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CRT Election


john6767

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6 hours ago, Ian Mac said:

First of all Thank You Mr Fincher.
Votes for boaters my ordering 

Phil PrettyMan, Andy Tidy, Eric McDowall, Malcolm Bridge - it then gets far harder
for Voluteers my ordering

(Me) Ian McCarthy, Robert (Bob) Dewey, Trevor Clark, Faser Pithie, David Wiliams, Niel Linford, Peter Hepburn and Steve Cousins
 

here is part of a piece I wrote about Council, which some may find helpful.

 

Hi, you may be aware that active C&RT registered volunteers are about to be called upon to vote for their two representatives on the Council of the Canal and River Trust. Please vote when asked.
The function of the Council is not to manage the Trust, but to appoint and oversee the trustees, who can be thought of as the directors of the Trust. Council also appoints the Chairs of the Regional Advisory Boards, who also become council members.
The simplest view of the function of council members is that they are the share holders of the Trust. Council members are NOT like MP's, or any other politicians, they have no ability to directly change or influence things. That function is the remit of the Trustees who are the directors of the Trust and it is they who determine the direction and policies of the Trust, as with any company. The Trustees are also the people legally liable for the trusts activities, and management. The Trustees appoint the Executive, whose function is run the company, day to day.
Council interacts with the Trustees twice a year, when the Trustees and Executive, report to Council on their activities. It is at these meetings where new Trustees are formally appointed, and council provides feedback on the trusts activities.
To aid the running of Council there is a joint committee of Council members and Trustees which undertakes the hard work of finding new trustees and regional Chairs. There are three council members who are elected there by their fellow council members. Currently these three are, Andrew Phasey who was an elected boaters rep but is now the AWCC appointee, Phil Prettyman, and myself,  Ian McCarthy who are also both elected reps, and now need your votes.

 

PS if you get the chance to vote please use it.

Ian

You may recall that i came second to you in the last election. I have notcstood again as i have returned to full time employment.

I still volunteer but have not been given a vote in the volunteer section this time around. I have been given a vote in the business section and the boaters section.

How can the voting be fair if eligible voters are not invited to vote?

Good luck by the way.

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1 hour ago, Grahamnewman said:

Ian

You may recall that i came second to you in the last election. I have notcstood again as i have returned to full time employment.

I still volunteer but have not been given a vote in the volunteer section this time around. I have been given a vote in the business section and the boaters section.

How can the voting be fair if eligible voters are not invited to vote?

Good luck by the way.

That’s interesting in respect of being invited to vote. I am a volunteer registered with two different groups but I have not been invited to vote in the volunteer section either.

 

JP

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41 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

That’s interesting in respect of being invited to vote. I am a volunteer registered with two different groups but I have not been invited to vote in the volunteer section either.

 

JP


I would assume it is specifically for people who volunteer for CRT, so if either of your roles is with CRT I think you should be offered a vote, ad challenge it if you have not.

However worthy the cause, if you volunteer for someone other than CRT, I would not expect you to be eligible, though.

My volunteer role was with a former region that has not disappeaed in a reorganisation.  I would have been happy to continue in a role with one of the new regions, but CRT management never even manage to formally tell me my role had ended, to thank me for my years of service, or to suggest I might want to do anything else.  When they can't even get the basics right for someone who has invested many hours and quite a lot of their own money in volunteering, I can't say I'm drawn to ever wanting to again, which is a shame, as I'm actually quite passionate about trying to do the right thing for our canal network.

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15 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:


I would assume it is specifically for people who volunteer for CRT, so if either of your roles is with CRT I think you should be offered a vote, ad challenge it if you have not.

However worthy the cause, if you volunteer for someone other than CRT, I would not expect you to be eligible, though.

