WSRA Trustee Election Hustings

Funny Susan said it was he mistake and would be paying. Did I hear that right.?

Rodders

 

The inference in their statement is the trustees paid for posting costs as well, in fact it was posted with the new proxy forms,postage met by WSRA.All they paid for, as a group,were 6000 single colour A4 sheets at roughly 3p copy, roughly £180 i e £45 each.

 

Having looked into this for my business 5000 copies like that artwork supplied £40 + vat which I am sure the association will claim back
They wouldn't have bought 6000 as there were not 2 in an envelope when sent to joint members

Rodders

Rodders

 

What I heard was that she offered to pay, but the exact words should be on the recording. But whichever, this is bizarre. If an employee of mine made a genuine mistake, I would not expect them to pay. (If they made lots of mistakes I might start a competence procedure, but that's a completely different matter.) Any proper employer takes responsibility for their employees actions. It should have been the Chairman apologising.
Frank

 

Must have used wrong box tick somewhere on the website quoter I used, Your figure would seem closer to reality.

 

It is not often that I am drawn to agree with Steve Edge, in fact we usually cross swords spectacularly and regularly but in this instance words from him like 'concerns', 'disappointment' and 'inexcusable' leveled at the WSRA Chairman and Trustees are laudable and I doff my cap to him with a sincere thank you. Ken D

 

I was the member who stood up after the voting cabaret had finished @18.00 and suggested people should vote with their feet and send the Trustees a clear message after the most appalling meeting I have ever attended in 42 years of railway preservation - the treatment afforded to attending members was truly appalling and a dreadful advert for the WSR which can only damage our brand.

I've been a WSRA member since 1976 (600), an active volunteer since 1986 on both the line and footplate (including long spells on both the plc and WSRA boards) before joining another railway in 2008 as their GM, but have never witnessed such a chaotic debacle, ineffective leadership, and lack of humility from the top table.

The three most common words which I heard from the lips of almost everyone I knew there were: sadness, farce and shambles.

The other simple request I should also have made was this: Will the real Chairman of the WSRA stand up please?

 

Most members would on receipt of the first one, glanced at the agm booklet, candidate cvs,etc, and put them on one side for recycling and done little more-quite happy as long as they get the magazine on time, hence low proxy figures in the past. The second proxy sheet may have gone the same way,if it had not been for the impassioned appeal by the four internal candidates, without WSRA offering a similar opportunity for the reformers to state their case.Legal,maybe.
A phrase used yesterday, stitch up, yes.

 

Yes, this could explain it. The power of advertising...
Frank

 

Gerrymandering is the word. It really sums up the utter contempt the existing trustees have for the membership. The WSRA membership was once representative of the volunteers who work on the railway. Now WSRA members are in a minority of those performing this vital function. Indeed in their stated rôle as an educational charity supporting not just the WSR the WSRA has lost the function the founding members wanted. Coupled with an ever falling membership the question has to be asked if it is worth saving in its current form. If the existing trustees can be removed then a comprehensive review seems desirable.

 

There is a recording of this obscene circus? Oh, please upload it to Youtube, or sell it to the Comedy Channel. It might help some of us outsiders to understand why the PLC - who are the incumbent Duty Holder and have all the Go To Jail cards - don't just sack the lot of you along with the WSRA and get some supporters who, er, support - who are likely to be 95% or more of your present volunteer base, minus their WSRA membership cards. If you have piss-poor people in positions that call for powers of leadership and integrity, and it seems you do, get a grown up to escort them off the premises. It isn't rocket science - the drivers and signalmen collectively have all the bullets. All they have to do to induce rapid regime change is nothing for a couple of weekends.

 

How true as a founding member and the original membership secretary there are few of us left to confirm but John Pearce, Robin Parker, Simon Bowditch and myself (all founders) would confirm that they are now light years away from the group we set up with the express intention of supporting the Taunton to Minehead branch with money and labour. If the other founders read this I am 100% sure they will agree.

 

The trouble is membership has probably risen in the recent months for good reasons not conducive to the current trustees !After a day of overcoming disappointment,it is time to start thinking about what reforms are needed in WSRA to be fit for purpose. WSRAMAG's discussion paper is a start on this, but whether a specific member only reform forum could be set up might avoid boring the ........ off all and sundry,and less than helpful comments from others.

 

I'm a disinterested observer, but it seems to me that the strongest way to make a point to the Trustees is for those volunteering in the Association's commercial side to withdraw their services. I can't see that would affect the PLC particularly, but it would hit the Association where it hurts and would be hard to ignore.

