The CNCC has a straightforward democratic structure which depends on club representatives being elected by an informed club membership and the CNCC committee being elected by those representatives.

Over the last few weeks I have discussed the CNCC online with the whole club and in person with our club Secretary, Treasurer, Meets Secretary, Tackle Master and about a dozen club members. I can, therefore, say with confidence that as far as possible I truly represent a reasonably large caving club and I could say the same in the past when I represented Burnley Caving Club.

About 25 years ago there was a proposal by the largest club (RRCPC) that a club should be allowed to have more than one person on the committee. BCC and our close friends the EPC both objected because we feared it was a slippery slope which could lead to one or two clubs being totally dominant. The proposal was eventually passed with the proviso that any club still only had one vote. The wording of the constitution is obscure but that is what it is intended to convey. The majority of the committee is still made up of the larger clubs; RRCPC, BPC, CPC YRC and YSS are all on the committee and always have been and that to me seems fair and just. In theory at least, the democratic structure of those clubs should ensure that the views of the majority of each club are represented at the CNCC.

It is an important feature of the democratic structure of the CNCC that there is an elected committee. It is not guaranteed but it should be assumed that the member clubs will accept that the largest clubs who represent the greatest number of cavers should be the first ones elected onto the committee. The right to one vote resides with a club and only clubs elected to the committee can vote at committee meetings.

In the committee minutes for 2007 Les Sykes, Glenn Jones and Jim Sloane are all recorded as representing Lancashire Underground Group (LUG) so they would have one vote between them. From 2008 onwards Jim is recorded as representing LUG but both Les and Glenn are not recorded as representing any club until 2013 when Les is recorded as representing Elysium Underground Group (who? ) and Glenn as representing CNCC Technical Group. EUG and the CNCC TG are not on the list of committee members elected in 2007 and there has been no election since then. Furthermore, the CNCC TG presents a report to every meeting of the CNCC after the Training Officers report. They are clearly an incorporated part of the CNCC and not a caving club and so not even eligible for election.

I have been told that one club on the committee has 3 members. I have not been able to find out how many members there are in Elysium or LUG.

In the draft agenda for the 2014 CNCC AGM there is a proposal which will effectively abolish the committee and give one vote to all full member clubs. The proposal is for the constitution to read as follows:

?Each member club of the committee shall have one vote; any additional attending Full member club representatives will have one vote. The Chairman shall not have a casting vote?

This would automatically give ?micro-clubs? the same voting power as some clubs with over 200 members without them having to go through the process of being elected onto the committee.

The proposed change would be a dangerous move and it is important that it is rejected and an elected committee retained.

Simon - I see where you're coming from, and I understand why you're worried. It might be helpful to say why the CNCC Committee voted to put this change forward to the AGM.

There's a lot of work done by the CNCC, including by representatives of member clubs of CNCC who are not on the Committee. The Committee felt that if a club could be bothered to send a rep to the CNCC meeting and to help in the business of the CNCC, then it was only fair that that club should have a vote. (I don't think that it was envisaged that it would make a great difference to the results of votes - after all, only a very few people have the time or motivation to get involved the work of the CNCC, and it would probably be only one or two "extra" club reps at the most.)

It may or may not be a bad idea, but it certainly isn't an attempt by the "top table" to allow the CNCC to be taken over by the members of "micro clubs", if that is your worry.

( "Micro clubs" have the same voting power as clubs with over 200 members when it comes to the AGM.)

Kay

What seems possibly to have kicked in here is the law of unintended consequences. What the intent was when a change is made is not always the same as what happens a short distance down the line when someone else interprets the wording and realises what is possible.

One of the candidates for election as secretary has suggested a wholesale revision of the constitution, to take into account modern realities and recent concerns. I would suggest that, in the light of that, no constitutional changes be made at this meeting but that the committee, as elected at the next AGM, is tasked with producing, circulating and getting feedback on a completely new constitution in time to be considered and, possibly, adopted at the 2015 AGM.

While many might see the problems as being urgent surely everyone can see the value in doing a job properly rather than in haste.

kay said:

There's a lot of work done by the CNCC, including by representatives of member clubs of CNCC who are not on the Committee. The Committee felt that if a club could be bothered to send a rep to the CNCC meeting and to help in the business of the CNCC, then it was only fair that that club should have a vote.

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There are only eight clubs on the committee and six vacant places. Any club that wants to vote can easily get onto the committee.

The list of the committee on the 2014 AGM agenda is fiction. There has been no change of the committee since the 2007 election. Glenn left this forum when I asked him how the list has been changed. You and the ?top table? have failed continually to answer that question by email. Please answer the question.

