Application for BCA Secretary

[NewStuff]

My Club still has a small number of such members. 

So, for the sake of these few, the rest of the BCA has to physically turn up. If it's at the other end of the country, you can't get time off work, can't spend on a ticket or fuel to get where ever, hell, even a late train,will mean you can't vote. It doesn't take a massively left progressive to see that looking after the few at the expense of the majority is the undemocratic thing to do, no matter how nice they are, or what they contribute.

We continue to aim to respect them and engage them with the Club as best we can

Then help them get an email address, show them how to use it, or do the clicking for for them. It'll help with many other things in this day and age besides BCA stuff.

 

[Peregrina]

My Club still has a small number of such members. 

So, for the sake of these few, the rest of the BCA has to physically turn up. If it's at the other end of the country, you can't get time off work, can't spend on a ticket or fuel to get where ever, hell, even a late train,will mean you can't vote. It doesn't take a massively left progressive to see that looking after the few at the expense of the majority is the undemocratic thing to do, no matter how nice they are, or what they contribute.

kat is clearly saying they don't want to see an email address being required for BCA membership, not that they are against online voting.

That debate however is different to the voting aspect. Here you can offer online voting or attendance in person [...] This should cover those without email.

 

[Ed]

Bit of a sticky wicket for the BCA asking third parties to send its newsletter to its  members . As BCA members rather than club members that is

Does the BCA have an appropriate data sharing memorandum with said third parties and do said third parties have approval from their members to use their data on behalf of another organisation? Or is there a valid reason that for would stand up in a court of law.

It's hard enough sorting legitimate data sharing between Local government and police for regulatory enforcement......

 

[Ed]

Double posted

 

[ali_mac]

It's hard enough sorting legitimate data sharing between Local government and police for regulatory enforcement......

Which presumably includes actual, you know, personal data... Stuff like names, date of birth, identifying features, allegations of criminality, and so bears no relationship or relevance to a caving club newsletter...
Some top mental gymnastics going on here.
If half of you you applied the same caution to caving, none of you would leave your houses without a safety horse...

 

[Ed]

Ali_mac

My point was that BCA should be sending information to their members  directly not using third parties.

Caving clubs get the 'personal data' of folk as their members and BCA as members of separate organization......yes it muddied as one sometimes requires membership of the other.

My final paragraph was just to highlight what a mine field it is even between organisations that are supposed to be sharing it.....Does make work more difficult.

I can see a design fault in your safety horse....no wheel arches.....unguarded wheels are dangerous  :tease:

 

[mch]

There has to be a better way for the BCA to deal with the issue and enable communication with those members. Even if its simply advising them (via the Club route if appropriate) that without an email address they won't receive direct communications.

To take Kat's point to its logical next step, why should the BCA not bring in online voting and those members who do not have or will not provide an email address simply don't get to vote? This may (or may not) be an incentive to individuals to resolve the issue.

 

[BradW]

Its not their problem to solve. You are asking / forcing people to solve a BCA problem as they are not able to find a solution themselves.

 

[Jenny P]

My preferred option would be to have electronic voting where this is possible, i.e. where a member has an email address, but to arrange for a postal vote to those who do not have an email address. 

As Kat has said, there are members of clubs who, for a perfectly valid reason, do not have an email address and their club accommodates this by arranging postal communication between the club and such members.  I would like to see BCA take the same route.

I absolutely agree with Ed: that as far as possible BCA should be sending information to their members directly not using third parties.  With the caveat that it may not always be possible; thinking that postal votes are one thing and might be considered a legitimate expense, whereas posting a printed Newsletter 3 or 4 times a year might be considered too much.

I also agree with Kat on the subject of non-club group votes.  I don't see why including such votes necessarily means you cannot have electronic voting - such groups could be given an electronic vote if need be.  As Kat says:
Otherwise where in the BCA is the voice of cave rescue, cave research etc. Certainly any thought of removal of such a vote should be considered in the wider context of the objects and roles of the BCA and not removed merely because the 2 House system is thought of as a little bit complicated or difficult to manage with on-line voting.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that none of this is absolutely black and white, there are shades and compromises which need to be arrived at through considered discussion.

 

[Madness]

Its not their problem to solve. You are asking / forcing people to solve a BCA problem as they are not able to find a solution themselves.