My volunteer role was with a former region that has not disappeaed in a reorganisation.  I would have been happy to continue in a role with one of the new regions, but CRT management never even manage to formally tell me my role had ended, to thank me for my years of service, or to suggest I might want to do anything else.  When they can't even get the basics right for someone who has invested many hours and quite a lot of their own money in volunteering, I can't say I'm drawn to ever wanting to again, which is a shame, as I'm actually quite passionate about trying to do the right thing for our canal network.

Yes, they are CRT volunteer roles although being geared for retired types I’m not a particularly active volunteer. I don’t expect a vote on account of volunteering for BCNS or CCT.


JP

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As I understand the eligability to vote as a volunteer, first you must be a registered C&RT volunteer. I think this implies that if you go to my trust page on the C&RT website, that you have a link to my volunteering.  This is the route by which one can claim your expenses, and inspect your training records, amongst other things. You also need to have been logged having given some hours work to the trust in the last 12 months as an individual, however hours given working for Council, Partnerships and Advisory groups do not count, for some reason. Also groups like task forces where the hours are logged against the task force not the individual, also cause exclusion. Council has been attempting to come up with a workable solution to this particular problem, but its not as easy as it sounds, due to the Ad-hoc nature of task groups.
If you think you have had hours recorded as an invividual in the last 12 months and have not recieved a vote its probably worth an email to council@canalrivertrust.org.uk

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22 minutes ago, Ian Mac said:

As I understand the eligability to vote as a volunteer, first you must be a registered C&RT volunteer. I think this implies that if you go to my trust page on the C&RT website, that you have a link to my volunteering.  This is the route by which one can claim your expenses, and inspect your training records, amongst other things. You also need to have been logged having given some hours work to the trust in the last 12 months as an individual, however hours given working for Council, Partnerships and Advisory groups do not count, for some reason. Also groups like task forces where the hours are logged against the task force not the individual, also cause exclusion. Council has been attempting to come up with a workable solution to this particular problem, but its not as easy as it sounds, due to the Ad-hoc nature of task groups.
If you think you have had hours recorded as an invividual in the last 12 months and have not recieved a vote its probably worth an email to council@canalrivertrust.org.uk

Thank you Ian.

 

That probably explains why I haven’t received an invitation although it isn’t the case that I haven’t volunteered in the past 12 months. I’ll send a mail.

 

JP

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1 hour ago, Ian Mac said:

As I understand the eligability to vote as a volunteer, first you must be a registered C&RT volunteer. I think this implies that if you go to my trust page on the C&RT website, that you have a link to my volunteering.  This is the route by which one can claim your expenses, and inspect your training records, amongst other things. You also need to have been logged having given some hours work to the trust in the last 12 months as an individual, however hours given working for Council, Partnerships and Advisory groups do not count, for some reason. Also groups like task forces where the hours are logged against the task force not the individual, also cause exclusion. Council has been attempting to come up with a workable solution to this particular problem, but its not as easy as it sounds, due to the Ad-hoc nature of task groups.
If you think you have had hours recorded as an invividual in the last 12 months and have not recieved a vote its probably worth an email to council@canalrivertrust.org.uk

Ian

I have volunteered in the last 12 months so will e mail as you suggest

 

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If anyone else ended up having to vote for 4 candidates just to make it work, following my email to CES they have as I requested reset my vote, and I was able to vote again this time just for the candidates that it wanted to vote for.  They have also fixed the bug the caused the issue.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 20/01/2020 at 17:00, doratheexplorer said:

In any case, do these reps actually wield any power at all?  Or is it just for people who like to attend committees and feel important?

I take issue with your comment. I was a boaters rep last time, illness meant we had to move onto land last November and I am no longer a Boater.

However the boater's reps managed to get significant changes, two reps were on the Appointments Committee & so influenced trustees appointed. We held meetings with various senior managers every quarter. 

I reported back, as did Andy Tidy, for meetings I attended. 

I hope the new reps will report back. I don't know if any have posted here at all. I am in the Friends constituency this time. 