It may or may not be a bad idea, but it certainly isn't an attempt by the "top table" to allow the CNCC to be taken over by the members of "micro clubs", if that is your worry.

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Members of micro-clubs have already taken over and the proposal would reinforce it.

( "Micro clubs" have the same voting power as clubs with over 200 members when it comes to the AGM.)

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There should be a minimum number of members in a full member club. Clubs with fewer than a certain number should be associate members; able to get permits but with no vote.

Simon Wilson said:

( "Micro clubs" have the same voting power as clubs with over 200 members when it comes to the AGM.)

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There should be a minimum number of members in a full member club. Clubs with fewer than a certain number should be associate members; able to get permits but with no vote.

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onworkable  &  proberly unenforcable . if the minimum number is , say, 6 then it  would be easy for 6 political actvists to set up 6 diffrnet clubs  with the same 6 members , one per person but with  the oter 5 poeple being  the members . they could use a standard consutituion easyly and get 6 votes  with out hassel . who  are the members in Elylsum and the Dent clubs ? are they pretty  much the same poeple ?

Simon Wilson said:

There should be a minimum number of members in a full member club. Clubs with fewer than a certain number should be associate members; able to get permits but with no vote.

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Would that not make CNCC less representative of cavers as a whole?

Easily enforceable.

In order to be considered a bona-fide club they should be eligible to apply for permits and for that, club members have to have BCA insurance. The person who can say how many members a club has is the BCA Membership Secretary.

The BCA has a rule on the minimum size for a club.

Simon Wilson said:

The BCA has a rule on the minimum size for a club.

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Actually, it's a bit vague. There is an expectation that there should be a minimum of four. There is a harder criterion that the club should annually elect at least two officers. There are, however, no strictures on officer roles being carried by a single individual and absolutely no mention of unique member numbers i.e. members not shared with another club. I doubt that 'transgressions' of these last two points could be enforceable without some very complex rule-writing or frequent adjudication by Council. I, personally, can think of an instance of a club insisting that all its members were either DIMs or CIMs via other clubs to save them the hassle of doing the insurance thing.

I'm not doing this to be difficult but simply to highlight how bloody hard it is to write a watertight set of rules for anything.

Simon Wilson said:

In order to be considered a bona-fide club they should be eligible to apply for permits and for that, club members have to have BCA insurance. The person who can say how many members a club has is the BCA Membership Secretary.

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Isn't Glenn the BCA Membership Secretary as well?

The CNCC constitution is a bit vague in some places, but a couple of points may be relevant.

Full membership of the Council will only be granted to responsible and properly constituted clubs, which are owned and controlled by their own members, and are primarily based in the North of Britain.

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It's difficult to see how the CNCC Technical Group could be considered a club under this definition.

I'd also suggest that any "micro" club set up for the purpose of flooding the CNCC with members in the way that has been described could justifiably be refused membership on this basis. The purpose of a caving club should be to cave - not to distort the make up of a regional council.

The committee shall be empowered to co-opt additional members who shall not be eligible to vote

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I'd suggest if the CNCC TG wish to remain on the working committee it would be under this heading, i.e. they would not have a vote. Equally this means there are still fourteen places left available for clubs. Should they wish to vote then it would be up to them to demonstrate that they are in fact a properly constituted club.

The same goes for the Elysium Caving Club. Since nobody appears to have heard of them and no information is available on them it would be reasonable to ask them to demonstrate that they are in fact a properly constituted club - they may well be, hopefully they are - in which case I'm sure they'll be able to demonstrate this.

General Meetings shall be open to all member clubs but voting shall be restricted to one representative from each full member club present.

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Each member of the committee shall have one vote; the Chairman shall not have a casting vote.

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This suggest that officers of the club do not have a vote in their own right, i.e. if they are a member of the working committee they vote in that capacity only. This may or may not be the way the CNCC have worked in practice but it seems a good time to highlight it.

So far as changing the voting system goes I'd second Grahams point:

One of the candidates for election as secretary has suggested a wholesale revision of the constitution, to take into account modern realities and recent concerns. I would suggest that, in the light of that, no constitutional changes be made at this meeting but that the committee, as elected at the next AGM, is tasked with producing, circulating and getting feedback on a completely new constitution in time to be considered and, possibly, adopted at the 2015 AGM.

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This would seem to be by far the most sensible option.

