Peter Burgess
New member
Make up rules as you go along? You were lucky! We used to ignore the rules even before we'd made them up! Aye, tell that to the cavers of today, and they won't believe you!
Democracy?????????????
- Thread starter Simon Wilson
- Start date
They will fall foul of nothing if no real controls are in place to check it is being run as intended. It really is exceedingly simple to form a club that allegedly conforms to the set of rules suggested by the BCA (member numbers, constitution etc). Any fool can do it!kay said:
Simon Wilson
New member
Lazarus said:
It's all nonsense. The real checks on whether a club is accepted or not is whether or not the committee accept them as a member club and whether the AGM elect them onto the committee. That is why the 'proper' clubs need to attend the AGM and make sure only 'proper' clubs are elected.
Peter Burgess
New member
Classic UKCaving sense of humour failure. Me? Surprised? Not.
Simon Wilson
New member
Peter Burgess said:
Wi used to have to mek up rules before wi wa' ee'n born to stop us mekkin up rules about brekkin rules that wi'd med to stop us mekkin up rules.
Peter Burgess
New member
Eeee, that's more like it! 
Simon Wilson
New member
Tha's a funny lad fer a sutherner.
Simon Wilson
New member
If you say they are interested, I know it will be true. Being interested, discussing it, making decisions within the club are OK but they mean nothing if you don't go and vote. Your next chance to make a difference will be in February.
Digging with Long Bob.
Digging with Long Bob.
Simon Wilson
New member
droid said:NewStuff said:
I'm old and pretty good at ignoring rules too.
Practice makes perfect.
Love it when people like Simon bollock on about people exercising 'free access' (ie ignoring CNCC) in the last 8 years. I remember doing that 30-odd years ago.....
Let's get this right. You think gated access in the South should be respected but permits in the North can be ignored?
Off topic, this is about democracy.
droid
Active member
You haven't got it right.
That's not bothered you in the past though. FYI the CNCC, from my point of view, was started to solve a very real and urgent problem.
It seems to have a 'democracy' that is rather opaque and unneccessary: one club, one vote, get the BEST people on the Committee seems to me the way to go. Don't bugger about with only CERTAIN clubs being able to supply Committee members.
Work for that and you will have my support IN THAT cause.
That's not bothered you in the past though. FYI the CNCC, from my point of view, was started to solve a very real and urgent problem.
It seems to have a 'democracy' that is rather opaque and unneccessary: one club, one vote, get the BEST people on the Committee seems to me the way to go. Don't bugger about with only CERTAIN clubs being able to supply Committee members.
Work for that and you will have my support IN THAT cause.
Peter Burgess
New member
Droid has a valid point. Messing about with the "micro club" issue looks like treating the symptoms, and not sorting out the underlying cause of why they might have been set up in the first place.
Simon Wilson
New member
I'm afraid you will both need to explain yourselves more clearly if you want me to understand what you are on about.
It is one club one vote. That principal has been debated fairly often and has remained unchanged from 1963.
Micro-clubs have been set up to give individual people undue influence. Whereas, many people think that the biggest clubs should have proportionally most say. But it is not easy to arrange that in a fair way which is why it has never been done. Voting clubs onto the committee at the AGM should hopefully mean that the clubs choose jointly who is on the committee; the clubs choose jointly who are the most suitable clubs to be on the committee.
Go back and read my start to the previous thread on 'CNCC democracy'.
It is one club one vote. That principal has been debated fairly often and has remained unchanged from 1963.
Micro-clubs have been set up to give individual people undue influence. Whereas, many people think that the biggest clubs should have proportionally most say. But it is not easy to arrange that in a fair way which is why it has never been done. Voting clubs onto the committee at the AGM should hopefully mean that the clubs choose jointly who is on the committee; the clubs choose jointly who are the most suitable clubs to be on the committee.
Go back and read my start to the previous thread on 'CNCC democracy'.
Peter Burgess
New member
Address what you see as the reason for the micro clubs existence. Then their raison d'etre evaporates.
Bob Mehew
Well-known member
The two houses of individuals and clubs only applies to BCA; CNCC only allows clubs to be members and vote. In BCA two individuals are elected as club reps to Council to reflect club views in general, not their club's view. In CNCC a club is elected as a committee member and then that club has the right to chose who represents them.droid said:
kay
Well-known member
There aren't "two houses" in the same way as BCA has two houses, sorry if I gave that impression
The members of CNCC are clubs, not individuals
There are three classes of membership
1) Honorary membership, for cave rescue organisations - these can be be ignored in what follows
2) Associate members - these clubs may not vote but can get permits to systems that require them
3) Full members - currently these clubs have to be based "in the north". Recently one more full member was voted in at the AGM, and another at the June Committee meeting. Full members can send a voting rep to the AGM and can get permits.
The difference is that the Committee is elected only from the full member clubs, so only full member clubs have a vote on Committee.