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Thanks to those who mentioned forum members or other of note, who are standing. I was at a total loss who to vote for.

 

I've voted for the forum members Phil Prettyman and Andy Tidy (whose video on you tube re seeking election was a) a good idea and b) made me chuckle

 

Also voted for the guy encouraging freight on the Aire and Calder and for Eric McDowall who is an unashamed traditionalist. Nowt wrong with a bit of tradition in these modern days!

 

Wasn't going to vote but after reading this thread and then voting, I now feel slightly smug that I've contributed in a very small way to our waterways!

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8 hours ago, StarUKKiwi said:

I take issue with your comment. I was a boaters rep last time, illness meant we had to move onto land last November and I am no longer a Boater.

However the boater's reps managed to get significant changes, two reps were on the Appointments Committee & so influenced trustees appointed. We held meetings with various senior managers every quarter. 

I reported back, as did Andy Tidy, for meetings I attended. 

I hope the new reps will report back. I don't know if any have posted here at all. I am in the Friends constituency this time. 

I was having a grumpy day that day so forgive me.  Having said that, I'm in the dark about what changes have happened or how the reporting back filters through to boaters?

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2 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

I was having a grumpy day that day so forgive me.  Having said that, I'm in the dark about what changes have happened or how the reporting back filters through to boaters?

Andy Tidy and I both reported back through Social media (mostly boating FB groups) , here & Andy has a blog, which he used to update boaters of meetings. 

There is no facility on the CRT website yet. As I explained, I am not standing but I hope at least one woman is elected. 

http://captainahabswaterytales.blogspot.com/?m=1

 

 

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11 hours ago, StarUKKiwi said:

I take issue with your comment. I was a boaters rep last time, illness meant we had to move onto land last November and I am no longer a Boater.

However the boater's reps managed to get significant changes, two reps were on the Appointments Committee & so influenced trustees appointed. We held meetings with various senior managers every quarter. 

I reported back, as did Andy Tidy, for meetings I attended. 

I hope the new reps will report back. I don't know if any have posted here at all. I am in the Friends constituency this time. 

I just hope Andy gets elected again as you two were the only ones to give any feed back on what happened

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2 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

I was having a grumpy day that day so forgive me.  Having said that, I'm in the dark about what changes have happened or how the reporting back filters through to boaters?

Forgiven
Its interesting to see what people think council is, compared against the reality. Because of the way the Government set up the trust when it nearly released it, the Secretary for the Environment still has hold of the ultimate Gun, they created a company structure. So there is, The Executive which is there to do the work and bidding of the directors, called Trustees. The Share holders of the company are the council members, so like all share holders they appoint directors and in the case of the trust they can shoot the lot, but not individuals.  For the government to create the council it started out as nearly all appointees, from a very diverse group of users of canals, but the Trust was given the task of moving this to a more elected body, thus, these elections, and the new electing group of fishermen and fisheries, this time. Further thought is being given to which other bodies could elect a member onto council.
The government was attempting to merge several big charity structures when they came up with this one. From the RSPCA, through the Royal Ballet to the RLNI and NT, and a load of others. Determining who the members are of an organisation with over 4million regular users is hard. when only a small subset pay anything. Many of those that pay were the first groups to get elected members onto council.
Council also contains the 6 chairs of the regional advisory boards. There are currently 30 odd members of council with a max number of 50.
So council members have no real day to day power, they are not like MPs or elected people onto local councils. This is the most common misconception.  It is the Trustees (directors) who determine policy and direction. However to enable the council to operate they have two meetings a year where feedback is provided by the trustees and Executive. Council members are under NDA (Non Disclosure Agreements) as they are provided with the latest information, which could be still under discussion by the trustees & executive. Council provides feedback to the trustees and executive on this information.
All the elected council members feed information back to the public by various routes.  All the elected council members now meet on a regular basis to discuss matters of concern.
Both Andy and Stella regularly provide feedback on this forum. Other council member report back via other systems,
Hoping this brief description helps.

