Guiding the future of the VMCC through Consultation
Member Suggestions, Requests, Proposals & Resolutions
The Club is committed to increasing democracy and empowering members.
We openly invite members to make suggestions, requests, proposals & resolutions at any time - 365 days a year, 24 hours per day.
We wish to :
- Encourage the number of suggestions, requests, proposals & resolutions coming forward.
- Improve proposal quality & ensure that proposals & resolutions are well reasoned and likely to pass smoothly & without challenge.
- Reduce the cost of evaluating proposals and administering resolutions
- Lower risk to the Club by avoiding the chance of an ill-considered proposal being passed.
- Incentivise & reward members for taking the time to improve the Club.
To enable Proposals & Resolutions to be considered in an efficient and effective way we would suggest the following guidance be considered when making more detailed proposals & Resolutions.
Click here for Members’ Suggestions, Requests, Proposals & Resolutions
Forum
The member experience of the Forum is out of alignment with the success of the VMCC with the Journal and on Facebook. Usage has dwindled to a few members and the goal of the Forum being an asset to the VMCC seems to be moving further away not closer.
There appears to be lack of clear objectives and policy for the Forum that align with the VMCC strategy: to conserve and enjoy old bikes.
Members are invited to respond to a consultation on the Forum from a document to review on vmcc.net/consultation. Responses to be sent by email to consultation@vmcc.net
Click below for:
Forum Consultation and Forward Plan Summer 2022
Draft Outcome of Consultation and Forward Plan for Forum July 2022
Consultation Archive
ARCHIVE BELOW
All responses received will be entered into a draw for a motorcycle. (T&Cs at the bottom of www.vmcc.net/raffle)
2021 progress updates
- September 12th 2021 at 6PM Click here for Booking link for VMCC Quarterly Operations & Finance review by Zoom
- Quarterly Operations Report
- Logo Consultation -Page 25 of September Journal
- Riding & Events Forward Plan
- Club Bikes Booking update - Page 42 of September Journal
- Club IT Infrastructure
- Communications Survey
- Library Forward plans
- Shop Forward Plan
- Membership & Marketing Forward Plan
Update on Membership and Finances
The VMCC made a statement over stabilised membership and finances in the June Journal
Following a focus on overhead reduction and operational process improvement, the new team have reduced the budget deficit by half for the remaining months of the Financial Year to September. We generated a modest surplus in April, and even if we stopped with change now, we could forecast a profitable Budget year within 18 months.
Long term cost reduction will be handled over the next 12 months by digitising our operations, excluding the Journal, which will remain in print and Allen House membership phone support for our members.
The Board including the FD, Cliff Harris now feels enough focus on short term cost reduction has been completed, and at the same time, we now need to focus on increasing revenue.
The club has published a forward plan in June and will give notice to all members in the July Journal.
VMCC Leadership Forward Actions plan for 2021
DRAFT Club 3 year Forward Plan for socialising before forming part of a future VMCC General Meeting for member voting.
Membership & Marketing Forward Plan
Links to more forward plans to cover Membership Operations, Library & Shop will be published as part of a July update.
It was also confirmed by the club's accountant that the May figures showed a small surplus had been made for the second month running. Further savings have been made and the previously projected budget deficit has been cut by half. There will be dips ahead due to important investments - the outlook trend is positive.
The list of club bikes has been published https://vmcc.net/Club-bikes
April update - Outcome of Consultation
The consultation process that started earlier this year, closed on the 31st of March with over 3100 responses from members. These are currently being reviewed by VMCC member Hans Dixon who has professional expertise in this area.
- continue the current programme of cutting expenditure and overheads
- increase efficiency
- right-size the organisation
A large majority of members have rejected:
- Spending the money and winding up the club.
- Funding through speculative business ventures.
- Increasing the membership fee excessively to £70 to cover employees to run events and admin.
- To stop the ageing Membership Operation breaking down completely and instead to make it better than ever with quick phone responses from the new enthusiastic team and requests being actioned swiftly.
- To put in the 75th Anniversary logo, reinvigorating the shop and putting in place a new look for the Journal - with photos of bikes for sale!
- To ensure that VMCC officers and volunteers were insured - where previously they were left outside of insurance arrangements.
- Progressing the Section Handbook and putting in a plan to give Sections a register of all current members in their postcode area.
- To understand the impact of past decisions, that will constrain our choice for a few years to come, such as the £50k five year lease on office equipment taken out 2019, affecting our options with Allen House, and the complex nature of our financial arrangements over the past twenty years that hide costs in our huge overhead and will take three years to unravel.
- Following the stepping down at short notice of both the Chair and Vice-Chair, ensuring that the AGM documentation was written and published to an acceptable standard, at higher quality and lower cost than in the past, and allowing member democracy within Covid constraints.
During the consultation period, it would have been inappropriate to make and communicate the VMCC’s plans in advance of receiving members' consultation feedback. Now we have clarity on the members’ wishes, we can finalise and communicate the outcome of our work over recent months and publish our forward plans.
This work has taken up time, as much as 60 to 70 hours per week and as a result, we have not been able to spend volunteer time on the Bulletin and Section Communications. For this we apologise, there are only so many hours in the day and have had to prioritise.
Moving forward with a 90-day plan
A 90-day plan has been put into place where we will be focusing on addressing the following:
- Ensuring full transparency over finances and contracts
- Moving away from a limited company and business culture and be more club-focused.
- Empowering Sections to recruit and manage their own membership themselves
- Addressing issues around the Library and its future
- Turning around the shop and making it work
- Giving Members equal access to the Club Bikes and selling any off any that are not used.
Later in April, we will be revealing our plans for a Members Insurance deal that we have been working on since January. (see vmcc.net/insurance)
- Membership Operations from the Membership Team and our plans to ensure all 13,500 members are allocated to Sections.
- Marketing from the Marketing Team and our support of Section Marketing
- Library Operations from the Library Team
- Riding & Show events from the Events Team and our support for Section Events
- Exciting new Raffle and shop options from the Shop team with special access for Sections.
- Book a Club Bike availability through your local Section
- A Club and leadership forward plan from the VMCC leadership team that ensures that the Sections are at the centre of everything and building a Club for the next 75 years