This forum...

[rod335]

I think chaps you are taking the name '009 News' a trifle too literally. I would submit there is not enough '009 news' to fill 24 pages each month and the content, as it is at present, is about right.

With regard to the question of the 'Trade Liason Officer'. We discussed this recently and it is slated for further discussion. The conclusion we have reached so far, and I hope I am not speaking out of turn here, is that there need to be two distinctly separate posts here. Product reviews should not be the Trade Liason Officer's job, that is a separate job and should be described as such. The Trade Liason Officer should liase with the trade. that is he should be the point of contact for the trade with the Society. At present, several of the members actually unofficially perform this function and whilst we are considering giving the post to a single person, it is questionable if that is the best course of action. But, be assured, just because the position appears as 'Post vacant' in the News, it does not mean nothing is happening.

[MickT]

OK, have now found the keys to the cupboard. Also have found 7 of the unknown 9. So, there are 38 non-members on the forum and I can now BAN them.

Thanks Brian and thanks for the prompt action to all who may have been involved.

[Malcolm]

Apologies if I gave the impression the News should only contain news, my post got cut short by a long awaited call from BT.   I fully agree about room for members modelling activities which reminds me I promised the Editor an article back in the Spring.
Malcolm

[Alan Feldon]

O K a view from an overseas member .
1)The branchlines mean absolutely nothing to me as I don't know who most of them are and I am not really interested -however .... sometimes I see tantalising bits like Ken bought along his recently completed Belgian Congo loco say BUT why is there never a photo/write up in the news by Ken ?Which brings me to :-
2) Over the years I have noticed less and less construction details of what and how people have made -is this because no articles are submitted or do people now only post these on line ?
3)There seems to be a very high proportion of exhibition photos .Whilst these can be interesting again sometimes there can be views of intriguing rolling stock in them without explanations as to what they are .
In much earlier days there was much more emphasis on construction details than there are now (Yes I'm old ! ) I appreciate the editor can only print what he is sent so are members more reluctant now to see their endeavours in print ?
Alan

[Chris Ford]

Yes, I can only publish what I get sent, and I do try to include one constructional piece per issue i.e. Hugh Norwood's Road-railer in the current and Ben Powell's Skylark in the upcoming. Tying that up with the Branchlines Q, there have been a couple of occasions where I've done exactly what you've said and approach someone in the group to write something about an item that's been mentioned in the report - see how useful they are? Though it is surprising how reticent people are to actually 'write'. My counter to that is now to suggest extended caption pieces as opposed to full written articles which has suited a few. In some ways there are a couple of thousand pairs of eyes out there spotting new products and new techniques, the tricky bit can often be to get them to share that.

[Mac Strong]

.... sometimes I see tantalising bits like Ken bought along his recently completed Belgian Congo loco say BUT why is there never a photo/write up in the news by Ken

As a fairly recent newcomer to the Society and News, I have never understood who the the regional/area reports are aimed at other than to keep the local (to that area) members up to date and I suspect I am not alone when I skip most of them. Like Alan it seems to me that there may be info worth further report or detail. I would like to see more reports of new items in the News but understand that someone has to do the work to enable that.
That brings me to this forum; there is little that I have read on the forum since I joined it that I had not seen elsewhere and it seems to me that repeating posts on other forums is common to them all, perhaps to obtain a cross view of opinion - I do not know.
I wonder how many, like me, are occasional readers but not contributors ?

Mac
 

[Hobby]

Moved from the "'News" thread as I feel it's more appropriate on here:

BTW the 009 Society is a limited company. See p24 of the News. This was done to prevent the membership losing if there was a litigation case against us. One or two other societies have also done this, I assume for similar reasons; the Gauge O Guild comes to mind. Hence the committee are now Directors and have to jump through the legal hoops to qualify for this in legal terms.

The comment regarding the status of the Society was meant to remind people that we are a Society first and foremost and whilst we are set up as a Limited Company (I believe to prevent any problems if the Society went bust or was sued?) we should not be run as though we are a business to make money where the "Management" make the decisions and the members just sit back and accept whatever they are given. I sometimes feel that the latter is the way some people want it to be run (such as by limiting when and where we can raise matters affecting or about the working of the Society). In effect the "Limited Company" bit is just a "flag of convenience" to protect the Society and it's Members, not a pointer to how it should be run. Surely we are better than that?

As someone else has already said we don't hear anything about what is being discussed unless we happen to mention something here and we are then told it was "discussed"... Perhaps there should also be a section on the Forum and the News for matters that have been discussed and the outcome of those discussions?

[rod335]

Can I ask the basis of the assumption that members are entitled to have (any) details of Directors' Meetings? For the present purposes I am assuming that members' rights are the same as employees' rights in a Limited Company. How many such employees are given details of Directors' meetings? When I worked in industry (for several companies over the years) it was not until I reached (very) Senior Management that I received even edited copies of Directors' Meeting minutes.


I assume members know that they can attend Committee Meetings as an observer only by prior written request to the Society Secretary? Clearly, the Secretary must retain an element of discretion about the numbers involved at any one time. I do not know offhand if the same applies for Directors' Meetings, I will have to check the Articles of Association, which will involve finding them, to see. At the last Committee Meeting, only two of the Committee Members attended in addition to the five Directors.