So the BCA will be laying on a fleet of coaches to take us all to Horton in Ribblesdale so that we can vote at the AGM then?

 

[MarkS]

...where in the BCA is the voice of cave rescue, cave research etc.

I would say that the voice of cave rescue, cave research etc. is given by the cavers who make up these groups. Presumably "the voice" of each of these groups in the house of groups is (or should be) the democratic view of its members, which is represented anyway by those members when they vote in the house of individuals.

All that the two-house system brings is an arbitrary extra vote for each organisation, regardless of its size. The voices of CRO/BCRC/BCRA will be far outnumbered by loads of little clubs that most of us have never heard of (if they choose to turn up), and the votes are equal regardless of whether a group comprises 3 people or 300 people.

 

[Cavematt]

Very well said Mark!

 

[Jenny P]

You have misunderstood the 2-house system.  The votes in the two houses are recorded separately so that a majority is required in both houses to pass a proposal. 

If both houses agree, there is no problem and the vote passes - which is what usually happens.  Only if the two houses disagree, i.e. if one house votes for and the other against, does the vote fail (and I think it was established earlier in in this thread that this has only happened once since the system was instituted).

If a vote fails it is probably a fair indication that you haven't got it quite right and need to think again.  Wouldn't you normally want to ensure that the majority of individual cavers and the organisations which might be affected by any proposal are happy with it?

 

[zomjon]

Jenny, in my view, caving and membership of clubs has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. My gut feeling is that there are many cavers out there who don?t belong to a club, or if they do: do it to tick a box, get slightly cheaper insurance, use a hut, reciprocal hut rights - but not to be fully involved in the politics of their club or even know how it is voting on BCA matters. The amount of cavers out there without club membership or probably BCA insurance, I?m sure is growing daily, and part of that will be not wanting to be an active part of a club or for certain people to have double votes on more contentious issues.

 

[Jenny P]

A fair point but I think it depends on which club you belong to.  There certainly does seem to be more inter-club caving nowadays among some groups of friends and possibly there are more independent cavers who are members of BCA.  (A look at BCA membership stats. year on year would be your best guide here - is individual membership of BCA going up?.) 

However there are a fair number of cavers who still regard their club caving and interaction with other members of their club through social activities as the main scene and they don't want to be bothered to vote themselves but are happy for their club to vote on their behalf.  I suspect that many of these, if their club couldn't vote on their behalf, wouldn't bother to vote at all, even if they could do so online. 

When we do manage to achieve individual electronic voting (and I hope we do!), then it will be interesting to see just how many of the 5000 - 6000 individual members actually do bother to vote.  This may well depend on how electronic individual voting is organised.  I suspect it may be a bit optimistic to assume that cavers would sit glued to their screens for hours at a time, watching an AGM held at some distant venue, quivering with anticipation at being able to hit the "vote" button at the instant the Chairman of the meeting gives the go-ahead in real time.  But that's a whole other debate ...

As for "... certain people to have double votes on more contentious issues ...", you could easily get round it (that's if you think it happens now), by saying that no-one may cast a vote both as an individual member and also as the representative of a group.

I really don't know and that's why I'm interested in exploring all the options.

 

[andrewmcleod]

As for "... certain people to have double votes on more contentious issues ...", you could easily get round it (that's if you think it happens now), by saying that no-one may cast a vote both as an individual member and also as the representative of a group.

Why would I have to throw away my individual vote to vote as a club? Who would want to be a club representative if they couldn't then vote?

Although I would point out that I turn up to the BCA AGM as EUSS representative and, in so doing, have as much of a group vote as the BCRC, CNCC, CDG, CHECC etc. This gives me democratic power in the house of groups that I shouldn't have, since according to the AGM minutes there were 16 group votes. Effectively I had 375 people's worth of votes... If all the clubs actually turned up, the national body and regional body votes would become irrelevant. It's a messy system.

 

[MarkS]

You have misunderstood the 2-house system.  The votes in the two houses are recorded separately so that a majority is required in both houses to pass a proposal. 

I have not misunderstood the 2-house system, but I have perhaps not phrased my previous post in the most unambiguous way. When I said, "All that the two-house system brings is an arbitrary extra vote for each organisation", I was meaning that organisations have a vote in the house of groups that is extra to those cast by individual members in the house of individuals.