 

Unlike Faol, I can't claim to be a 'founder' by any means, but with a membership number below 100 then I've been around the WSR for quite some time In the beginning the Association was run by the members, for the members and the railway - sadly it seems a different world now :-(

Dick Wood wrote "I've been a WSRA member since 1976 (600), an active volunteer since 1986 on both the line and footplate (including long spells on both the plc and WSRA boards) before joining another railway in 2008 as their GM, but have never witnessed such a chaotic debacle, ineffective leadership, and lack of humility from the top table." I'm heartened to read his comments and also to hear of his input to the meeting - the fact that someone of his standing and experience was willing to make such a public assessment must surely be one of the most damning indictments of the current 'management'. Being a Life Member also of Dick's 'other railway" (indeed, even longer there than at the WSR), I can only imagine that our colleagues there must be shaking their heads in disbelief.........

As regards "that letter" sent out by the 3 re-electees, the precise situation as to who paid for what still seems unclear. However, if it proves to be the case that they paid only for the insert, but effectively got the postage 'free', then is that not tantamount to the WSRA subsidising their electioneering? Are there not rules to cover that sort of thing?

 

I've been following this thread for a while but this is my first contribution. Up till now there's been plenty of free-flowing comment (perhaps too much).

So the Progressives didn't get elected - OK, now it's time to move on to the next battle. Well done to you all for putting your heads above the parapet, you certainly didn't fail, you highlighted the issues and showed up the creaking gerontocracy that seems to have the WSRA in its arthritic grip.

As an active volunteer (averaging six turns a month for the past nine years) I know that WSRA no longer represents the best interest of the volunteers in particular and our railway in general. The leadership is an embarrassment to the whole heritage movement. And they're on a road to nowhere - already out of touch, they'll be increasingly marginalised in the life of our railway. Power over the future railway has already slipped away from this incompetent bunch, and their influence will just wither on the vine. New, younger members just won't be joining up. But the Progressives need to hang in there - eventually there'll be a time to rebuild, your time will come.

My personal dilemma is this: I resigned from the WSRA a year ago, feeling it did nothing for me as a volunteer; while my links with County Hall told me there was something not right about the freehold bid which would eventually end up in a public spotlight (it always does, these people aren't as clever as they like to think). Having other interests and demands in my life, I don't really want to join again, but should I, can I be useful in the fight?

Any advice welcome.

 

Most certainly re-join. We are talking about 4 or 5 individuals claiming to be "trustees" note there is the word trust in trustee, who have brought us to where we are at great expense to the PLC and WSRA, (dont lets even start on the cost of the legal they had hired who never did get the opportunity to brainwash us into the reason why a TWO is a thing they could get) and in their own minds they see themselves as the "saviours" of the WSR, for whatever reason it needed saving? I am trying to understand their motive for the damage they are doing to our railway, remember 4-5 individuals have wreaked the havoc we witnessed yesterday at the comedy show. I am unable to comprehend their blinkered approach to 200 plus people heckling them to resign, but they continued as if it was everyone elses fault, indeed the chairman in his address told us it was the plc again (sigh), conveniently missing out that their agent Roger Bush, and Chairman David Williams, (from the FOI) contacted SCC councillor Huxtable regularly, Chairman Williams even taking his guidance over the release of the infamous win-win statement. Councillor Huxtable is under formal investigation by an independant legal firm appointed by SCC.

 

To-day in my capacity as an active volunteer, I met a WSRA member, who after some railway discussion, said he had attended yesterdays meeting for the first time in many years, and he did not understand what was going on as he had only read the magazine and thought that everything was ok until the meeting got underway, when he began to think that things were not as he understood them. He had filled out a proxy in favour of the Chairman to re-elect the candidates due for re-election, but after attending the meeting and talking to people he realised that he may have made an error. In fact he said if I had known what he knows now before the meeting he would have voted differently.

 

On the matter of what happens next about the abandoned AGM......

According to article 9.2 of the WSRA Articles:

"If ......during the meeting a quorum ceases to be present, the meeting, if convened on the requisition of Members, shall be dissolved...."

{That does not apply to an AGM, so then we got to the next bit}

"....In any other case the meeting shall be adjourned to such time and place as the Trustees shall determine...."

So - the onus is firmly on the Trustees to reconvene the AGM.

I would suggest therefore that discontented members are not too hasty to resign before then