How are CRT doing

[rowland al]

8 minutes ago, mayalld said:

?

 

The beauty of it is that I am just me, and can do as I please.

 

Nobody pays me any licence fees, so I consider myself free to conduct my business not subject to the public scrutiny that CRT are subject to.

 

Funnily enough it’s what I try to do except I try to keep clear of ‘formal’ routes as they tend to put peoples backs up. Not to say that formal routes never work and informal routes always do.

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2018 by rowland al

[Señor Chris]

15 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

On the morning after the referendum and I woke up to the radio giving us the dreadful news, my immediate thought was that the political elite in power will simply not allow this to happen. They will engineer a second referendum to give the proletariat the opportunity to correct their godawful misinformed mistake. 

That's what happens when the option voted for turns out to be an undeliverable pipe-dream.

 

[Laurie Booth]

On 31/10/2018 at 11:27, Alan de Enfield said:

If they were a commercial company all of the Directors would be long gone.

The directors would still be there but on four times the salary

[mayalld]

Well, that seems to have quietened down.

 

Any more last minute votes?

[Alan de Enfield]

17 minutes ago, mayalld said:

Well, that seems to have quietened down.

 

Any more last minute votes?

It is amazing that 2 people could be so easily hoodwinked.

[rowland al]

24 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

It is amazing that 2 people could be so easily hoodwinked.

? 

 

I think it’s been a very interesting exercise especially as the vote wasn’t just restricted to boaters. 

[rusty69]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

It is amazing that 2 people could be so easily hoodwinked.

For too long!

Edited November 7, 2018 by rusty69

[alan_fincher]

2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

It is amazing that 2 people could be so easily hoodwinked.

It's possible that Richard Parry and Allan Leighton have CWDF accounts, of course!

[Alan de Enfield]

16 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

It's possible that Richard Parry and Allan Leighton have CWDF accounts, of course!

Guess so - and not many Turkeys vote for Christmas.

[Momac]

On 31/10/2018 at 11:08, Naughty Cal said:

For those who are not happy with CRT, what suggestions would they make for how they can improve?

A stop on to the sale of assets and visible investment in maintenance and  upgrade of existing facilities and infrastructure would be a good start. 

[LadyG]

26 minutes ago, MartynG said:

A stop on to the sale of assets and visible investment in maintenance and  upgrade of existing facilities and infrastructure would be a good start. 

Where are they going to get the cash?

[Naughty Cal]

12 hours ago, LadyG said:

Where are they going to get the cash?

Perhaps they have a magic pot of it like the Labour party. 

[Tony Brooks]

4 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

Perhaps they have a magic pot of it like the Labour party. 

 

I know I should not because it could be osntrued as political rather than fair comment but would that be the same pot the Tories use when they need to bribe the Northan Irish so they can stay in power?

[rowland al]

13 hours ago, LadyG said:

Where are they going to get the cash?

Perhaps by using money which may be being wasted on pointless ‘initiatives’ (e.g re-branding, licence reviews) and empire building. 

 

If C&RT were more open about their true objectives and avoided withholding/spinning information, they would probably receive more in donations from the public as we would have more confidence and respect for them. 

 

They do get some things right. After all there is a certain degree of maintenance, just not enough when it comes to maintaining the navigation for boaters. 

 

I wonder whether the problem is that boaters are only seen for their financial contribution. I mean, the income from the tax payer as a whole and way leave charges, far exceed what boaters financially contribute. (yes, most boaters are also tax payers).

 

So how much do boaters contribute in non-financial ways? I’ll start -

 

By maintaining our heriatage of historic boats.

 

By providing entertainment to the general public (especially in locks!).

 

By contributing to public events with craft and food sale boats. 

 

By providing charitable help (trip boats for less abled and educational purposes). 

 

By maintaining the Timothy and Pru dream to be able to cruise the whole system. (back to use it or lose it again)

 

By maintaining a lifestyle which is a microcosm of the world we would all like to live in. (I’m seeing more selfishness creep in more recently though ?  ) 

 

To maintain the dream for those clinging onto life in the hope that one day they can escape ‘the system’ (I did say ‘dream’ lol but sometimes it’s all we have)

 

Feel free to add to the list. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by rowland al

[rowland al]

There’s a couple in a hire boat behind me. The lady told me she has terminal cancer. She’s hired the boat because they wanted to enjoy her last days cruising. 

