CRT National Council meeting notes 19.9.19

CRT National Council Meeting Notes
19 September 2019

Not content with attending CRT's Annual Public Meeting, I also attended what could be my last National Council meeting in the afternoon.

The meeting was held with the morning's Annual Public Meeting in the background (see my last post for details).

As ever, these are my take away points which I felt were particularly interesting, but should not be taken as minutes.

Questions and Answers
The meeting started with a Q & A session and the following issues were raised from the floor:

• Health and Safety plans are becoming more visitor focussed
• The funding impacts of Toddbrook were explored
• General overtopping issues were discussed
• The balance between leaving scrubland and adopting a more manicured approach to vegetation management were considered
• Cycling incidents - data to be analysed to see if incidents reported have increased

Appointments (Dame Jenny Abramski)

Various structural changes were explained, proposed and voted through including:

• Reappointment of Allan Leighton as Chair for a third and final consecutive term
• Reappointment of various Trustees for a second term (Jenny Abramski, Nigel Annet, Janet Hayben and Tim Reeve)
• Increasing max consecutive terms of office for Trustees from two to three
• Various nominated Council Members have stood down and replacements identified
• CBOA to become a nominating body to replace co-opted Peter Hugman's resignation
• MIND to become a nominating body for an additional wellbeing perspective
• Association of Waterways Cruising Clubs (AWCC) to become a nominating body to add an additional Boating representative
• Angling / fisheries nominee to become an elected member
• 5 nominated members reaching the end of their 2 x 4 year periods and new nominees sought
• 3 nominated members reaching the end of their 1st term and confirmation that they will continue for a second to be sought
• A new nominee is needed from the Wildlife Trust
• Cycling Uk has nominated Sophie Gordon to replace Matt Mallinder
• Roving Trader population to be included within Private Boating for forthcoming elections
• Volunteers representatives to increase from one to two
• The number of sponsors needed for elections to be reduced to one

The timing of the next elections to be run by Electoral Reform Society (ERS) are as follows:

• 21st October E mails and letters issued to all eligible voters to seek nominations for membership of National Council 
• 18th November - nomination of potential candidates closes 
• 25th November - lists of nominees published
• 20th Jan to 14th Feb - voting period
• 17th Feb - results announced in time for the March National Council meeting

The Waterways Ombudsman

• A user representative to be appointed to observe the Ombudsman for a year - to be selected after the forthcoming elections.

Auditors 

• BDO reappointed

Youth Engagement

• At the request of National Council, a period of time was allocated to explore the issue of youth engagement, as this is seen as crucial to the future of the waterways.
• A creative session ensued led by Louis Howell, Co-Opted Council Member for Youth
• Various case studies were considered designed to gain a greater appreciation of what would motivate various ages and types of young people
• The discussions then moved to consider what CRT could do to take advantage and harness the various scenarios
• The outcomes and ideas will be worked back into the ongoing Youth Engagement strategy
• This session proved to be both enlightening and refreshing.

Meeting closed at 3.45pm