The Board of Trustees met at Glenmore Lodge, near Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park, on the weekend of 17th and 18th September. It is believed to be the first time in the 76-year history of the Ramblers that the Board has met in Scotland, and as well as undertaking our usual business, it gave us an opportunity to get better understand Scottish issues.
On the Friday evening, we met members of the Scottish Council Executive Committee (SCEC) at a dinner hosted by the Ramblers Scotland Convener, Dennis Canavan, having enjoyed a bit of whisky tasting before dinner thanks to the generosity of David Lyle the chair of the Badenoch and Strathspey Group. On the Saturday afternoon we went on a walk in the Cairngorms led by Ramblers Scotland staff, Dave Morris and Helen Todd.
It was also a fitting occasion in which to sign the new devolution agreements for Ramblers Cymru and Ramblers Scotland, which give greater autonomy over policy and decision making in the two countries, as well as greater financial certainty. It's now over a decade since political devolution, and many issues regarding walking, rights of way, and access are decided by the respective governments in these countries. It therefore makes sense for Ramblers Scotland and Ramblers Cymru to have greater autonomy too. The text of these agreements will soon be available on the Volunteers/Governance section of the website.
We also spent much of the weekend thinking about the future ‘vision’ for the Ramblers. We are now more than half way through our current strategy, Fresh Air, Firm Ground, and we’re kicking off a process to draw up a new ten-year vision for the Ramblers, based on the question, “What do we want the Ramblers to be in ten years time?”
Announcements
The Board welcomed Nicky Philpott, our new Director of Policy and Campaigns, to her first Board meeting.
We noted with sadness the death of Audrey Lennox, former Chair and Countryside Officer for Avon Area, and Fred Forrester, former Chair of Forth Valley, Fife and Tayside Area and a member of SCEC.
New Partnership with HF Holidays
The Board received an update on our new partnership with HF Holidays, which had been announced on 18th August, and agreed to go ahead with a start date of 1st October 2011, as planned. We thanked the staff for their work in gaining the HF Holiday partnership, and hoped this would be the start of a series of such partnerships.
For more information about the new partnership see our announcement, and our follow-up briefing.
Unacceptability of personal abuse
The Board expressed its great concern regarding the abusive remarks made about members of staff, including the Chief Executive, on this subject by a small minority of members. It agreed for the Chair to make a strong statement, which has been issued as follows:
“Over recent weeks, particularly in relation to the announcement of our new partnership with HF Holidays, a small minority of members have behaved in an abusive manner towards our staff, including our Chief Executive. This has gone beyond acceptable debate, and has been very distressing and undermining for our staff. Much of this has been via the internet discussion group, Ramblers-net. Many members have rightly expressed their disgust at the behaviour of a few.
“Our staff have a right to work in an environment free from personal abuse and attacks. We know that the vast majority of our members will support us in having a zero tolerance of such behaviour.
“From now onwards, the Board will take action against anyone who is offensive to our staff, including if necessary expelling the perpetrators from membership of the Ramblers.
“While the board was pleased to note that the moderators of Ramblers-net had made a posting in August regarding the abusive content, we urge them to take steps to ensure they do not publish any such content in future.
“If this continues on Ramblers-net, we will instruct our staff to withdraw entirely from reading, contributing or answering questions on this forum. While it is appropriate for members to have their own discussion forum separate from the organisation, there are many other ways for members to contact staff or trustees with questions, suggestions or other constructive comment.”
Open discussion of issues is fine, and the board doesn’t expect everyone to agree with all its decisions. Nor is there any issue of censorship. It’s simply the abusive manner in which certain individuals express their views which has caused great concern among staff at all levels.
Chief Executive’s Report
The Chief Executive reported that over 1,500 Mystery Walkers have been recruited, and the first survey is currently being published, with the national picture based on a random sample of 1,690 miles of rights of way by volunteer across the country. As time goes on, and more people join in, we hope the survey will get ever larger. More than half of the mystery walkers are not members, and we will be doing a membership drive amongst these people shortly.
