The CTC Charity Proposal and Vote

When you think that it couldn’t get worse, it does!

The Charity Commission has now explicitly stated that, with the CTC as a Charity, its members will have no power whatsoever to control or influence the policies and governance of the CTC.

Having advised the CTC on how to reword the relevant Articles within the revised M&As to meet its own requirements, the Charity Commission has now noted that Article 11 provides for a poll of the whole Club on any question, the outcome binding the Club and Council for 6 months. This is the Article that we used to challenge the conversion proposal.

The CC has now told the CTC, at some length and in some detail, that this Article, while not affecting charitable status ‘isn’t really appropriate for a charity’ and ‘we would strongly recommend its deletion’. If not at the AGM, because a 'faction' might oppose it, then at a subsequent General Meeting.

It is pretty difficult to summarise the 1,367 words used by the CC to support this claim.

The nub of it is that the trustees of the charity have ‘a legal duty to act as trustees only in the best interests of their charity in furthering its charitable purposes. ………In the case of a charity with a membership, the members role in its administration is normally to elect the trustees………But it would not be appropriate for trustees to be obliged to act on the recommendations of the membership.’ As we have been able to require since the CTC was founded in 1878.

The CTC responded to the CC: “The poll of the whole club was used for the first time in many years during the campaign by a small CTC faction to try and stop this charitable proposal. To suggest its removal at this point could antagonise this group again and jeopardise the prospects of getting the new objects approved.”

The CTC has asked the CC for further advice on how to respond to this concern. When is it going to be honest with members? Before the AGM on 12 May? It won’t because it is too scared that the truth would influence the vote!

Is it the legitimate role of the Charity Commission to conspire with the directors of a company owned by its members in order to influence and manipulate the outcome?

In other words, this is precisely what we have been saying for the past 18 months. The CTC ceases to be a members’ club, the members lose all power to control or influence the policies and governance of the Club and the members (an appropriate word) become no more than impotent eunuchs in the harem of the CTC and Charity Commission.

Are you prepared to vote for the castration of your Club? Is that worth a cycling jacket?

How on earth do we get this message out to the 50,000 odd voting members of the CTC, the media and the wider public?

Jeff