Sweetlamb 14th - 15th September 2019

[HuskyAndy]

Oh dear! Has anyone got Brian Wright's phone number?, I think the club is in trouble again.

[Billy]

Oh dear! Has anyone got Brian Wright's phone number?, I think the club is in trouble again.

The club is not in trouble , the committee just needs to listen to the members without throwing their toys out of the pram . That is not the answer .

[HuskyAndy]

I think part of your post mentioned lighten up, just a bit of humour to brighten a dark evening, the club now needs to mend itself and move forward.

[Billy]

I think part of your post mentioned lighten up, just a bit of humour to brighten a dark evening, the club now needs to mend itself and move forward.

Humour has been moderated off this forum , thats why we all use Whatsapp .

[Strongbow]

Fellowship working well then.

[NigelC]

I'm so sorry that folks see the club as members, and then committee members.

When I volunteered to be new members rep it was because no one else stuck their hand up and I guess I blinked first! People present then compounded my weakness by voting for me! But I still see myself as just another member.

I wanted to help out as best I could, within the limited time and with the limited knowledge that I had - being a new-ish member myself I knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in on Tuesday evenings.

I'm not able to get out on the lanes very often but Ripley is quite close and I can get there and chat to any new folks. I'm aware that may well not measure up to what people expect of a committee member, but you're lumbered with me until the next AGM. And in the meantime, if I catch anyone else trying to talk to MY new members, there'll be trouble...

I don't know where this thing about people being stifled on the committee comes from? Simon did a great job organising The Longest Day and we all enjoyed it tremendously. He thought it up, he ran with it and it was fine. However, the Sweetlambs trip (Why the heck couldn't they come up with a better name for crying out loud, sounds more like a place to learn about animal welfare!) went belly up before Steven got involved - he was just trying to rescue it; there was no stifling of Simon on that at all.

Whatever anyone thinks, we ALL like trail riding, we ALL want to keep the lanes open, we ALL are in this together. If we start in-fighting, the only winners will be GLEAM!

[Billy]

So why does members expressing their opinions on an open forum constitute infighting ?

[NigelC]

I didn't say it did; there was an if in there somewhere.

But then I'm very sensitive to conflict, so I may have over reacted.

It's good everyone is expressing an opinion, and hopefully it will lead to some sort of consensus.

[stevent]

All

This is indeed a sorry state of affairs.

There are two sides...

Sweetlamb -
Quote: “So last Monday you were asked to organise the Sweetlamb trip ,was this two days after the committee dacided Simon should resign ? “.

No Steve, it was two days before, not after. Sweetlamb was Simon’s gig and then at the 11th hour (last Monday) was dropped onto others (in the end me and Murray) to sort out, that turned out to be way too late to salvage anything. I had to back out of our commitment to Moly which I managed to achieve with only the deposit being lost. So that was one of the reasons I gave Simon (last Wednesday) why I couldn’t continue working with him. It was just one in a series of broken promises. I spelt these out to Simon and I asked him to respond and I’m ready to talk through but l’ve had no response.

“Humour has been moderated off this forum” -
Steve, please enlighten me as to what was moderated and when. You keep bringing this up. But I’m not aware of anything being moderated recently. If we are going into history then there were a couple moderations I can think of and which were made for good reason. Let’s get this sorted?

WhatsApp -
No problem with WhatsApp groups. There are lots of them. I’m on some. They are typically 10 or 15 or 20 guys who know each other, so of course there’s more banter.

What I’d like to work out is how do we keep the fellowship alive at the same time? I’m concerned we are getting “clubs within a club” and the Group is becoming cliquey and not inclusive to all members. You mention Brian Wright but what about Founding member Les? He was at club night wondering where all the action has gone. Is he deliberately excluded from all your many runs? What about all the new members who are looking for their first rides? Yes of course anyone can do runs with mates but - officers in particular - we need to keep the fellowship alive not just our circle of riding buddies.

If the heart of the Group dies then what are we left with? Speak to Steve Sharp who he seen other Groups die eg Thames Valley TRF. Nobody is trying to ‘ban’ WhatsApp rather how do we strike a balance? Could we lead at least some runs for the wider membership, to keep the group healthy?

“This forum is dying” -
Well it ain’t died yet judging by recent traffic. It always dips in the summer. And we had some bugs which Dave has fixed. Dave is offering to improve it for us so do you want to help us spell out what we need? And from what I’ve read forums as a format are not dying off yet- there is nothing which replaces the benefits they bring.

“The committee” -
I’ve never liked it being referred to as such. It is simply members some of whom have put themselves forward as officers and all contributing something to helping us run the group and helping protect rights of way. I’m not sure whether everyone realises the amount of effort some put in to supporting the cause.

I think Brian was reach out and it’s a very great shame if he does give up completely. That will be all our meetings with Surrey County Council needing someone else to go to or the group going unrepresented.

Riding and making it fun is important but TRF is not just a riding group. I accept the balance isn’t right so let’s work together to make it better?

Moving forward -
I’m not prepared to carry on with such animosity and undercurrents and a ‘group within a group’.

I’m happy to meet anyone to talk through how we can make the club the best it can be.

I’m attaching what I shared at our meeting last week with those who turned up.

Steve you’ve always indicated you have confidence in me as chair, including not long ago when you said “who else would do it”.

I’ve had a lot of others tell me I’m doing a good job too otherwise I would have cleared off by now. The Group is a broad church and I am not sure everyone shares you assessment.

So I am up for a beer with you Steve when I’m back to try to sort stuff out.

I think there is a lot of common ground and a way forward but all the grievances need dealing with first.

Thanks
Steven












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[silvergull]

no toys or pram, just taken your advice, and ' lightened up'. feels better already!

[Billy]

Something to take away from this . What you need is someone who is really good at organising something like this, who is very popular with members , who is willing to put in the time and effort involved and still have a sense of fun . If only we had someone like this on the committee ........

This is all getting out of hand . Steven you have asked me before for feedback on how people feel about certain things and that's what I have done .

[Billy]

no toys or pram, just taken your advice, and ' lightened up'. feels better already!

Shame you couldn't have done this within the group , you've done a lot of good work for us .