He also reported that the Government was likely to shortly issue a consultation paper to take forward the recommendations from the stakeholder working group on recording lost rights of way. The recommendations were agreed by a range of stakeholders covering walkers, farmers, landowners, etc, and we are keen that the government implements the proposals as a whole rather than selectively.
He thanked all of the volunteers involved in training other volunteers at a very successful practical path work day, attended by 50 people. We have come a long way from a few years ago, including the provision of insurance for Ramblers work teams. More and more Ramblers groups are getting interested in practical work to help to keep paths clear.
Finances
The Board considered both the current financial accounts, the budget for the coming year, and five-year forecasts. For the financial year just ending, our finances are healthy, with a likely surplus of around c£430 compared to a budgeted deficit of c£316k – in other words, about £700k better than budgeted. This is mostly due to unbudgeted legacies, but our membership income is also above target (in contrast to membership numbers – we believe partly due to a change in ‘mix’ of members, with the change from ‘reduced rate’ to ‘concessionary rate’). It will leave our reserves in a health state by the end of the financial year, at around £2m in free unrestricted reserves, plus about £350k in the pension reserve (which is being topped up by an additional £100k, to take account of the current state of stock markets) and £210k in the legal and national casework fund.
However, looking forward, our finances will get much tighter, particularly until we reverse the long-term downward trend in membership (which is why this is such an important priority). We are budgeting for a deficit next year (mainly comprising the spending of this year’s surplus), due to investment in membership-promoting activities; and the five-year forecasts suggest a continued tightening of our finances.
Key Performance Indicators
The Board reviewed the latest monthly Key Performance Indicators. These are 16 key indicators – covering finance, membership, campaigns, and organisation – which give a snap-shot of how we’re performing against the Business Plan targets. We are on track with most of these targets, but the two where we have not been successful are: membership (with the trend still downwards) and footpath successes (which we believe is down to under-reporting of local successes – we need to encourage footpath secretaries to report successes, to help with campaigning and membership recruitment/retention).
The Board also reviewed the feedback from Areas about the main priorities for next year, and approved the targets for the coming year based around the four priorities: more members (to increase our income, our volunteer base, and our campaigning clout); more income (to increase our ability to fulfill our charitable purpose); protecting of footpaths; and promotion of walking.
Area and Group Budget Allocations for 2011/12
The Board approved allocations to Areas and Groups of £425k, with a further £25k to be allocated as needed (a total increase of £25k on the current year). We agreed that recommended volunteer mileage expense rates would remain at 28p per mile, but that trustees would continue to claim 20p per mile on a voluntary basis.
Walking for Health divestment
The Board agreed (subject to details particularly on finances) to move forward with preparing a bid to host Walking for Health, which is being divested out of government over the next few months. This presents the opportunity to bring together the two major walking schemes in the country. Submission of a formal bid will need a separate decision when more financial information has been released by the government.
General Council resolutions
The Board received an update on resolutions from General Council. This will be circulated to General Council delegates and Areas.
Chair and Treasurer succession
The Board agreed to advertise for the posts of Chair and Hon Treasurer, which both come up for election at General Council in 2012. In accordance with our constitution, the post of Chair will be advertised internally, and that of Treasurer both internally and externally.
Confidentiality of minutes
The Board agreed that the minutes of meetings, once agreed, would be published on the volunteers section of the website, but with the following information removed (unless otherwise in the public domain at that stage):
- The appointment, promotion, dismissal and any other matters affecting the personnel affairs of individual members of the Ramblers, or individual members of staff
- Personal information relating to individual members of the Board of Trustees
- Commercially sensitive information
- Legally sensitive information
- Anything
which the Chair, having consulted with the Chief Executive and Honorary officers, deems inappropriate for an open forum.
These would be clearly marked as the Published Minutes.
We agreed the governing principle of the Published Minutes would be one of openness and exceptions would be kept to a minimum. It would also be made clear that the Chair would not enter into correspondence about excluded matters.
