Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

A place to discuss the issues relating to the proposed change in the national CTC’s structure.
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irc
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by irc »

mercurykev wrote: It is my opinion that if this move goes forward the CTC will turn into another big NGO, an eco-charity and it won't be about the members any more. Chances are that the professional, employed staff will view the members as an irritant that have to be put up with because they provide an income stream; although, this view may already be the case amongst the senior paid staff (who exactly pays their wages?).


It's worded in a different way.

"CTC is regarded as financially stable for the voluntary sector because of its stable core income from membership which should be maintained."

So is the CTC to be a club working mainly for it's members or part of the voluntary sector?
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glueman
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by glueman »

This thread has set me thinking what a perfect Cyclists' Touring Club might look like. It would consist of a John Mortimer type character to deal with legal assaults on cyclists rights and Chris Juden to keep on top of technical issues. There'd be a couple of people to answer the phones and that would be it. The magazine would be an online one, full of the wit and joy of cycling with a hard copy option at extra membership cost, so throw in a part-time editor/website manager.

Any money raised would go towards developing grassroots biking with DAs/membergroups to the forefront and a strong diversity agenda. Local issues would be devolved to regional volunteers. The more I hear about trusts and charities and big governance the further the club moves from these ideals.
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meic
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by meic »

An example of the Charity Commision being used to stifle the RSPCA.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/312/7035/866/a

If you Google you can find others. In particular a victory against them from the bloodsports lobby.
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by bikepacker »

Met a CTC member today in Pershore. Up to 5 years ago Pershore had a thriving CTC section in which included this member. Due to changes imposed by HQ over rides leadership, the section was disbanded. Not being on the internet he was not offay with all the arguements and he posed me this question.

How will being a charity benefit me as a long serving CTC member? Couldn't think of a good answer, maybe others can.
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irc
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by irc »

I know this has been raised already but .....

Why was the HQ building transferred to the Charity? Can someone with knowledge of Charity rules or law say why the CTC could not have just either rented or donated the use of part of the building to the charity.

It has also been said that there is no going back if the entire CTC becomes a charity and that the CTC Charitible Trust as it stands just now is irreversable. Surely charites can be wound up. I'm not suggesting that it would make sense to do so but why can't it be done?
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Simon L6
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by Simon L6 »

irc wrote:I know this has been raised already but .....

Why was the HQ building transferred to the Charity? Can someone with knowledge of Charity rules or law say why the CTC could not have just either rented or donated the use of part of the building to the charity.

It has also been said that there is no going back if the entire CTC becomes a charity and that the CTC Charitible Trust as it stands just now is irreversable. Surely charites can be wound up. I'm not suggesting that it would make sense to do so but why can't it be done?

the stated reason was the avoidance of CGT. My professional advice is that the gain wasn't that great. And, yes, you're right, the Club could have rented or donated the use of the building to the Trust.

Be that as it may, we are where we are. Opinion is divided on whether anything can be done about it.

One of the more arcane aspects of this affair is that the 'Mems and Arts' will have to be amended. My understanding is that the member benefits will become discretionary - but, again, I'm open to correction on this.
simonconnell
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by simonconnell »

he stated reason was the avoidance of CGT. My professional advice is that the gain wasn't that great.


I'm not going to put a number on this because I don't have one to hand, but I have been told it was a six-figure sum. That's a lot of membership subscriptions that would otherwise have gone straight to settling the tax bill.
drossall
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by drossall »

mercurykev wrote:...I saw it time and time again, where large, national charities had contracts to deliver services that had very little to do with their core groups.

Could I ask whether those were what I might call "membership charities" such as the ones I mentioned previously? I am thinking of the kind of organisation that makes fundamental use of a strong membership base to guide and deliver its activities. This seems to me to be different from the charity that we all think of when that word is used, in which members are sought mostly as financial contributors. "Membership charities", in the sense that I am using the term, tend not to rattle collecting tins.

Even in a "membership charity", many members are not that active, but there is still a strong membership ethos that makes diverting from the core purpose more difficult. I'd expect this to be true of the CTC. Whilst some here have made vague references to government contracts that suggest that they believe that it is not, I still have no idea what they are talking about.

irc wrote:So is the CTC to be a club working mainly for it's members or part of the voluntary sector?

Surely that's the point of the debate?

glueman wrote:This thread has set me thinking what a perfect Cyclists' Touring Club might look like...

No-one looking after the subs then? :wink:

bikepacker wrote:How will being a charity benefit {my friend} as a long serving CTC member?

On my current understanding, this is fundamentally the wrong question to ask. As I suggested in my first post, charities are about benefitting everyone else. If you want the CTC to focus solely on benefits to you, you might vote against. If you want it to have a campaigning, cycling promotion and social role as well, you might vote for. Either position is defensible, but criticising the option least likely to deliver what you want for failing to do so does not seem the obvious way forward.

meic wrote:An example of the Charity Commision being used to stifle the RSPCA.

Again, IANAL, but I can see how this would come about. Charities must promote the public interest. Therefore, a court is asked to say whether challenging vivisection is in the public interest (and therefore legal for a charity). On the basis that the current consensus, as represented by UK law, is that vivisection is legal because the human good outweighs the animal harm, the court says no. The court is not being asked to make a moral judgement on vivisection. It is being asked to assess whether the current law embodies the view that vivisection is to the public good, to which the answer appears to be yes.

