Caravan Club Governance

Our Club is run by employed managers under the supervision of our elected Committee, but the Committee are unremunerated and they meet infrequently, so they don't work like a board of directors of a company; it much looser and less controlled than that.

There is also an annual general meeting of the Club, which in theory is where the Club can exercise its authority over the Committee and its employees if it wishes - so in theory the memebers could vote the Committee off and sack all the staff if it wanted to, not that that would be a good idea but the membership does ultimately control the Club.

Except that in practice it doesn't and can't, because no proposal can be put to a vote at an AGM unless the Club Council has first approved it, and the Club Council is appointed  (and effectively controlled by) the Committee and the employed management staff may effectively control the Committee.

Unbridled democracy is unstable and potentially dangerous, so we wouldn't want a system which would allow a few crazy members to sneak up with surprise motions to vote themselves into authority and then rule the roost - but do we really want a system in which there aren't really any ways in which rebellious members can rebel, no matter how many of them may feel aggrieved?.

Safguards against disruption are necessary, but these should not take take the form of obstacles to challenge which in practice make it very difficult to rock the boat even very gently unless the Club's "establishment" want it done.  This system doesn't seem to me to be sensible and safe from the memebers' viewpoint.

Large clubs like ours can be driven to the wall by bad management very quickly and the Institute of Advanced Motorists found itself on the brink of financial failure a few years ago from which it is still trying to recover.  Unless there are proper safeguards against employee managers inviting safe people on to the Committee so they won't be scrutinised too closely, and the Committee invites safe people on to the Council, the whole thing can go very wrong.

Maybe we are currently well managed and maybe our current Committee and Council do provide effective governance but our system looks vulnerable as well as just a bit too cosy to me. 

What does everyone else think?