scarce resources.

    The West Somerset Railway PLC, the West Somerset Railway Association (WSRA) and the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust (WSSRT) have accepted the need for a single new charity to be created, with the PLC becoming an operating company which sits within the new charity. The question now is, how do we get to that point?

    Our Plan – Simplicity, Elegance, Democracy

    The authors of this statement are eleven individuals standing to become Trustees of the WSSRT, one of the two main support charities of the WSR, alongside the WSRA.

    Our plan is to persuade the members of the WSSRT and the WSRA to merge their two charities through the democratic process.

    The charitable objectives of the WSRA and the WSSRT are almost identical. Two separate charities with nearly identical aims is a huge barrier to fundraising, dilutes precious voluntary resources, increases bureaucracy and creates wasteful internal competition. Merging of the two charities would be in line with the advice of the Charity Commission. A merger could be achieved quickly, by end of Spring 2021, and at relatively low cost, certainly less than £10k.

    The merged charity would protect and promote the existing activities of the WSSRT. The heritage carriage restoration work would be supported and advanced, WSSRT educational outreach would be on behalf of the lead charity for the whole railway, and the museums at Bishops Lydeard and Blue Anchor would be part of an organisation at the heart of the railway, not on the fringe.

    The Alternative – more complexity, not less

    In contrast, the WSSRT and the PLC, advised by North Yorkshire Moors Historical Trust Chairman John Bailey, wish to start by creating a third new charity, into which the only members, initially, would be existing PLC shareholders.

    Under this plan, the WSRA and WSSRT would be left to decide whether they want to merge into the new charity. The existing trustees of the WSSRT have already said they don’t want to be part of it. The WSRA Trustees have said they do. But on this vitally important issue, WSSRT members have not been asked what they actually want, through the democratic process, with pros and cons properly spelled out.

    This raises the very real risk of ending up with three charities rather than one – the exact opposite of what is needed.

    Worst still, the PLC’s proposal, endorsed by the existing leadership of the WSSRT, is to spend a, “six figure sum” on lawyers to set up the new charity, kicking this into the long grass by saying that nothing can be achieved until late 2021 at the earliest.

    It is clear now that the PLC-led plan would be a scandalous waste of time and money, as well as excluding members of the WSRA and the WSSRT from the outset.

    Even Mr Bailey himself states that our simple and elegant plan would be a better course of action – but he admits that “baggage and certain personalities” is why the PLC doesn’t want to do it (Steam Railway magazine, Issue 511, page 21). This simple but damning revelation tells you all you need to know about the PLC’s true intentions - to leave the existing charities and membership sidelined after years of loyal support and investment in the WSR.

    Decision time

    Time is running out to influence the future. If you want a railway which is run ‘bottom up’, along democratic lines, listens to and represents the members and volunteers who are the lifeblood of the operation, and if you support change in the most cost-effective and expedient manner possible then please….

    Become a member of the WSSRT and vote us in at the forthcoming AGM on 14th November.

    Join the WSSRT by visiting http://www.wssrt.co.uk/membership/ (time is running out).

    Or e-mail wssrtcandidates@gmail.com for more information.

    Please let us know if you’ve registered to become a member by sending us an e-mail.

    Once you are a member of the WSSRT you will be eligible to register for a Zoom Q&A session about our plans and vision, which will take place not less than 48hrs after the AGM papers have been delivered to members.

    Stephen Doughty, Jeff Price, David Horton, James Price, Nigel Power, Robin White, Brian Fraser, Barrie Childs, Dee Childs, Emma Haywood, Dan Lehmann – Candidates for election.
     
  16. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    May I make a suggestion

    The WSRA & WSSRT have between them sufficient shares to exercise influence if not de facto control over the PLC

    @Robin Moira White has pointed out the risks that the PLC runs as a result of withdrawing its HR policies

    So why cant the WSRA & WSSRT use their influence to resolve the matter?

    It doesnt have to be done in public, but clearly were it to succeed it would have a very visible outcome
     
  17. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Member

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    Not only a simple suggestion but a very sensible one. The WSRA as the primary recruiter of volunteers on the WSR has a project underway to improve the management of volunteers and a presentation on progress was made top the recent PDG meeting. I am a great believer in heritage railways helping each other and in that light, some weeks ago provided a copy of our volunteer handbook and values and behaviours booklet. I hope they will be helpful in the creation of new volunteer policies, a process which which, as seems appropriate, appears to be driven by WSRA.
    The HRA are reviewing currently its guidance to members on disciplinary and grievance procedures. I have already invited Robin to help with that. I hope she will be able to find the time so the HRA benefit from her specialist knowledge and experience.
     
  18. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    Whilst you have certain personalities who straddle both the WSSRT and PLC boards, and others who influence their thinking, it won't be possible, however, remove those trustees, and then anything is possible, as then presure can be exerted to ensure change, but it would have to be an nuclear option, those people who support the status quo, possibly might find them selves homeless, as only by moving on and being ruthless in it will there be the required change.
     
  19. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    If the HR procedures were found to have genuine flaws, then
    a) they should have been revised ASAP,
    b) in the meantime they should have continued to be applied (to both employed staff and volunteers) where appropriate, and
    c) for situations where they were clearly inappropriate some reasonable ad hoc alternatives should have been applied.
    The WSR PLC appears to have done none of those three.
     
  20. Lplus

    Lplus Well-Known Member

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    Really? So you think the New 10 should be naming names on here? when the whole point is that the claim is coercion by threat of removal of ID cards etc?

    Why the blazes should the New 10 bother to raise hares unecessarily? they already have the moral high ground, so risking that would be pointless.

    Unless they've been set up, I suppose....
     

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