BBKA: one member one vote?

[DanBee]

The BBKA needs to change. An idea the gets kicked around from time to time is 'One member, one vote'.

The current system is that the BBKA is an association of associations (counties, usually). Each county nominates a representative (Delegate) who goes to the January Annual Delegate Meeting (AGM). Delegates may be mandated by their county as to how to vote on particular issues, or left to make their own judgement on the day. Counties & Delegates are not required to canvass the members they represent in any democratic fashion. Delegates are asked to vote for Trustees, and to vote on Propositions that set and steer BBKA policy / activity.

At the January ADM, only Trustees and Delegates are allowed to speak, only Delegates can vote. By defaults votes are "one Delegate one vote", but if requested it becomes a 'membership vote' - each Delegate's vote is multiplied by their county's current number of paid-up members - the larger counties having close to 1,000 members and the smaller counties/associations having perhaps 100.

My position used to be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but I've seen how this the current system has failed to reign in failing Executives over successive years. My caution with 'One member one vote' (OMOV) was that unless 'voter apathy' could be overcome, then it was ripe to be dominated by emotionally appealing or heavily polarised issues.

Fine, pesticides and bees is an issue of direct relevance, but how would it have served bees & beekeeping if the BBKA had been forced into an anti-GM stance a few years ago? Whilst BIBBA maintain several hundred members who are inherently anti-imports, what about the other 24,500 BBKA members - do they agree with the current BBKA stance of advising against importation? From a different angle, capitation (the mandatory BBKA membership 'subs' that comes out of your local membership fee) is highly emotive, but then again why shouldn't the members have a say in how much they are prepared to pay for what they get?

The current system is often likened to parliamentary democracy, with one important distinction: I do not know of any association where its members vote to choose their Delegate. With OMOV, each member is guaranteed direct and equal participation in steering the BBKA. In the current system, there is no such guarantee.

So what do you see as the benefits and the pitfalls of OMOV?

 

[Blacky50]

As a member who lives in a county that prefers to avoid BBKA membership I get no voting rights in the association. I'm sure there are many others in the same situation. OMOV would give members like me some input.

 

[domino]

OMOV sounds good in theory but is a nightmare in reality.

 

[dpearce4]

OMOV sounds good in theory but is a nightmare in reality.

not really anymore with the sites on the internet that could be used for collecting votes.

I think the BBKA needs to be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century. There needs to be a real hard look at what they do and what they stand for and decide what their core values are and stick to them.

The whole system of overall umbrella, Counties and then districts each with their own committees and some being charities some not, some forward looking, some insular and not wanting to expand as they feel its to much like hard work.

Some Not wanting to spend money on decent speakers and having the same old same old rubbish year in year out.

Something needs to be done and soon otherwise the rise in beekeeping will collapse and all the good new members will go else where. We need to work with other organisations, like the natural guys, and BFA, WBKA, SBKA not shun them.

Committees being run by members that have been there for decades in some cases because new members are to scared to stand up and say yea I can do that.

 

[MuswellMetro]

did any of you buy shares in British Gas..did you every vote at a shareholders meeting .one shareholder one vote.......never works, its a either proxy vote given to charman or the voting slip is found unopened after the companies AGM

all votes go through on the nod , dissenters always loose and you end up with CEOs earning millions as know one reads the small print

The BBKA would be the same,,,puppet democracy run to the whims of the chairman and Trustee, no little man able to get 50%of the vote to over turn a decision

 

[DanBee]

OMOV sounds good in theory but is a nightmare in reality.

Care to expand on why?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

did any of you buy shares in British Gas..did you every vote at a shareholders meeting .one shareholder one vote.......never works, its a either proxy vote given to charman or the voting slip is found unopened after the companies AGM

all votes go through on the nod , dissenters always loose and you end up with CEOs earning millions as know one reads the small print

The BBKA would be the same,,,puppet democracy run to the whims of the chairman and Trustee, no little man able to get 50%of the vote to over turn a decision

Status quo then

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

 

[roche]

Although one member one vote would be a great endpoint, even getting one association one vote would be a huge step forward.

 

[WoodenBeam]

I think the issue with OMOV is reflected by the recent members survey - a general lack of interest, look at the low return. As already stated a lot of slips would proxy vote or no reply at all. At least with the current system members who are interested are able to be heard and get involved. Our delegate is given free reign on most propositions however they are discussed/debated and if there is strong feeling votes within the committee are taken.
With OMOV the proposition being heralded by the best propaganda will be successful even if it is a load of bo lacks
OMOV - no thank you

 

[domino]

Care to expand on why?

Sure,

There are several issues with OMOV, the biggest one being that it allows smaller groups to essentially overrun an elected organisation.

In much the same way that the BBKA is run by the people who turn up, OMOV organisations are run by the people who turn up and vote; which is normally the minority.

During the height of the neonics debate it isn't beyond the realms of probability that non-beekeeing activists could have joined the BBKA and disrupted it greatly. This happened to the RSPB, a case could be made the same is true for the Labour Party.

The fundamental point that the BBKA needs to be more accountable and transparent is a solid one. I'm not sure OMOV would get you there.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Status quo then

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i think OMOV is only being proposed by the trustee because the trustees got defeated by the dleagates last year at the ADM when the delegates voted down a £1 increase in BBKA fees

 

[DanBee]

I think the issue with OMOV is reflected by the recent members survey - a general lack of interest, look at the low return.