The original concept was that officers would be elected from the representatives of the 14 Committee clubs. But it proved ever more difficult to find willing candidates. Therefore the Constitution was changed to allow officers to be elected who weren't representatives of Committee clubs. So we now have a Committee consists of the 14 voting members who are the nominated representatives of the 14 full member clubs who have been elected on to the Committee, and we have 5 officers who are elected but who don't have a vote and who act on the instructions of the Committee. And we have a number of "co-opted officers" who are appointed by the Committee to specific roles (eg permit secretary, Minutes sec, website manager) but again who don't have a vote.
Out of our five officers, one happens to be the nominated representative of his club, and therefore votes according to his club's wishes, and the other four aren't club reps, so don't vote.
Having got involved with CNCC relatively recently (within the last 5 years) my perception is that the current problems come from two sources
a) the fact that the Constitution has evolved, eg with the expansion in eligibility for officer roles, meaning that it's become quite difficult to understand all the implications of the Constitution
b) a widespread lack of interest in the wider caving world about the work of CNCC, meaning that those who have been willing to get down to the work of negotiating access, pacifying annoyed landlords, conserving caves, bolting caves etc have been doing this for a very long time, working together for a long time on a basis of mutual trust and shared knowledge, and documentation hasn't been all that it should have been.
In other words, I really don't see plots and conspiracies, merely well-meaning people muddling along doing the best that they can as they see it.
So the recent kerfuffle, while it has taken up a lot of people's time, has had its benefits to my mind. We have set up a sub-group to tidy up the Constitution, which will be reporting back to the Committee, and if they agree, the tidied up Constitution will be taken to the AGM. At least one club I know of is taking a lot more interest in CNCC, and hopefully this will lead to more people willing to share the work - no-one should have to serve in post for 20 years! So I think, if we all work together and don't keep harking back to the past, the future for CNCC and caving in the North is bright.
Note that all opinions in this are my own personal opinions; I am not speaking either as a co-opted officer or as a club rep.
The members of CNCC are clubs, not individuals
There are three classes of membership
1) Honorary membership, for cave rescue organisations - these can be be ignored in what follows
2) Associate members - these clubs may not vote but can get permits to systems that require them
3) Full members - currently these clubs have to be based "in the north". Recently one more full member was voted in at the AGM, and another at the June Committee meeting. Full members can send a voting rep to the AGM and can get permits.
The difference is that the Committee is elected only from the full member clubs, so only full member clubs have a vote on Committee.
The original concept was that officers would be elected from the representatives of the 14 Committee clubs. But it proved ever more difficult to find willing candidates. Therefore the Constitution was changed to allow officers to be elected who weren't representatives of Committee clubs. So we now have a Committee consists of the 14 voting members who are the nominated representatives of the 14 full member clubs who have been elected on to the Committee, and we have 5 officers who are elected but who don't have a vote and who act on the instructions of the Committee. And we have a number of "co-opted officers" who are appointed by the Committee to specific roles (eg permit secretary, Minutes sec, website manager) but again who don't have a vote.
Out of our five officers, one happens to be the nominated representative of his club, and therefore votes according to his club's wishes, and the other four aren't club reps, so don't vote.
Having got involved with CNCC relatively recently (within the last 5 years) my perception is that the current problems come from two sources
a) the fact that the Constitution has evolved, eg with the expansion in eligibility for officer roles, meaning that it's become quite difficult to understand all the implications of the Constitution
b) a widespread lack of interest in the wider caving world about the work of CNCC, meaning that those who have been willing to get down to the work of negotiating access, pacifying annoyed landlords, conserving caves, bolting caves etc have been doing this for a very long time, working together for a long time on a basis of mutual trust and shared knowledge, and documentation hasn't been all that it should have been.
In other words, I really don't see plots and conspiracies, merely well-meaning people muddling along doing the best that they can as they see it.
So the recent kerfuffle, while it has taken up a lot of people's time, has had its benefits to my mind. We have set up a sub-group to tidy up the Constitution, which will be reporting back to the Committee, and if they agree, the tidied up Constitution will be taken to the AGM. At least one club I know of is taking a lot more interest in CNCC, and hopefully this will lead to more people willing to share the work - no-one should have to serve in post for 20 years! So I think, if we all work together and don't keep harking back to the past, the future for CNCC and caving in the North is bright.
Note that all opinions in this are my own personal opinions; I am not speaking either as a co-opted officer or as a club rep.
kay
Well-known member
Peter Burgess said:
A very sound comment.
Simon sees their existence as being to obtain votes. So one addresses that by all clubs taking an interest and ensuring that anyone setting up a club merely to get a vote isn't accepted as a full member of CNCC.
I (and I'm not alone in this) see their existence as being a result of the permit system allowing permits only to clubs. That is addressed by allowing responsible individuals to obtain permits, but to seek to make that change will require more canvassing of views of cavers.
