CTC Times up !

[hatler]

Whoa ! Thanks for the thought, but no special deals please. Most important of all is that Simon has an easy life.

 

[Crankarm]

I've just cancelled, or rather not renewed my CTC membership.

I wanted both my bubs to have CTC membership/insurance & 2 years ago I 'signed then up' , at the time I had been paying the unwaged price of £24 as I was at college.
2 junior memberships are £15 each, but i was charged £39..? I queeried the £9, was told that family membership was £63 so £39 was the differnce on what i'd already paid to make my membership up to the family rate? I did ask if i could just join my bubs as individuals but was told no because of their age they I had to do it as a family.
We were about to go off on a little tour, I really wanted them to be covered by insurance & tbh at that exact moment I couldn't be bothered to argue over £9.
My membership ran Oct to Oct, I joined them in August, expecting they'd get a full year..Nope!
Come Oct I get my renewel reminder - As we were now all on one membership I had to renew us as a whole.. I was quite annoyed by this, I had paid £39 out less then 2 months earlier, they now wanted another £63, and I was still at college so technically entitled to £24 individual price.
Several phone calls where made, This really bothered me, I felt like i'd been ripped off, why should I have paid £39 for 2 months membership, when 2 individual memberships would have only cost £30 and lasted a whole year?? But I got nowhere, I spoke to at lesat 4 different people, but go nowhere. I was a case of pay up or leave.. I wanted us to be insured, I wanted th support of a big organisation just in case the worse should happen, so grudgingly I renewed. But it left a sour taste in my mouth, £102 in mebership fees in less then 2 months..a sum I really couldn't afford, but felt was vital we had, I had this horrible image that if I did cancel it would be sods law the very next day we'd have some sort of accident.incident!

So to this year.. #3 joined a cycling club in the summer, his years membership to that was £15 & this incluces BC membership & a race license, i've since joined that club too second family member cost was £10 & completed my BC/Breeze Leaders L1 course.
So that's both of us covered for £25, less then half the price of the CTC - I appreciate that CTC do a great job, but their admin side could do with a bit of a tweak & show a bit more understanding, flexibility & compassion

Blimey! They've got even worse in the 7 years since I left them. That's an awful story of rotten customer service . Glad I ditched them.

And this was before the current debacle with their application for charity status.

 

[byegad]

I have to say I renewed very reluctantly and only because I occasionally 'lead' a ride. I'm considering British Cycling as an alternative next time around.

 

[blockend]

Do The Fridays offer Family membership ?

The Tandem Club do, third party cover for all the family for a tenner a year or forty for five years. You don't have to ride a tandem.
http://www.tandem-club.co.uk/_subscriptiondetails.htm

 

[dellzeqq]

Blimey! They've got even worse in the 7 years since I left them. That's an awful story of rotten customer service . Glad I ditched them.

And this was before the current debacle with their application for charity status.

to be fair the boys, at Chertsey are first rate - and I've put in 25 forms with over 300 new members this year, so I have some experience. There's a lack of clarity about membership rates from above (the CTC website is behind the times on affiliated membership) and the 'fulfillment' branch of Avarto are pants.

 

[Flying Dodo]

That reminds me - I must send you a cheque for the affiliate membership, now that I've resigned from the CTC proper after 7 years.

 

[Flying Dodo]

Another one for the Brussels gravy train!

Anyway Greg, are you going to apply for this vacancy?

 

[dellzeqq]

The completion of some grant funded development projects during 2012 and their only partial replacement through a Local Sustainable Transport Fund is leading to some redundancies and a management restructure with a strong regional team approach. Behind the scenes we have invested in stronger operational and financial management and much improved accounting system. A long awaited new website and better integration of our web and new media presence will be delivered early in 2012

'A lesser man would be saying ‘We told you so!'

 

[dellzeqq]

It is a desperately poor document. Absolutely rock-bottom. They've not taken a moment to reflect.

 

[dellzeqq]

I'm serious when I say that I have got better things to do with my life. For the last eight years I've been in a bike club - first the Cheam and Morden, which was fantastic, and for which I'll be grateful until my dying day, and then The Fridays which makes me happier than you lot can possibly imagine. If I look around at how the joy of cycling might be spread about, or how cycling might add to the congeniality of our towns and cities, the CTC, in its present state, doesn't figure in the scheme of things other than as a provider of services to cyclists and to clubs like The Fridays.

 

[dellzeqq]

Insurance is a big deal (let me tell you......) and I'm more than content that the CTC provides it and makes money from it, but, in answer to your question (for the benefit of others, because you know the answer....) it should provide

- discounts at shops (and support for the shops that give most young cyclists their first start)
- technical advice
- touring advice
- legal help
- advice and support to campaigners
- consumer information
- confidence building for individual cyclists that is really an extension of the wider club function

would be a respectable start

 

[GrumpyGregry]

It is a desperately poor document. Absolutely rock-bottom. They've not taken a moment to reflect.

I hadn't seen this bit of the thread until the CTC advert in "Third Sector" caught my eye. Being a Charitdeewonk myself I wandered over to the oh-so-90's CTC website and took a look at the pack. To describe it as a desperately poor document frankly insults the desperate and the poor. If I produced something like that, complete with piss-poor etch-a-sketch stylee structure charts, and it got into the public domain, I would hang my head in shame.

 

[srw]

The message contained therein is "Help. Someone who's got a clue please get in touch." If I were (much) closer to retirement and fancied a showdown I might almost be tempted - if only to tell them what I thought the job was.

I take they haven't thought of talking to headhunters? Expensive, but would give a far better result. I wouldn't run a single assessment centre on a pre-specified day for a £50,000 junior management job; and I would never send someone to assessment before interview.

Odds-on there will be a readvertisement sometime in the new year.

 

[jonesy]

The message contained therein is "Help. Someone who's got a clue please get in touch." If I were (much) closer to retirement and fancied a showdown I might almost be tempted - if only to tell them what I thought the job was.

I take they haven't thought of talking to headhunters? Expensive, but would give a far better result. I wouldn't run a single assessment centre on a pre-specified day for a £50,000 junior management job; and I would never send someone to assessment before interview.

Odds-on there will be a readvertisement sometime in the new year.

Particularly when there is so little notice (given Christmas etc), considering the seniority of the sort of people who would fulfil the "essential" requirements in the specification.