In a nutshell:-

Great club,great people for frankly laughably low cost.

The Management Team seem to make stuff happen but are paranoid about dissent. Debate is good. Control freakery is bad.

Pronto is frankly a joke. If members wanted a paper based membership magazine they would support it and write articles for it. The absence of copy speaks volumes. The amount spent on Pronto based on last years accounts when the club can't be at risk funding trackdays etc is unbelievable. The recent edition took about three minutes to read and contained little that had not been aired on the Board and at rideouts etc months ago. Lilys comments are enlightening. There is a strong whiff of sentimentality about this whole Pronto debate. It should be replaced with a cheaper more modern equivalent and the money diverted to better uses.

On balance great club but it needs to think through its real purpose in life (and no thats not the same as proposing a new constitution).

Dave

this thread is great !
thanks for all the input peeps
glad I did the right thing !
(still that does leave me £25 less to spend on carbon bitz ! LOL)

still no roundal
G

"A Sense Of Belonging"

Any organistion be it a club, charity, company, plc etc., regardless of whether it's "workforce" is entirely voluntary and unpaid, part-time, fulltime, salaried etc., has a duty to those who buy its products. One of those many "duties" is to improve. And it matters not whether you pay 1p or 100p per day - that payment is a sign of the trust and the value you place in the organisation.

That value is reflected each and every time a member posts; each will have different view on what the DSC should deliver (and how it delivers it - hard or soft media - meetings - track days - merchandising etc).

Occassionally comments have been made re the "DSC" that have been interpretted as negative, and, have not been seen by the MT as a signpost that something is amiss.

Many people have offered help, input, advise, labour, ideas etc. to the MT, but it does appear from many posts that unless your input is rosy red and not gaudy yellow, the MT responds with "piquer" as they would say in Tonio's "L'echo des Conti".

It is the responsibility of those in office (the MT) to take onboard the memberships comments, to seek out the rational behind them, and forge them back into an improved DSC "product". That is one of their responsibilities of office. To reach out to those members offering their services, knowledge and time to achieve that constant state of improvement.

As an example - it is no sense appealing for folks to come forward if you either do not respond to them or do not give them a fair hearing and feedback.

A sign that all is not as it could be is the fact that we see daily folks posting here who are not paid members. Additionally you have all of those "ex members" who did not renew memberships and have left altogether. These two items alone are another alarm bell ringing that should not be ignored.

No one has a monoploy on good ideas, and no one is perfect. But together improvement does not remain a dream, it becomes an achievable goal.

Excellent summary!

That is an excellent post, very well written.

It's a real shame that it will fall on jaded and cynical deaf ears where it's needed the most.

great post:)

you coming back to the UK soon?:cool:

Not true, its an ethos I, for one, wholeheartedly support and try my best to live up to all the time :pig:

I know Paul, I wasn't referring to you :)

Athelstan, that's a great post. Along with Paul I also share that view.

When I was elected to the MT I wrote out what I aimed to do as regional coordinator. One of the bullet points, and the one which I do my utmost to adhere to was:

- Act as the voice of the members within the management team (not as the voice of the management team to the membership - there's a big difference)

Anyone can read the full post - it's a 'sticky' in the regional organisers forum. I can't pretend that I've delivered everything I set out to do, but it's not for the want of trying.

Ultimately, I was voted onto the MT and I can be voted off if the members decide I haven't done enough, but I am comitted to working hard on their behalf to make the club better in whatever way I can.

The time for words is over Jools
 

... action this day is a worthy slogan

Henry