The real question, though, is how this applies to the CTC. The point of this debate is that becoming a charity has advantages and disadvantages. Some contributors have complained bitterly that the disadvantages are not being explained. In this case, the doubters have established that some activities might no longer be possible, but failed entirely to state what those might be, which is exactly the complaint made about HQ.
mercurykev
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by mercurykev »

drossall wrote:
mercurykev wrote:...I saw it time and time again, where large, national charities had contracts to deliver services that had very little to do with their core groups.

Could I ask whether those were what I might call "membership charities" such as the ones I mentioned previously? I am thinking of the kind of organisation that makes fundamental use of a strong membership base to guide and deliver its activities. This seems to me to be different from the charity that we all think of when that word is used, in which members are sought mostly as financial contributors. "Membership charities", in the sense that I am using the term, tend not to rattle collecting tins.


My experience was with what I'd call 'high street charities' - the type that are well known and often have charity shops too. However, I was trying to show how it is possible for an organisation to significantly veer away from the purpose for which it was set up through a combination of hired staff being motivated by self interest and the allure of Government cash.

I'd be interested to know if the creep has started to happen yet. Have the CTC been contracted to deliver anything that is not cycling specific? E.g. active travel, sustainable transport or road safety?
drossall
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by drossall »

The Charity Commission are examining organisations much more closely now. I'd expect it to be difficult to do things outside the charitable remit, except perhaps through a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary. In any case, for the reasons I outlined, I would see the membership nature of the organisation as making this more difficult.

Like you, I need to see examples. We can all come up with adverse scenarios, but we also have to ask whether they are likely. At present, I can't judge.
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Simon L6
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by Simon L6 »

Drossall - forget the word charity. The Trust is not a charity in the traditional sense. It doesn't go around dispensing help or cash in the hope of relieving hardship, or begetting some improvement in our common circumstances. Think of the Trust as a contracting business. It is engaged by the DfT or local government to undertake tasks - tasks that might as easily be undertaken by any other business. Now...........should a business of this nature be governed by amateur and temporary directors? Should, for example, the CTC's Professional Services business, which advises Council's on infrastructure, be owned by a Club when there are any number of transport consultancies that could do the job - and do it better because they have more knowledge? And do it without making a stonking loss at the members' expense? And do it out of sight of our own RtR movement.......?

I know the answer to that. The answer is no. I was elected to the National Council for a three year term because people thought me to be committed to cycling, that I could make some improvements to the membership system, and shine a light in to some dark corners. I had to disappoint them - my skill in accounting was not up to the job of getting in to those dark corners - although it doesn't help when papers are sent to councillors the day before the meeting (it also didn't help that Council voted against a change of auditors every year, keeping the ones we've had for over a generation). All the CTC Council has ever done for the Trust is to act as a kindly uncle doling out postal orders. The CTC Council has no day-to-day or strategic concern with the Trust's contracts, and neither, for that matter, does the wider membership. It is only the heroic badgering of Greg Price and John Meudell that has, finally, started to prise the information loose from National Office.

Put simply the Trust is a business which needs managers who put investor's money, (and preferably some of their own money besides) on the line.

Drossall - one further thought....Campaiging belongs in the CTC, and in the Club - it's one of the big reasons why people join. Campaigning was with us a hundred and twenty five years before the word 'charity' ever surfaced. If, as it is to be hoped, the finances of the Trust can be disentangled from those of the Club there is no reason why campaigning should not be central to the activity of the Club - and it's to be hoped also that Councilors would take an active interest in campaigning, and help marshall the wellspring of untapped enthusiasm within the Club.
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Simon L6
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by Simon L6 »

simonconnell wrote:
he stated reason was the avoidance of CGT. My professional advice is that the gain wasn't that great.


I'm not going to put a number on this because I don't have one to hand, but I have been told it was a six-figure sum. That's a lot of membership subscriptions that would otherwise have gone straight to settling the tax bill.

I too have been told it's a six figure sum. I'm spectacularly unconvinced. The value of the house would have been indexed (in a roundabout Inland Revenue kind of way). Independent accounting advice puts the number of figures as.....four. But please, if you get the written advice from the then financial adviser to the Council, could you publish it?
simonconnell
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by simonconnell »

The value of the house would have been indexed (in a roundabout Inland Revenue kind of way).


Indexation would have reduced or removed the capital gains tax payable, but not the requirement to pay Stamp Duty.

Independent accounting advice puts the number of figures as.....four.


A quick Google shows the cost of the new N.O. to be £1.54m - that may include non-property costs, but even assuming £1.25m that's a £50,000 Stamp Duty bill which a charity doesn't have to pay.

But please, if you get the written advice from the then financial adviser to the Council, could you publish it?


Certainly - I'll see if I can dig anything up in the new Year.
glueman
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by glueman »

drossall wrote:No-one looking after the subs then? :wink:

It depends what you mean by looking after. There would certainly be an administrative role cascading funds down to the members groups by the most direct means possible, to develop local cycling in the way they deem appropriate.
The DA/member groups could develop best practice from the front runners and head office facilitate that dissemination. I don't see a role for centralised prestige/willy waving exercises. Take up will be from grass roots initiatives, not Grand Ideas.
reohn2
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Re: Are we looking forward to being a membership charity?

Post by reohn2 »

glueman wrote:
drossall wrote:No-one looking after the subs then? :wink:

It depends what you mean by looking after. There would certainly be an administrative role cascading funds down to the members groups by the most direct means possible, to develop local cycling in the way they deem appropriate.
The DA/member groups could develop best practice from the front runners and head office facilitate that dissemination. I don't see a role for centralised prestige/willy waving exercises. Take up will be from grass roots initiatives, not Grand Ideas.


Sounds like my kind of club,when can we start!
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