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CRT Election


john6767

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19 minutes ago, Richard T said:

Sorry that Andy Tidy didn't get re-elected. The number of votes cast is very low and shows a lack of interest amongst the vast majority of boaters.

 

Disagree. I consciously abstained as so little info available and no effort made by ANY candidate to engage with me. 

 

 

 

I suspect a lot of boaters felt similarly unable to make an informed choice.

 

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7 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Disagree. I consciously abstained as so little info available and no effort made by ANY candidate to engage with me. 

 

 

 

I suspect a lot of boaters felt similarly unable to make an informed choice.

 

I made an effort to read all the statements on the election web pages and make notes of my impression of them and formed an opinion on which i based my voting preferences.

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47 minutes ago, Richard T said:

Sorry that Andy Tidy didn't get re-elected. The number of votes cast is very low and shows a lack of interest amongst the vast majority of boaters.

Doesn't help that they screwed up the election (as chronicled at the start of this thread) and the voting pages were incredibly user-hostile to begin with, especially on a small screen. I can't be the only one who tried and failed to vote, and then didn't return to try again when the bug had reportedly been fixed.

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12 hours ago, Rambling Boater said:

Did you or Alan Fincher stand for election?

 

12 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I no longer have a C&RT licence so am not eligible to stand.

 

No, but I have stood in the past,and know just how much time and effort needs to be spent if you stand as an "independent", and hence need to try to engage large numbers of people who have never heard of you, and to get them to place you high up on their preference list.

I simply no longer have that much time, but I am still very interested in those who do.

A "block vote" gives you a very much stronger starting point.  Although I do not think we as boaters will be best served overall by someone promoted by the NBTA, I have to accept that they did use social media extensively to engage the London & K&A live-aboard communities, and it always seemed likely to me that based on that that their candidate might be elected.  (If you go back through my comments I am on record as having said this). So I congratulate him on that, because they showed a greater commitment than most of the other 30 plus standing.

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11 hours ago, Richard Fairhurst said:

Doesn't help that they screwed up the election (as chronicled at the start of this thread) and the voting pages were incredibly user-hostile to begin with, especially on a small screen. I can't be the only one who tried and failed to vote, and then didn't return to try again when the bug had reportedly been fixed.

Agreed,

The whole thing was frankly a cock up.

Once it had been established that if you voted from a phone based platform it didn't allow the same options as voting from a PC, and given that many votes had already been cast with that error in place, the only proper thing would have been to scrap that election, and art again with a clean slate.

 

It probably didn't greatly change the overall result, but is a measure of the ineptitude of the whole thing.  It seems to have been even worse using CES than the previous two, both of which I think used Electoral Reform Services.

 

Those of us with multiple CRT licences, but only one customer number once again were only sent one vote, and had to jump through hoops to get our additional vote(s).  In my case when CES sent out the second voting link, and I tried to use it a few days before voting was due to end, I couldn't because it was identical to the first link.

Piss ups and breweries spring to mind, and frankly CRT should be ashamed that they have never even admitted publicly to any of these issues.

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12 hours ago, Richard T said:

I made an effort to read all the statements on the election web pages and make notes of my impression of them and formed an opinion on which i based my voting preferences.

 

12 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Good for you.


So does that mean you didn't bother Mike?

If the answer to that is "yes", why do you feel they all need to  reach out to you personally, if you can't even be arsed to read each of their short statements about themselves?

Most, have, I think, missed a trick, though.  Unless the rules have change since I did it, then you can use some of the limited number of words or letters in your official statement as Internet links to a website, Facebook page, or even You Tube video.  An ideal way of trying to draw people to your cause more than you can get across in your officially limited number of words.  That's what I would have chosen to do, if it is still allowed, and I were still standing myself.

 

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23 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

 

 

No, but I have stood in the past,and know just how much time and effort needs to be spent if you stand as an "independent", and hence need to try to engage large numbers of people who have never heard of you, and to get them to place you high up on their preference list.

I simply no longer have that much time, but I am still very interested in those who do.