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On 22/01/2020 at 16:50, sueb said:

Robert Dewey and Malcolm Bridge are long term volunteers with the waterway recovery group and are both worthy of selection incase anyone is looking for people to vote for.

In what constituency is Robert Dewey then?

 

I certainly didn't encounter that name amongst the Private Boater candidates.

 

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1 hour ago, StarUKKiwi said:

As I explained, I am not standing but I hope at least one woman is elected.

Other than candidates I actually know, (or know of), I found it very difficult to make choices amongst those I did not.

It was easy to quickly discard over half the field based on candidate statements that said very little of use, and were sometimes ignorant about what the role was.  (If it said "be on the Committee" rather than Council, I rather assumed they had no idea of the role of Council, or someone serving on it, for example).  I also think those elected need to actually use their boats actively for a lot of actual boating.


Also long lists of roles in countless non waterways related organisations also seldom seemed too offer little about their suitability for this one.


I even had an offline "chat" with Ian Mac to see what he thought about the candidatures, being closer to the topic than I am.

As for women I decided to include Helen Hutt - I don't know her, but she put up a better statement than most, and is the only one I have seen being proactive elsewhere to try and garner votes.

I had no hesitation in placing Phil Prettyman and Andy Tidy as my top two choices, though.

If you can vote, and haven't yet, please do so in these final days.  It is important, and I don't think we want to see the Boaters representatives as all being London or K&A live-aboards, that mostly live aboard, but probably don't do much active cruising.  It is obvious the NBTA are pushing quite hard for election of such people - there are candidates that will serve the total cross section of all boat owners very much better, I believe.

Edited by alan_fincher
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Voted.

 

A Few names I recognised (people, or boats) but one of the main things the struck me was many there where, nearly 40 and few seemed awful candidates.

 

Selected the first 20 and then hit submit (nearly hit clear all!) so hopefully some assistance in common sense going forwards.

 

 

Daniel

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3 hours ago, Ian Mac said:

Forgiven
Its interesting to see what people think council is, compared against the reality. Because of the way the Government set up the trust when it nearly released it, the Secretary for the Environment still has hold of the ultimate Gun, they created a company structure. So there is, The Executive which is there to do the work and bidding of the directors, called Trustees. The Share holders of the company are the council members, so like all share holders they appoint directors and in the case of the trust they can shoot the lot, but not individuals.  For the government to create the council it started out as nearly all appointees, from a very diverse group of users of canals, but the Trust was given the task of moving this to a more elected body, thus, these elections, and the new electing group of fishermen and fisheries, this time. Further thought is being given to which other bodies could elect a member onto council.
The government was attempting to merge several big charity structures when they came up with this one. From the RSPCA, through the Royal Ballet to the RLNI and NT, and a load of others. Determining who the members are of an organisation with over 4million regular users is hard. when only a small subset pay anything. Many of those that pay were the first groups to get elected members onto council.
Council also contains the 6 chairs of the regional advisory boards. There are currently 30 odd members of council with a max number of 50.
So council members have no real day to day power, they are not like MPs or elected people onto local councils. This is the most common misconception.  It is the Trustees (directors) who determine policy and direction. However to enable the council to operate they have two meetings a year where feedback is provided by the trustees and Executive. Council members are under NDA (Non Disclosure Agreements) as they are provided with the latest information, which could be still under discussion by the trustees & executive. Council provides feedback to the trustees and executive on this information.
All the elected council members feed information back to the public by various routes.  All the elected council members now meet on a regular basis to discuss matters of concern.
Both Andy and Stella regularly provide feedback on this forum. Other council member report back via other systems,
Hoping this brief description helps.

My experience is that I've never seen any feedback from anyone on this, despite being a forum member and going on facebook groups.  Surely it would be sensible to have a single feedback route from all reps along with published minutes of meetings.  Perhaps a CRT webpage, perhaps an email circular, or a posted leaflet.