As an aside - and not to detract from the valid points you made from this - did you know that that members survey was not done with the awareness or agreement of the Trustees? Doug Brown (then chairman) wrote the questions, sent the survey, processed the responses and presented the findings to his fellow Trustees and to the membership. The first the Trustees knew of it was when Associations started asking them about "the BBKA survey".

Doug was Chair of Trustees at the time, but if you look at the constitution you will see that the Chair has no more authority than any other Trustee. Given the way he has demonstrably suppressed, protected, and covered up (see DRP thread!) I would treat those survey results as deeply unreliable.

 

[DanBee]

With OMOV the proposition being heralded by the best propaganda will be successful even if it is a load of bo lacks

Agree fully. How to stop the monthly BBKA News which goes to every member being used to reinforce the status quo?

Or, more kindly, how does a minority viewpoint, candidate, or proposition become publicised to the wider membership, particularly if contrary to the current direction of the organisation?

 

[DanBee]

There are several issues with OMOV, the biggest one being that it allows smaller groups to essentially overrun an elected organisation.

In much the same way that the BBKA is run by the people who turn up, OMOV organisations are run by the people who turn up and vote; which is normally the minority.

During the height of the neonics debate it isn't beyond the realms of probability that non-beekeeing activists could have joined the BBKA and disrupted it greatly. This happened to the RSPB, a case could be made the same is true for the Labour Party.

The fundamental point that the BBKA needs to be more accountable and transparent is a solid one. I'm not sure OMOV would get you there.

That's crystallised my thoughts about the failings of OMOV, thanks.

Your last point has hit the nail on the head - giving everyone a direct vote is not the same as ensuring transparency and accountability. OMOV will only work reliably if transparency & accountability are already in place, otherwise it is probably worse that what we have now.

 

[Teemore]

OMOV - is there really any difference between this and a Delegate calling for a membership vote on one of the propositions at the ADM? For those unfamiliar with this in terms of BBKA activities, it is where the Delegates votes are weighted in line with their Area Association's registered membership. If Delegates are presented with a mandate by their Area Associations, is there then any call for OMOV? From memory, the proposition on the capitation increase at the last ADM was settled by a membership vote.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

i think OMOV is only being proposed by the trustee because the trustees got defeated by the dleagates last year at the ADM when the delegates voted down a £1 increase in BBKA fees

That's a bit harsh - I'm sure membership is worth a pound!

 

[alldigging]

There are two references to OMOV in http://www.-------------/files/library/volume_3_of_the_asdm_2017_pack_1479733954.pdf

Proposition number Nominating Association
2017/05 Essex
Proposition
That the so-called “one member one vote” proposition presented in the 2015 survey be rejected
as inappropriate and potentially dangerous as a means of member representation.

Proposition number Nominating Association
2017/07 Northumberland
Proposition
The BBKA is a large national membership charity. The Charity Commission best practice
encourages charities to engage directly with their members on key issues like trustee
appointments. Restricting voting to area association delegates is not fulfilling the spirit of the
guidelines.
Northumberland BKA requests that the BBKA polls the membership to ascertain their views on
moving to OMOV on this issue.

 

[domino]

OMOV - is there really any difference between this and a Delegate calling for a membership vote on one of the propositions at the ADM? For those unfamiliar with this in terms of BBKA activities, it is where the Delegates votes are weighted in line with their Area Association's registered membership. If Delegates are presented with a mandate by their Area Associations, is there then any call for OMOV? From memory, the proposition on the capitation increase at the last ADM was settled by a membership vote.

If they wanted to add some more accountability into the process why wouldn't they get the association committees to vote on them prior to the ADM and then the membership vote would reflect the views of the membership?

 

[simoncav]

Can I just say that as a BBKA Trustee I have already written in the BBKA News asking for members views on how we might we might structure ourselves going forward. We are well aware that at present we have a situation where several county level associations are either in the process of dissolving themselves or contemplating it and that presents several challenges.

In my personal view that means we now have in effect, a two-tier system where some members have access to their delegate through their own "local" association and others have to lobby through their local association and then to their county delegate as they do now. I’m not sure if that is necessarily a “bad thing”, but it does feel sightly unbalanced in terms of representing member views overall across the BBKA.

We will also have a big growth in the number of delegates attending the ADM which means we will have to move back to a hotel or other space big enough to hold everyone and that inevitably means an increase in costs to run the ADM and that has to come out of capitation fees or some other source of funds.

Just a thought about One Member One Vote - How would it be implemented efficiently for the benefit of all members? We know that not all members have access to the Internet, and therefore online voting could not be truly representative for the near future. We could run some form of postal voting system sending information/voting forms out as inserts via the BBKA News, but would members be expected to pay postage to vote, and if not, the costs to the BBKA would be huge. Running a combination of online and postal voting would be complex and expensive to manage. At the same time how would individual members raise issues for consideration at the AGM? In addition, how would we run an AGM? There is no way we could host a meeting for all 25,000 members?

The point is this - Its your BBKA and the Trustees are listening. So talk to other members, talk to your delegates and talk to us. Nicely, please!

Simon

 

[Hivemaker.]

We will also have a big growth in the number of delegates attending the ADM which means we will have to move back to a hotel or other space big enough to hold everyone and that inevitably means an increase in costs to run the ADM and that has to come out of capitation fees or some other source of funds.

Simon, to have a large area for the meeting plus accommodation, and more importantly to keep costs low, would it not be better to use a large tent/marquee, and everyone could "camp" in that.