Some movers and shakers within CTC have been tyring to push this through for sometime now. They almost got there but the Charity Commission for England and Wales has nescessitated another vote by members before they will grant approval.

My view is that aquiring charitable status will limit CTC’s potential for meaningfull campaigning in the future, particularly on issues like access. They will be a Charity and therefore subject to limiting rules. CTC just seem fixated with the financial benefits this status will bring and are blinkered to everything else.

Thus the Charity Commission have given any CTC member who does not want to hamstring the organisation’s ability to campaign effectively in the future a second chance to stop it happening.

I’d urge any CTC members among you to use the form in this months CTC mag to vote NO to this and prevent the total emasculation of this organisation.

I ordered some tyres and tubes last week and they’ve still not arrived.

I’d quite like to see a CTC organised mass tresspass by cyclists over the Ashdown Forest on tracks that horse riders are allowed on, but bicycles are barred from, courtesy of a bias and vastly unfair 1974 Act of parliament……. but that’s not arrived yet either.

…………..and if they aquire charitable status it never will

…and I’m getting older

My view is that aquiring charitable status will limit CTC’s potential for meaningfull campaigning in the future, particularly on issues like access. They will be a Charity and therefore subject to limiting rules

Not sure I get this bit – can you expand on it? Charities can’t do advocacy or campaigning?

Charities aren’t supposed to pursue political objectives. It’s a bit of a grey area but it can restrict the issues they can campaign on, and some charities (I think Greenpeace might be one) have even given up their status in order to be able to say what they want.

Hmm, I don’t think that’s right. This is the last charity I worked for:
http://www.adoptionuk.org/information/100277/campaigning/
Pretty long list of campaigning to change (successfully, which is good) govt policy.

Charities can campaign, but they have to do so only to advance their charitable aims, which is to say they have to keep it quite general.

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Library/guidance/cc9text.pdf

I used to work for a charity that merged its PLC into the Charitable trust and it certainly didn’t stop it campaigning on political issues. We went through this same debate with the donor base and nothing terrible happened as a result. What did happen is they got a huge amount of tax back through gift aid and legacy giving and reduced the admin of having different sides of the organisation. CTC is also a mess of different sections and companies so it needs to do something to streamline everything IMHO.

It’s a bit of a case-by-case thing – if the Charity Commission decides you’re overstepping the mark, they can ask you to back off. IIRC this happened to Oxfam over apartheid, and the Red Cross over their campaign on land mines. Not sure how this would apply to a case like Ashdown Forest, or helmet compulsion, but at the moment they don’t have to worry about it.

Interesting. It would appear that in its current form the CTC is considered too political to become a charity.

http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=59042

I agree with Mr Agreeable – the CTC is there to serve its members and that isn’t what a charity is for.

They either have to change their whole focus to be outward looking and become a charity or remain as they are and serve their members.

I ordered some tyres and tubes last week and they’ve still not arrived.

LOL 🙂

From a quick scan of the debates on their forum, it appears that they’re caught between two sides.

One lot want them to remain as a member-focused organisation, as it appears that the Charities Commission won’t sign up an organisation that exists for the benefit of its members (rather than cyclists in general).

The other side reckons that changing to a charity would hamstring them as a campaigning organisation.

It also appears that the proposed change hasn’t been sold well to the membership. There seems to be a feeling that CTC don’t do very much in return for the subs.

Personally I’m not a CTC member (racing and Skyride involvement have steered me towards BC) but I’ll be interested to see how this goes.

I do have an impression that they’re a sleeping giant. They are the go-to people for quotes when papers run cycling stories, yet campaigning at a local level is fairly non-existent. Their member services are up there with the best of them, but I don’t really need 10% off at Wiggle. I do welcome their increased involvement in off-road cycling and bringing Ian Warby on board was a smart move.

It all seems a far cry from the time when they would lay on a special train to take their members on cycling holidays.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyz5d3entBw[/video]

thanks Mr Agreeable

I think the Ramblers Association is a charity and they don’t appear to have any lobbying problems.
Having said that maybe they do, but we just aren’t aware of them.

Wasn’t aware of this (BC member, not CTC – have been considering changing if I can no longer do any racing).

The crux must be: does campaigning for cyclists in general not advance the interests of (the majority of) the membership?

Maybe if the CTC picked up the Ramblers words and just replaced ‘walker’ with ‘cyclist’ they’d be ok?

I think that the way the CTC campaigns at the moment is quite general anyway. On issues like helmet compulsion they make the case that this would be damaging to society as a whole by reducing the number of cyclists.

Where they might fall foul is if they ask their members to oppose a specific bit of legislation, or support a political candidate based on their pro-cycling policies (as I believe London cycle campaigners have suggested doing when the next mayor is elected).

The situation is complicated further by the CTC already being partly a charity (they have a charitable trust that is separate from their campaigning arm – I get the impression this is quite common) and fully recognised as a charitable body in Scotland.

It’s a right mess and no mistake, but I don’t think going down either path will spell doom for them.

Well, they’ve done it. According to their FB page CTC is now fully a charity.

It remains to be seen whether the earth will tilt off its axis as a result.