West Somerset Railway General Discussion

It's now looking like it will end up in a legal battle, one that the WSSRT board, , and their friends on the PLC, stand to lose, because of their ineptitude of how you should act and remain with in the law, of course, no one will win, only the legal profession, but why has it turned so toxic what has the chairman, and secretary have to hide from the membership, that they would risk the organisation they say they support, , Most people support fairness and honesty , and will turn on those who are shown to not being so, They might well, win this AGM, but in doing so using underhandedness, will lose the support of their membership, and at a future EGM, be thrown out themselves.

 

Frank

Thank you for your advice, I'd love to agree with you but if I did we would both be wrong. However please feel free to skip over my posts if you haven't got the time to read them or just hit the block button and then you won't be troubled by them at all.

There is that short enough for you?

 

With an incompetence ray?

Operation Shoot Self in foot?

 

For those of us not invested in this railway but just trying to understand what the **** is going on, it sounds to me three or four lines long is an attempt to makes sure we do not achieve that level of understanding.

 

Is that the Millenium Falcon I see approaching at light speed??? No, it's just Iris, fastest fighter in the west.....

 

And of course this is a constant theme throughout this sad story of West Somerset: "stop talking because we don't like what you are saying". The last time I was told to stop talking by a PLC Supporter the sentence ended with "if you don't you will be sorry".

I of course raised this using the WSR Anti Bullying and Harassment Policy......oh no wait I couldn't....... and so it continues, no accountability and escalating behaviour of fellow volunteer against fellow volunteer, where is a good Culture when you need one ?

 

At most other establishments...???

 

So, let's see if I've got this right? First, the group of potential trustees who are standing as individuals, do not want any of their individual number to be contacted except through their organisation, so presumably are only prepared - or able - to respond through the "party line". Second, one of their objectives being to bring people together, they accuse an individual who questions their approach as "codswallop". Hardly conciliatory.

 

Somewhere an Iris is watching you...

 

Yup. Spot on.

 

They are standing as a slate, so a single consolidated contact isn't unreasonable. That will appeal to some and not to others, but is their choice. As your comment suggested they were uncontactable, "absolute codswallop" strikes me as extremely moderate - forum rules would preclude me stating what I truly think of the tone of your post.

Meanwhile, I notice that in your desire to find the splinter in their eye, you ignore the socking great beam in your's - that the unauthorised publication of those personal addresses was actually illegal.

 

Interesting that there are protests about what is most likely 'throw away' type of e-mail address. I am sure that all 10 do not use GMail as a regular address. Not prizes for guessing why.
But hardly an eyebrow is raised over some of the character assassinations frequent here in this thread.

 

I think you have it the wrong way round - the issue is the use of the personal addresses (email and house). I use a free Microsoft address (Hotmail, no less!) for my personal email, and have done for 20 odd years. And as a group, I can well see why a gmail address might be useful - I've experience elsewhere of using such a collective address for a group activity, and it works well.

I also suggest that for some of us it is the actions of individuals that cause eyebrows to be raised - mine shot through the ceiling last night when the WSSRT emails hit my inbox.

 

And so it goes on ...

Someone has to be the first to be conciliatory, and that is highly likely going to need to be a unilateral step. So why don't you, unilaterally, try to adopt a more conciliatory tone, rather than just firing off another snippy post criticising "the other lot"?

Sitting outside as a neutral observer, all I hear is a group of those currently in positions of authority refusing to engage with those trying to change the status quo: I see no evidence of any attempt to understand what the concerns of others might be. There is no attempt to paint a positive picture of why the status quo is correct, only a constant barrage of criticism of those trying to change it.

The aim is a "peaceful Somerset". That very phraseology implies the need for a peace process. And generally in my experience, peace processes have always had, at some point, a realisation from those in power that they need to take a risk and engage with the other side in an open way, understand their concerns and with an acknowledgement that there may be merit in other approaches - even if doing so might sometimes go against what their own hard-core supporters see as "the only true path".

Tom

 

Of course, Frank, if the WSSRT will allow a free and fair discussion to take place at the AGM, with our argument about merging the charities pitted against their argument for not doing so, then we would all be more than happy to represent our views as individuals, face-to-face (socially distanced, of course), or via Zoom. It just happens that we (the ten) all work together to form a consensus - call that the "party line" if you will.

It's not us that seems to have the problem with allowing a debate to happen. The question is - why do the WSSRT Trustees seem so scared about having this debate? We're up for it. And always have been.

I used the term codswallop because that's what I think of your argument (that it's somehow ok to publish personal details even though its against the law). Other definitions are available if you'd prefer.

 

Who, though is guiding the WSSRT and offering advice because such a breach of the law, must indicate they don't know what they are doing, and placing the elected officers of the trust under potential serious trouble.

 

Who knows who may be offering advice, or even whether it's being sought.

 

That has tickled me.

Have a feeling they get read and taken notice of regardless of the number of 'lines'. More so than some particular others to be honest...

 

I sort of follow GDPR at a distance so I wouldn’t say I was a true expert but in my consultancy work I have developed GDPR Process’s for a number of Companies including my own business’s so I understand some of the environment.

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) sets a maximum fine of €20 million (about £18 million) or 4% of annual global turnover whichever is greater for infringements.

The top fines recently in the last year or so:

· Google – €50 000 000. (In France)
· H&M – €35 200 000
· TIM – €27 800 000
· British Airways – approximately €21 900 000 (very recently)
· Austrian Post – €18 000 000

To my understanding all the cases so far are where companies have inadvertently allowed data breaches because their systems and processes were not strong enough and allowed protected data to be released in error. I haven’t seen a case where it was clearly a deliberate act.

So in effect potentially, on a bad day in court, if the authority concerned was looking to make an example the maximum fine for the WSSRT is £18 Million, but so as not to panic all concerned perhaps they will only get a warning as a best case scenario or a smaller fine in order to not bankrupt them.

Without taking sides and with my professional hat on, trust me never, ever play with this and think it will be fine, it won't there are real teeth here and they bite.