Wouldn't you normally want to ensure that the majority of individual cavers and the organisations which might be affected by any proposal are happy with it?

Yes I would, but those organisations are already represented by the individual vote. Views of organisations are nothing more than the combined views of their constituent members.

[...]there are a fair number of cavers who still regard their club caving and interaction with other members of their club through social activities as the main scene and they don't want to be bothered to vote themselves but are happy for their club to vote on their behalf.  I suspect that many of these, if their club couldn't vote on their behalf, wouldn't bother to vote at all, even if they could do so online. 

If people care little enough about an issue that they can't be bothered spending the tiny amount of time to click a few buttons to vote online, so be it. I'm not sure that hypothetical apathy of some of the the membership is a good reason not to adopt a more democratic system.

When we do manage to achieve individual electronic voting (and I hope we do!), then it will be interesting to see just how many of the 5000 - 6000 individual members actually do bother to vote.  This may well depend on how electronic individual voting is organised.  I suspect it may be a bit optimistic to assume that cavers would sit glued to their screens for hours at a time, watching an AGM held at some distant venue, quivering with anticipation at being able to hit the "vote" button at the instant the Chairman of the meeting gives the go-ahead in real time.  But that's a whole other debate ...

I think confirming proposals and having a voting period in advance of meetings is the only really sensible route forward, which is how I understand most organisations operate. I don't think anyone anticipates members watching an AGM and voting "live".

 

[Jenny P]

Good!  That's what I am aiming for - a sensible discussion on ways and means as to how BCA might move forward. 

The 2-house system was put in place originally because some constituent bodies didn't seem to like the idea of their members voting independently of them.  (Remember that in the earliest days of NCA there was no voting at all for clubs, let alone individuals - the only votes were held by the constituent bodies!  We had a real fight on our hands in the 1990's to get clubs to be allowed to vote - and that was just the start.)  The 2-house system seemed to be the fairest way out at the time it was put in place when BCA came into being in 2004 - but maybe you are right and it's now about time for it to be replaced completely by individual member voting. 

However, I tend to think that we really need to have individual member voting by electronic means up and running properly before we discard the old 2-house system.  At present, with AGMs rotating round the regions and people reluctant to travel for hours just to sit in a meeting, it is perhaps all too easy for policies to be totally swung one way or another by the individual members actually present and voting at the meeting.  I could be wrong, but I'm of the opinion that the 2-house system probably tends to stabilise things because you are more likely to get an overall view from group representatives. These are likely to be people who know how things work in their region and are also aware of the different way things have to work in other regions because they have sat and discussed the issues, either in BCA Council meetings or, where they are a nationally accepted specialist body (e.g. BCRC or BCRA), in their own national meetings. 

So, if we agree that we want to switch to individual member voting and do this by electronic means, we probably need to re-think the way AGMs are run. 

One way would be, as you suggest, to have voting before the meeting - but in that case, what's the purpose of the meeting?  How can you have amendments to proposals - that's if you agree that you need to allow amendments.

The other way would be to have "confirmatory" votes after the meeting - but that probably pre-supposes that BCA Council takes a much larger role in organising proposals and sorting out possible amendments and difficulties well before the agenda goes out with proposals to vote on.

I've heard a number of people saying, "... BMC does it OK so why can't we do it like they do ...".  So is it worth considering in detail how BMC and other similar organisations organise their AGMs?  It really does seem worth thinking through very carefully all the implications and potential catches before we launch out into our brave new voting system. 

 

[darren]

I'm sure you've though it through, but you are changing the whole democratic process to make voting more accessible.

The traditional proposing of a motionl, followed by a debate will be totally meaningless.  Most people will vote online so not bother listening to debate. The debate is supposed to bring the knowledge of the crowd into action which frequently produces a much improved motion.

What you are proposing will change the AGM into a series of referendums on predetermined questions, what could possibly go wrong.

Instead of people getting in a room and debating  motions face to face we could do electronically, perhaps on a forum with a thread for each motion. That way you could just read the last post and completely misunderstood the purpose of the motion.

 

[cap n chris]

Good points Darren; obviously BCA is keen to engage with its membership and voting (and ignoring votes) is all the rage nowadays.

However it is worth checking out the BCA's own constitution just to raise awareness of the scope of its portfolio.