A "block vote" gives you a very much stronger starting point.  Although I do not think we as boaters will be best served overall by someone promoted by the NBTA, I have to accept that they did use social media extensively to engage the London & K&A live-aboard communities, and it always seemed likely to me that based on that that their candidate might be elected.  (If you go back through my comments I am on record as having said this). So I congratulate him on that, because they showed a greater commitment than most of the other 30 plus standing.

I'm on the fence when it comes to the NBTA but I'm happy they have a rep.  It means they will be able to challenge the ridiculous position of the IWA on continuous cruising, which IMO deliberately and callously targets boaters of working age in favour of middle class retirees (their membership).

 

As a reminder, here's their position:

 

"IWA supports a progressive increase to the distance that continuous cruisers are expected to travel annually to one that it considers more appropriate to that lifestyle. IWA suggests the following indicative figures, within seasonal and canal maintenance limitations: 1. significant distance per annum (eg 300 miles) 2. minimum range ‘start to maximum distance from start’ during the period of the licence (eg 100 miles) 3. minimum distance travelled per quarter (eg 60 miles)."

 

Give me the baton twirlers any day over that.  A canal dweller purge is not a reasonable or ethical way forward and makes CRTs enforcement approach seems incredibly soft handed by comparison.  Thankfully the IWAs position would be unlawful.

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17 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

I'm on the fence when it comes to the NBTA but I'm happy they have a rep.  It means they will be able to challenge the ridiculous position of the IWA on continuous cruising, which IMO deliberately and callously targets boaters of working age in favour of middle class retirees (their membership).

 

As a reminder, here's their position:

 

"IWA supports a progressive increase to the distance that continuous cruisers are expected to travel annually to one that it considers more appropriate to that lifestyle. IWA suggests the following indicative figures, within seasonal and canal maintenance limitations: 1. significant distance per annum (eg 300 miles) 2. minimum range ‘start to maximum distance from start’ during the period of the licence (eg 100 miles) 3. minimum distance travelled per quarter (eg 60 miles)."

 

Give me the baton twirlers any day over that.  A canal dweller purge is not a reasonable or ethical way forward and makes CRTs enforcement approach seems incredibly soft handed by comparison.  Thankfully the IWAs position would be unlawful.

The NBTA represent a very significant body of boat owners and I think its good that they have a seat at the table and a voice in the decision making process. A positive step.

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10 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

I'm on the fence when it comes to the NBTA but I'm happy they have a rep.  It means they will be able to challenge the ridiculous position of the IWA on continuous cruising, which IMO deliberately and callously targets boaters of working age in favour of middle class retirees (their membership).

 

As a reminder, here's their position:

 

"IWA supports a progressive increase to the distance that continuous cruisers are expected to travel annually to one that it considers more appropriate to that lifestyle. IWA suggests the following indicative figures, within seasonal and canal maintenance limitations: 1. significant distance per annum (eg 300 miles) 2. minimum range ‘start to maximum distance from start’ during the period of the licence (eg 100 miles) 3. minimum distance travelled per quarter (eg 60 miles)."

 

Give me the baton twirlers any day over that.  A canal dweller purge is not a reasonable or ethical way forward and makes CRTs enforcement approach seems incredibly soft handed by comparison.  Thankfully the IWAs position would be unlawful.

I too have some respect for the NBTA as they seem to be the only boating(?) organisation capable of standing up to CRT. Perhaps this is because the subject of continuing to live on a boat is more emotive than continuing to navigate the system. The NBTA also seem better at engaging younger people.

 

Maybe we won't see an effective boaters organisation until we start to see parts of the system shut down permanently due to failures in the infrastructure. Perhaps the IWA could spend more of their efforts on this rather than targeting those who aren't doing any harm to anyone!

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2 minutes ago, Rambling Boater said:

I too have some respect for the NBTA as they seem to be the only boating(?) organisation capable of standing up to CRT. Perhaps this is because the subject of continuing to live on a boat is more emotive than continuing to navigate the system. The NBTA also seem better at engaging younger people.

 

Over the years, I have found that if you tell people, of all ages, what they want to hear, then they are very supportive of you.