I do wonder just how many of the membership do actually care about these matters. In addition, I would state that this situation is by no means new. Before we adopted Limited Company status, the Society was administered by the Committee. I do not recall details of any of their meetings being publicised either.

For those who are unaware of it I should point out that the Society is run by five Directors, who are elected by the membership and an additional number of Committee members who are appointed or co-opted by the Directors and not elected by the membership. By our Articles of Association we must legally have a minimum of five Directors.

[clayliner]

Apologies - mis-post.

[clayliner]

Re: Committee / Board / Directors' meetings - is the question 'What is the minimum amount of information we are obliged to make public?' or 'How much of our deliberations can we usefully share with members?'

Re: Branchlines - I would have thought that members fall into one of three groups, namely -
(1) those who were at the recent group meeting(s) so don't need to be told what went on, or
(2) those who live locally but didn't make the meeting - who might best be told via a group e-mail, perhaps? or
(3) those who don't live locally and so have little or no interest in what went on in the group anyway.

However, I take Mick's point - I imagine if you've been a member as long as he has (that's a compliment, Mick, not an insult!) you may have chums all over the country and still like to keep tabs on what they're up to (and indeed perhaps whether they're still alive...)

David.

[rod335]

With regard to your first paragraph, with respect, this seems a strange question. As far as I am aware the point you raise has never even been considered by the Board, certainly not whilst I have been a member. And why should the Board's discussions and deliberations be made public, apart from satisfying the idle curiosity of a small number? As I have said before, any member who is genuinely interested in the acivities of the management of the Society has the right to atted, by prior agreement, Committee meetings and, I think, Board meetings. During my tenure the number of such attendees and indeed those seeking to attend has been nil.

I strongly suspect a political motivation behind some of these posts.

[Hobby]

Can I ask the basis of the assumption that members are entitled to have (any) details of Directors' Meetings? For the present purposes I am assuming that members' rights are the same as employees' rights in a Limited Company. How many such employees are given details of Directors' meetings? When I worked in industry (for several companies over the years) it was not until I reached (very) Senior Management that I received even edited copies of Directors' Meeting minutes.


I do wonder just how many of the membership do actually care about these matters. In addition, I would state that this situation is by no means new. Before we adopted Limited Company status, the Society was administered by the Committee. I do not recall details of any of their meetings being publicised either.

Thanks, Rod, you proved my point perfectly, both with the quoted post above and your latest post. Whilst we are set up as a Limited Company, this was done to protect the Membership and those running it from being sued if something went wrong, not so we could behave like a Ltd Co where the "Management" run the "business"(!) and the rest just do as we are told.

We are a Society, not a Business.

In what way are the Society in any way a commercial business and bound by the rules of such enterprises. we are not. We are a Society set up for the benefit of it's Members, not a for profit organisation. Therefore we do not have to abide by the rules of such businesses.

As regards the second paragraph, to me that comes across as very arrogant. To turn your comment on it's head no-one has asked us what we want from the Society so how do our Directors/Committee know what to discuss, or are they just doing what they personally feel is the right thing? Please note I am not criticising what they are doing pre se, I can't as i don't know what they do as no-one has told us!! As far as I am concerned the News should also be used to keep us up to date on what the Directors are discussing, not full minutes, just a brief note so if we want to add to their discussions with ideas we can.

To give an example I only found out by accident that the Society was looking into producing kits (this was many years ago!), why wasn't this info passed down to the membership? Why weren't we asked what sort of kit we wanted? OK there would have been lots of impractical suggestions no doubt, but of the Socity had told us what the constraints were beforehand we could have made reasonable suggestions. That's not to say their choices haven't been OK, but what have we missed by not asking the Membership I wonder...

BTW there's nothing "political" about any of this, where you get that from I don't know!


I think we need to remember that we are not a Business but a Society, run by the Membership for the Membership. Perhaps we need to get back to basics and ask them what they want instead of assuming that we know better? We might find the majority are happy with things the way they are, we may not, who knows...

[Alan Feldon]

Rod
Comparing the 009 Society with a public company is like chalk and cheese ,but even a public company will publish
details of decisions made .
MickT has made some genuine points of questions he has raised (including at AGM's ) which have never been answered .
No one expects every single word recorded at a directors meeting to be advised to the members but when a decision is made or even if its no decision on a point raised then the membership should be advised .
Its called keeping in touch with the members and nothing to do with politics .
Alan

[rod335]

I am sorry my comments appear to have upset some people. Whatever anyone may think there is no obligation on the Directors or Committee members to make their deliberations public. And I stand by my comment that matters in this connection are no different from what they have always been.

I wonder how many of the membership care about this question? Ay present about three or four of the 30-odd members who regularly use this forum are making comments. I have no doubt now that someone will question my figures with detailed analysis.

As a point of accuracy, when I stated that no members had attended Board of Committee meetings, I realise I was wrong. Lee Bryant attended the last Committee meeting in January but I honestly cannot remember whether or not he did so as an invited guest.

[Hobby]

I wonder how many of the membership care about this question?

You could always ask them...

Just because it was done that way in the past doesn't make it right to continue doing it that way, either.