Ringing Forums

Are we not wandering into a completely different matter here?
The original question from Fran was regarding a Guild's engagement with its members. Nothing to do with the CCCBR, who have never been seen as directly approachable by rank-and-file guild members and are never likely to be seen as such by rank-and-file guild members.

Our situation in the Hereford Diocesan Guild involves members having to travel considerable distances to attend AGMs (100 to 150 miles round trips are far from unusual) and, especially with fuel prices as they are currently, members are simply not all that interested in travelling that far for something that, they perceive, is neither interesting nor important and could be done on-line.
Those of us that are members of a certain south western county association have had it brought sharply home to us how on-line voting can lead to absolutely disastrous results, within only a couple of years of it being introduced.
If members wish to influence the future direction of their guilds and associations, and expect the officers to carry out their wishes, the least that can be expected is for them to attend the AGM when the matter is being discussed and to hear both sides of the discussion taking place before voting to instruct the guild officers to take a course of action that they, personally, may well be unhappy with.
I am sorry if this offends, but giving votes to former ringing members who have not rung for years, (and whose subs have been paid by the tower to make it 'look better' than not having many, or even any, members [we all know several of them!]) is a recipe for disaster because they are, quite simply, out of touch with what is going on.
60 years ago, when I first became a member of my local associations, travel was nothing like as easy as it is today yet we had three or four times more members turn out for AGMs than we do now. I am not sure whether the yearning to stay at home and vote is a reflection on the fact that there was nothing better for members to do with their Saturday afternoons 60 years ago, that the membership was more enthusiastic in those days, that today's members are apathetic towards the future of their guild or maybe it is sheer laziness, but it is not healthy for any association to allow the policymakers (for that is what members voting from home are, in exactly the same way as those voting in the room) to determine its future from behind a cloak of invisibility (no other members even know if they were 'there' or if they voted, leave alone which way). Why not 'stand up and be counted'? Then every vote counted can count for something.