Some of you with nothing better to do than go to CTC AGMs will remember that in April 2008 the AGM passed a resolution that said that the membership service wasn’t up to the job. This followed two years of pushing on my part, the pushing motivated by the large number of complaints that I’d received from all over the country – twenty in one week alone. Membership cards were being sent out with the wrong dates, renewals were being lost, telephone enquiries weren’t being answered. I’m afraid a fair few Council members were in denial.
I’d been to see the outsourced membership service in action, and I wasn’t impressed. There were clearly software problems, some of which were back at the National Office, and the harassed workers at Arvato couldn’t make up the slack
The Council, to their credit, took the 2008 resoluton on the chin, and the Chair promised that an independent report would be commissioned and presented to the 2009 AGM.
So far, so peachy keen. But, the 2009 Annual Report from Council to the membership said that an independent report had been commissioned, completed, and acted upon. This was, as I said at the time, misleading. Actually misleading is putting it nicely. An interim report had been completed by Mick Simmons, and no real action had been taken. The final report which should, and could have been complete was only commissioned from Mick around the time of the 2009 AGM.
The 2009 AGM, and its aftermath, also threw an interesting light on how the membership figures were calculated. Some of us had suspected for some time that there was a bit of padding. I asked if people who had not paid their subs were kept on the roll. I was told that if that was the case the number would not be more than 300 or 400 nationwide. A month or so after, 470 ‘members’ disappeared off the roll in Manchester.
Mick Simmons’ final report has now been completed. It should have been issued to the membership, via District Associations (or whatever we call them this week) and via Newsnet. It hasn’t. Indeed, if we see it at all, we’ll not see it before October, after the staff has had a chance to respond, after it has gone to the Management Committee, and after it has gone to Council. So, we’ll get it six months after it was promised at the very least. If membership is haemorrhaging, the people who will know are the DA secretaries who field complaints.
All this doesn’t say a lot about the CTC Council’s attitude to transparency. Which would be not such a big deal, except that at the next AGM we’re going to be asked to vote on a transfer to charity status. Let me explain.
Some of you will be surprised to read that the Club doesn’t own the National Office. It was given to something called the CTC Trust – four CTC councillors signed it over after something like a quarter of an hour’s consideration. The Trust rents part of the office back to the Club. Anyway, all the money that comes in from the DfT, or from the Big Lottery, goes not to the Club, but to the Trust. This is fine and dandy, because the Trust is there for that kind of thing. The downside is that the Trust enters in to business commitments which, if they go wrong, could wipe it out. At present the Club, although stripped of its principle asset, is a separate body. The Big Idea is to roll the Club in to the Trust. Apparently this will have tax advantages.
The transparency issue is key. The Trust runs enterprises, and it’s to be hoped that they make money. Some do, but the word from behind closed doors is that some don’t – some lose lots of money. But, dear peeps, you and I are never going to know, because all of this is ‘commercially confidential’. In the same way as the report on the membership is, for the time being, confidential. By the way - at the time of the last AGM the Club had loaned the Trust about £370,000. And legacies which, one would have thought, would go to the Club, had gone to the Trust.
So, having lost the Club’s principal asset, the members are going to be asked to roll the Club membership funds in to a Trust that runs enterprises that may or may not make a profit (and we’re never going to know) while, it would appear, that the most basic service of the Club is in such a state that we’re not allowed, for the time being, to know about that either.
If you happen to see any of your CTC Councillors it might be an idea to ask them if they’ve seen the final report from Mick Simmons, and, if they have, why we can’t. And ask them how, precisely, the members’ funds are not going to be put at risk if the Club gets folded in to the Trust.
I’d been to see the outsourced membership service in action, and I wasn’t impressed. There were clearly software problems, some of which were back at the National Office, and the harassed workers at Arvato couldn’t make up the slack
The Council, to their credit, took the 2008 resoluton on the chin, and the Chair promised that an independent report would be commissioned and presented to the 2009 AGM.
So far, so peachy keen. But, the 2009 Annual Report from Council to the membership said that an independent report had been commissioned, completed, and acted upon. This was, as I said at the time, misleading. Actually misleading is putting it nicely. An interim report had been completed by Mick Simmons, and no real action had been taken. The final report which should, and could have been complete was only commissioned from Mick around the time of the 2009 AGM.
The 2009 AGM, and its aftermath, also threw an interesting light on how the membership figures were calculated. Some of us had suspected for some time that there was a bit of padding. I asked if people who had not paid their subs were kept on the roll. I was told that if that was the case the number would not be more than 300 or 400 nationwide. A month or so after, 470 ‘members’ disappeared off the roll in Manchester.
Mick Simmons’ final report has now been completed. It should have been issued to the membership, via District Associations (or whatever we call them this week) and via Newsnet. It hasn’t. Indeed, if we see it at all, we’ll not see it before October, after the staff has had a chance to respond, after it has gone to the Management Committee, and after it has gone to Council. So, we’ll get it six months after it was promised at the very least. If membership is haemorrhaging, the people who will know are the DA secretaries who field complaints.
All this doesn’t say a lot about the CTC Council’s attitude to transparency. Which would be not such a big deal, except that at the next AGM we’re going to be asked to vote on a transfer to charity status. Let me explain.
Some of you will be surprised to read that the Club doesn’t own the National Office. It was given to something called the CTC Trust – four CTC councillors signed it over after something like a quarter of an hour’s consideration. The Trust rents part of the office back to the Club. Anyway, all the money that comes in from the DfT, or from the Big Lottery, goes not to the Club, but to the Trust. This is fine and dandy, because the Trust is there for that kind of thing. The downside is that the Trust enters in to business commitments which, if they go wrong, could wipe it out. At present the Club, although stripped of its principle asset, is a separate body. The Big Idea is to roll the Club in to the Trust. Apparently this will have tax advantages.
The transparency issue is key. The Trust runs enterprises, and it’s to be hoped that they make money. Some do, but the word from behind closed doors is that some don’t – some lose lots of money. But, dear peeps, you and I are never going to know, because all of this is ‘commercially confidential’. In the same way as the report on the membership is, for the time being, confidential. By the way - at the time of the last AGM the Club had loaned the Trust about £370,000. And legacies which, one would have thought, would go to the Club, had gone to the Trust.
So, having lost the Club’s principal asset, the members are going to be asked to roll the Club membership funds in to a Trust that runs enterprises that may or may not make a profit (and we’re never going to know) while, it would appear, that the most basic service of the Club is in such a state that we’re not allowed, for the time being, to know about that either.
If you happen to see any of your CTC Councillors it might be an idea to ask them if they’ve seen the final report from Mick Simmons, and, if they have, why we can’t. And ask them how, precisely, the members’ funds are not going to be put at risk if the Club gets folded in to the Trust.
). As a taxpayer, I've no objection to the CTC receiving pennies from the government but then I do expect accountability in spades.