NigR said:

Simon Wilson said:

In order to be considered a bona-fide club they should be eligible to apply for permits and for that, club members have to have BCA insurance. The person who can say how many members a club has is the BCA Membership Secretary.

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Isn't Glenn the BCA Membership Secretary as well?

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I think I am right in saying that Glenn is not a BCA elected official and is not a member of council but is instead simply an administrator.

Bottlebank said:

This suggest that officers of the club do not have a vote in their own right, i.e. if they are a member of the working committee they vote in that capacity only. This may or may not be the way the CNCC have worked in practice but it seems a good time to highlight it.

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Yes, that is the way it works as I understand it. People have a vote as a result of being the representative of their club, and not as a result of their role. If they're not a club rep then they don't have a vote. For example, I was Minutes Secretary, but I was not a club representative, and therefore I had no vote.

And I presume it's why the Chairman has no casting vote - it would be unfair for one club rep to have a casting vote simply because he/she happened to be chairman.

Kay,
The list of the committee on the 2014 AGM agenda is fiction. There has been no change of the committee since the 2007 election. Glenn left this forum when I asked him how the list has been changed. You and the ?top table? have failed continually to answer that question by email. Please answer the question.

Simon Wilson said:

Kay,
The list of the committee on the 2014 AGM agenda is fiction. There has been no change of the committee since the 2007 election. Glenn left this forum when I asked him how the list has been changed. You and the ?top table? have failed continually to answer that question by email. Please answer the question.

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I started as Minutes Secretary in June 2011. I have attended only one AGM. I am not the right person to be answering this question.

During my involvement with CNCC, I have seen only a group of people trying hard to make caving easier for their fellow cavers. I haven't seen people trying to take over CNCC for their own ends, or seeking office to bolster their sense of self importance. My personal opinion is that I would like more representation for individual cavers, and I would like more effective communication with the caving community through forums like ukcaving. But this, I stress, is my personal opinion. And I find it very difficult to say anything here when it seems to me that everything I say will be scrutinised for evidence of a conspiracy that isn't there, and may be used to cause problems for other people who are simply trying to do a good job for caving.

Hi Kay,

I think you should keep doing what you are doing ? the more CNCC officials etc are seen to be giving honest straightforward answers on UK Caving the better for everyone.

It might help if you could confirm whether there was a vote on new or committee member changes at the AGM you did attend, which year that was and if there was one what the outcome was?

Thanks,

Tony

Bottlebank said:

It might help if you could confirm whether there was a vote on new or committee member changes at the AGM you did attend, which year that was and if there was one what the outcome was?

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The AGM I attended was in March 2012, but I really don't have any memory of what happened - when I look at the Minutes I can see what I wrote, but I don't have any independent picture in my mind of what was actually happening. I know that sounds dreadful, but when you've minuted enough meetings they all merge into one blur, and although you think you remember, you're not sure whether that's a real memory, a reconstruction from what you've just read, or a memory of something similar from a different meeting entirely. All I can say is that I have always tried to write the Minutes as an accurate statement of what was decided with, when necessary,  a summary of the reasons why.

You don't have to be minuting the meetings to feel that way I get blurred vision just passing a boardroom.

Thanks Kay.

I'm not familiar with the machinations of the CNCC  and I apologise if I'm missing something obvious but I wonder if somebody could answer these questions as no obvious answers suggest themselves to me.

1. If there hasn't been an election since 2007 but there has been an AGM every year since then why has nobody raised this as an issue, whether it be club CNCC reps, general attendees or whoever given that its common knowledge that one of the purposes of an AGM is to elect the officials.
2. Over a seven year period why has nobody else stood for election?

Blakethwaite said:

2. Over a seven year period why has nobody else stood for election?

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Because cavers are notoriously idle when it comes to this sort of thing.

Blakethwaite said:

I'm not familiar with the machinations of the CNCC  and I apologise if I'm missing something obvious but I wonder if somebody could answer these questions as no obvious answers suggest themselves to me.

1. If there hasn't been an election since 2007 but there has been an AGM every year since then why has nobody raised this as an issue, whether it be club CNCC reps, general attendees or whoever given that its common knowledge that one of the purposes of an AGM is to elect the officials.
2. Over a seven year period why has nobody else stood for election?

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One of the purposes of an AGM is to elect the officials and committee, but if no-one is standing for election other than the people who did the job last year, the AGM (I'm talking in general here, not specifically CNCC) will "elect" the officials/committee en bloc. There's  no need for a vote because there's no choice of candidates to vote for. Apart from the fact that you're not getting new blood, it only becomes an issue when one of last year's lot says they aren't willing to continue.