Eeek!

Some may remember me as the last Chairman of this great little club, I completed my tenure on 31st Dec 2016.
The current state within the management structure of this club saddens me. There are clear rules/byelaws/historical precedent which are not being followed and has resulted in the entire Management Team being summarily dismissed.

As a brief exercise in my club history I became the AR for Surrey back in 2004 and joined the MT a while later, initially with Steve Winterberg as Chairman followed by Mark Durrant. Towards the end of Marks period as Chairman efforts were made to secure a new Chair which resulted in 2 members applying for the role, myself and one other. We were requested to present to the whole management team an "Objectives and Aims" statement which was distributed to the MT and votes were cast by every MT member with the exception of the outgoing chairman. I was successful and became the next Chairman. During my time significant efforts were made to find a seamless successor sadly to no avail until Christine popped her head over the parapet at the very last moment. I had made preparations for the Management Team to continue without a Chair as each aspect of the club was safely within the remit of the Management Team.

During my time we carried out, amongst many other tasks, a review of Pink Angels contract and endeavored to assess how best to use the previous club membership software package, RevUp integrating this into the new website format without any success, LoveAdmin whilst not a direct competitor does at least seem to work alongside the website albeit I am presuming with a great deal of input from Chris Bramall and he should be thanked for his contribution to this. Shaun Elwell performed a similar thankless task in bringing the new club website up to speed a few years back, and I am sure this is still ongoing. The integration of disparate arms of the club membership requirements cannot be found "off the shelf" sadly. At that point we were happy to continue with the service Pink Angels provided. There is a considerable back story to our useage of Pink Angels and Sam Pearce in particular, suffice to say she showed considerable loyalty to the L7C at one point in time and has always presented herself as a fitting first point of contact for many club members, yes she is financially remunerated for it but we always tested the competitveness of Pink Angels service at contract renewal time. Obviously circumstances change but a revised contract with Pink Angels at the right price with the correct service parameters would be preferable to introducing another unknown entity at a point where other aspects of the membership system are changing.
Where are we now ?

The club management is there to meet the needs of the wider club membership and there are correct ways of ensuring this happens. There is a club Chair and a General Secretary who oversee the running of the club with the help of the wider management team, a similar set up can be seen in businesses the world over. There are specific roles that have a time constraint on their period in office. As a Ltd Co we are required to have directors but these were never intended as a way of circumventing the wishes of the Management Team as a whole.

Christine Abbott has now served her time and must now step down forthwith from her role as L7C Chair, company director and any other role that requires her to continue serving as a member of the Management Team. She should be ashamed that there has been no Management Team meeting since June 2019 and this shows a lack of democracy in the running of OUR club. Equally the General Secretary should have ensured a quarterly Management Team meeting in the absence of direction from the chair. These meetings form the backbone of democratic leadership.

Her replacement must be chosen by the current Management Team, this is enshrined in our byelaws. I understand there are 3 candidates and these should be presented to the Management Team with a vote to find the next Chair, it may be that an interim can be chosen to guide the management structure through this process. The outgoing Chair cannot be involved in this process as the whole point of time restrictions for certain roles is to ensure fresh ideas from an invigorated new successor which may be at odds to the existing Chairs vision but this is how the club continues to thrive.

I look through the current Management Team and the majority were present during my term of office and we managed to successfully work together for 3 years without this current divisive impasse. They are sensible hard working people sensitive to the needs of club members, it is abhorrent to imagine having given so much time so selflessly only to be thrown out and unable to reapply just because they do not share the vision of the outgoing chair !!

I will also state at this point, having read some other threads that Ian Bruce has never been anything but his own man, I often found myself at odds with Ian but he has his own views and will defend them till the end, whether time finds them correct or not. To see him labelled Christine's puppet made me laugh so much though I struggled to see a time I would defend Ian !!
I have absolutely no insider knowledge of the current situation but it is abundantly clear from the information shown that the current way forward proposed is fundamentally flawed, probably outside of the club byelaws and not in the best interests of the majority of club members. It is not the perceived role of the directors to find a replacement Management Team and it is not the role of ARs chosen by the current directors to choose a new Management Team. The current directors are not showing impartiality and deference in the choice of their successors and should play no part in planning the future of the management structure within the L7C.

Can we please start this process immediately as us, the club members, wish to be represented and governed by a bright, forward thinking set of individuals molded into a cohesive Management Team.

I am happy to assist in this process but have no desire to form part of any long term plan.

I see the 7 Club have locked yet more of the ongoing discussions, so non-members can't read them.
But I have to ask, what has the idiot Fatty posted?

(I know I'm going to regret asking this...)

Wasn't him....someone applied in his name !

Quite funny really.......and certainly lightened the mood.

Oooh! Nice
So what what said ?

Edit to add:

Not many of you know me, but I have rejoined the club after several years of absence after discovering I do have a 7 in my garage which hadn't seen the light of day for very many years (rather much like a unicorn).

I heard through the grape vine that there may be a few internal issues within the running of the club. I'd be more than happy to throw my hat into the ring, however I'm not very opinionated so would welcome feedback and criticism from all should I be voted chairperson of the club.

Cripes - seeing the issues Fatty generated in a very short space of time, seems it was him posting...
How can one individual be so objectionably idiotic?
What a pratt.
Interesting few comments about him on Pistonheads too

Haven't looked at either for a few days

Both the Pistonheads and Blatchat threads appear to have been deleted...

Not overly surprised...
Especially as on Pistonheads another of Fatty's 'victims' did suggest he may be a Sociopath...

Bloody Caterham owners........hateful bunch of people

they should all join a club within a club that isn't a club with a benign dictator at the helm

Zippy

Like me did...