 

Isn’t it lovely they can do that still? Sorry to pull any heart strings but it made me think. 

[LadyG]

I get the impression CRT are on a hiding to nothing. The government really would probably prefer not to have anything to do with this financial millstone. So have set up this charitable organisation with targets of "wellness". 

It seems the current income streams are insufficient to meet maintenance requirements, and there is no likelyhood of them doing so unless  providence intervenes.

I have no doubt that any well run business would probably shudder at current CRT business practices, but if they are trying to meet government targets first, everything else is secondary. So it is of no surprise that they spend a lot of time on things like marketing, user surveys, signing up "friends", telephone surveys.  Anyone with a good grasp of their business would not need to spend a lot of their resources on these things but they have to show evidence of their social impact, and this costs money but does not generate income.

I don't know which assets should have been sold off to provide working capital, or which leased to provide income, but I get the impression that things are being done piecemeal, rather than according to a strategy. For example, I would have thought they could have used their marinas to generate a strong income stream, and use them as hubs [centres] of wellness, but it looks as though they can't run these comparatively simple businesses profitably, so little chance turning round a failing business model which is running a complex system.

Edited November 8, 2018 by LadyG

[Mike Todd]

5 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I get the impression CRT are on a hiding to nothing. The government really would probably prefer not to have anything to do with this financial millstone. So have set up this charitable organisation with targets of "wellness". 

It seems the current income streams are insufficient to meet maintenance requirements, and there is no likelyhood of them doing so unless  providence intervenes.

I have no doubt that any well run business would probably shudder at current CRT business practices, but if they are trying to meet government targets first, everything else is secondary. So it is of no surprise that they spend a lot of time on things like marketing, user surveys, signing up "friends", telephone surveys.  Anyone with a good grasp of their business would not need to spend a lot of their resources on these things but they have to show evidence of their social impact, and this costs money but does not generate income.

I don't know which assets should have been sold off to provide working capital, or which leased to provide income, but I get the impression that things are being done piecemeal, rather than according to a strategy. I would have thought they could have used their marinas to generate a strong income stream, and as centres of wellness, but it looks as though they can't run these simple businesses profitably, so what chance running a complex system.

'any well run business' would do all of these things, depending on the specifics of their market. How else, do they gain a 'good grasp of their business'? Of course, personal contact is important and ensuring that it feeds up the food chain but a large business, in numbers and in geography, has to resort to more than word of mouth as it can be quite distorted - as can listening here at times! 

 

I may have misunderstood an earlier aside about the survey but it does no good at all to ridicule respondents for their answers - it makes it look as if i was set up to achieve a specific outcome rather than an objective measurement.

[LadyG]

55 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

 

 

I may have misunderstood an earlier aside about the survey but it does no good at all to ridicule respondents for their answers -

Its a fair point, but there is a fair amount of banter on here, as anyone knows, I had a little chuckle to myself although I made no comment.

If it "it makes it look as if i was set up to achieve a specific outcome rather than an objective measurement" as you noted, well, I think you will find most user generated surveys are somewhat skewed. If you think about the last CRT one about licence fees, it seems to me that the increases were already in the pipeline, and it looked as though it was set up to achieve "justification". No doubt folks with NBs would vote for an  increase in WB fees if that meant their own licences would be kept lower. I don't think there was a question  like :  "how much would you want fees to increase?", for obvious  reasons.

Edited November 8, 2018 by LadyG

[cuthound]

5 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I know I should not because it could be osntrued as political rather than fair comment but would that be the same pot the Tories use when they need to bribe the Northan Irish so they can stay in power?

 

No, my understanding is that the Tories have a money tree, rather than a magic pot, and not only can it be used to bribe the DUP, but also the electorate at voting time ?

[Tony Brooks]

13 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

No, my understanding is that the Tories have a money tree, rather than a magic pot, and not only can it be used to bribe the DUP, but also the electorate at voting time ?