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47 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

I'm on the fence when it comes to the NBTA but I'm happy they have a rep.  It means they will be able to challenge the ridiculous position of the IWA on continuous cruising, which IMO deliberately and callously targets boaters of working age in favour of middle class retirees (their membership).

 

As a reminder, here's their position:

 

"IWA supports a progressive increase to the distance that continuous cruisers are expected to travel annually to one that it considers more appropriate to that lifestyle. IWA suggests the following indicative figures, within seasonal and canal maintenance limitations: 1. significant distance per annum (eg 300 miles) 2. minimum range ‘start to maximum distance from start’ during the period of the licence (eg 100 miles) 3. minimum distance travelled per quarter (eg 60 miles)."

 

Give me the baton twirlers any day over that.  A canal dweller purge is not a reasonable or ethical way forward and makes CRTs enforcement approach seems incredibly soft handed by comparison.  Thankfully the IWAs position would be unlawful.

 

24 minutes ago, Rambling Boater said:

I too have some respect for the NBTA as they seem to be the only boating(?) organisation capable of standing up to CRT. Perhaps this is because the subject of continuing to live on a boat is more emotive than continuing to navigate the system. The NBTA also seem better at engaging younger people.

 

Maybe we won't see an effective boaters organisation until we start to see parts of the system shut down permanently due to failures in the infrastructure. Perhaps the IWA could spend more of their efforts on this rather than targeting those who aren't doing any harm to anyone!

 

I can't disagree with either of these posts.

In recent years the attitude of the IWA to live-aboard boaters has been totally unacceptable, and they have been very prepared to stretch the facts in one direction as the NBTA regularly do in the other.

 

The IWA behave appallingly the first time these elections were held, and put up 4 of their senior officers as the boaters rep candidates, and then persuaded their membership to use it's "block vote" to get them all elected.  Anybody not an IWA member, or sharing their view of the world, got no representation at all, that time around.

All those reps remained virtually invisible for their 4 year tenure, and as far as I could see did nothing of use at all for the rest of the boat owning population on CRT waters, although I'm sure that in the background they were using their considerable influence with CRT to push their (sometimes very poisonous) view of live-aboard boaters.

We shall have to see how the three new incumbents to this role compared to the better of the outgoing ones, but none are likely to worse than a bunch of "IWA Grandees".....


(For clarity some very good people remain loyal to the IWA.  I am not a critic of the IWA per-se, but certainly am of many of the policies persued by those at the top.)

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19 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Over the years, I have found that if you tell people, of all ages, what they want to hear, then they are very supportive of you.

I don’t think everyone is as stupid as you seem to think. 

 

I would imagine that more younger people are affected by living aboard issues than navigation, this may be why the  NBTA have a larger younger voice than the IWA. A voice which the older generation would be foolish to ignore. 

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13 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

 

 

I can't disagree with either of these posts.

In recent years the attitude of the IWA to live-aboard boaters has been totally unacceptable, and they have been very prepared to stretch the facts in one direction as the NBTA regularly do in the other.

 

The IWA behave appallingly the first time these elections were held, and put up 4 of their senior officers as the boaters rep candidates, and then persuaded their membership to use it's "block vote" to get them all elected.  Anybody not an IWA member, or sharing their view of the world, got no representation at all, that time around.

All those reps remained virtually invisible for their 4 year tenure, and as far as I could see did nothing of use at all for the rest of the boat owning population on CRT waters, although I'm sure that in the background they were using their considerable influence with CRT to push their (sometimes very poisonous) view of live-aboard boaters.

We shall have to see how the three new incumbents to this role compared to the better of the outgoing ones, but none are likely to worse than a bunch of "IWA Grandees".....


(For clarity some very good people remain loyal to the IWA.  I am not a critic of the IWA per-se, but certainly am of many of the policies persued by those at the top.)

I'm sure they have some good people as members but I imagine their membership will dwindle as they become increasingly irrelevant to a new generation of boaters, and as they treat that generation with hostility.  Such a shame and I'm sure it's not what Rolt, Aickman et al had in mind for the organisation.

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