 

Unless that happens, then I still think these reps are redundant.  How are they representing boaters when it's unlikely they're gathering views from outside their own bubble?

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26 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

My experience is that I've never seen any feedback from anyone on this, despite being a forum member and going on facebook groups.  Surely it would be sensible to have a single feedback route from all reps along with published minutes of meetings.  Perhaps a CRT webpage, perhaps an email circular, or a posted leaflet.

 

Unless that happens, then I still think these reps are redundant.  How are they representing boaters when it's unlikely they're gathering views from outside their own bubble?

 

 

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13 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

 

 

1.  Is there a report from the September 2019 meeting?

2.  What action points were identified in the March 2019 meeting and to whom were they allocated?

3.  What progress has been made on these action points?

4.  How were boaters fully consulted prior to the March meeting in order that reps could fully represent their views at the meeting?

5.  Where are the minutes of this meeting?

 

I could go on...

 

I'm still hoping to have my mind changed.

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24 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

1.  Is there a report from the September 2019 meeting?

2.  What action points were identified in the March 2019 meeting and to whom were they allocated?

3.  What progress has been made on these action points?

4.  How were boaters fully consulted prior to the March meeting in order that reps could fully represent their views at the meeting?

5.  Where are the minutes of this meeting?

 

I could go on...

 

I'm still hoping to have my mind changed.


I would suggest that if there are any failings with the way this all operates, those failings cannot really be laid at the door of the elected representatives.

 

If anybody is to publish synopses / minutes / meeting notes that should surely be CRT?

 

If anybody wants to be canvassing for input to the meeting, that should surely also be CRT?

 

If elected reps, (who are volunteers, unpaid, and giving up a lot of their time), go the extra mile to provide feedback this should not have to because CRT is not doing enough in that department.  Those reps who have done this usually make it clear that their report is their own personal view of the meeting, and not necessarily the official line, (which of course s absolutely correct!).

 

All that said, I'm not sure your comments necessarily show that you fully understand the role of Council, or those sitting on it.  It is possible to find official CRT statements as to what a boater's rep role is meant to be, and their performance ought to be judged against that, not your own view of what you imagine the scope of the role to be.

And, of course, any of us who hold private boat licences could have put ourselves up as candidates, (as I myself did first time around).  If you personally believe you could do a better ob in the role, you always have that option!

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4 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:


I would suggest that if there are any failings with the way this all operates, those failings cannot really be laid at the door of the elected representatives.

Agreed.

If anybody is to publish synopses / minutes / meeting notes that should surely be CRT?

Agreed.

If anybody wants to be canvassing for input to the meeting, that should surely also be CRT?

Disagree, they are boaters REPS. There to represent boaters.  However CRT should provide the mechanisms to facilitate that canvassing.

If elected reps, (who are volunteers, unpaid, and giving up a lot of their time), go the extra mile to provide feedback this should not have to because CRT is not doing enough in that department.  Those reps who have done this usually make it clear that their report is their own personal view of the meeting, and not necessarily the official line, (which of course s absolutely correct!).

Agreed.

All that said, I'm not sure your comments necessarily show that you fully understand the role of Council, or those sitting on it.  It is possible to find official CRT statements as to what a boater's rep role is meant to be, and their performance ought to be judged against that, not your own view of what you imagine the scope of the role to be.
Agree to disagree.  I have quite a lot of experience of this sort of thing, some good, some bad.
And, of course, any of us who hold private boat licences could have put ourselves up as candidates, (as I myself did first time around).  If you personally believe you could do a better ob in the role, you always have that option!

I don't believe anyone could do a much better job because I believe the roles are redundant.  The idea of boaters reps seems to be a mere sop that CRT use to quiet boaters.  If CRT actually took the idea of having these reps seriously, then I might be tempted to stand.

 

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