A note from Dennis Canavan
A copy of the letter sent to Ramblers Scotland Area Chairs - please feel free to pass on the information to anyone interested:
“I would like to inform the Area Chairs of Ramblers Scotland about the action taken by the Scottish Council Executive Committee in response to the decision taken on 30 May by the Board of Trustees of Ramblers GB to cut the budget of Ramblers Scotland by 79%.
When the Chair of the Board informed me of the decision, I told him that it was totally unacceptable and I called an emergency meeting of the Scottish Council Executive Committee (SCEC) who agreed with me and decided to set up a working party to prepare a submission to the Board. The detailed submission, containing a proposal for a fairer Scottish share of the savings required to balance the Ramblers GB budget, was sent to all Board members.
I also demanded that Rodney Whittaker, Chair of the Board, and Tom Franklin, Chief Executive of Ramblers GB, should meet with the SCEC working group. That meeting took place on 8 July but the Chair and the Chief Executive made it absolutely clear that they were standing by the Board decision of 30 May.
At a subsequent meeting of the working group on 21 July, we decided to recommend that serious consideration be given to the possibility of an independent organisation in Scotland and we shall be reporting this recommendation to the SCEC on 17 August with a view to taking appropriate action.
I would be grateful if you would be good enough to forward this message to all group chairs in your area so that they know about the action being taken by the SCEC. I am concerned about reports of members and even groups of members resigning or threatening to do so. I can well understand the anger at the Board decision but it is very important at this critical time for us to remain united and fight together to ensure the existence of an effective organisation in Scotland which will represent the interests of walkers.
Please therefore do what you can to get this message across to members in your area.
With best wishes
Dennis Canavan
Convener of Ramblers Scotland
August 1st, 2009 at 6:23 pm
A predictable outcome Cameron. And for the best from the Scottish Ramblers point of view I;d say
http://walkaboutuk.blogspot.com/2009/08/scottish-ramblers-death-life.html
August 9th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Cameron, you should get an accountant or a financial expert to look at the last set of Ramblers Report & Accounts. It seems very odd that an organisation with £2.9m of cash resources (one year’s salaries and rent), should suddenly find itself in such dire straights to need to close down its Scottish and Welsh operations. The disproportionate nature of the cuts seem strange (by inference, the staff in England will be cut by 9 positions). You might also want to look at the increase in the highest paid employee’s salary from 2007 to 2008 (the last R&As). There’s something really odd happening at the Ramblers and if you’ve got a good invetigative journalist friend you might want to set him on it. I drafted a post for my blog, but I’m not going to post it as I don’t want the potential hassle.