In an ideal world lots of Members would take an active interest in the Club’s future. They would take the trouble to turn up to vote at the AGM – and there would be enough capable volunteers to refresh the Committee and prevent a self-satisfied Old Guard holding sway, and this would take the Club forwards.

Unfortunately it’s not an ideal world. GWOCGB’s membership doesn’t take an active interest, doesn’t attend the AGM, doesn’t bring its Committee to account (not even, for example, about their expenses doubling last year) and doesn’t elect new and capable people to refresh the Committee with new ideas.

This is partly because anyone who is talented enough to be likely to be able to make a difference will see that they would be prevented from bringing about change by the Old Guard and would also risk vilification for even trying to do so.

As a result of this GWOCGB, as a national organisation, has become highly dysfunctional. This is despite the Regions still, in the main, working well as friendly local clubs. Taken as a whole GWOCGB has however suffered a big decline in personal membership. It has also suffered, and not just recently, many breakaways of disillusioned former members who have chosen to form independent clubs rather than submit to what they have seen as unhelpful and/or oppressive national leadership – or rather the absence of anything resembling constructive leadership.

By all means enjoy the Region you’ve joined, and your riding. And stay out of the debate – and maybe call it “all politics” to show your disapproval too, in the hope that some Guardian Angel (or at least someone else, someone capable of better financial leadership) will come down from heaven and make all the problems go away.

That’s what many GWOCGB Members have done over the years, even though they can see that something’s seriously wrong. They enjoy what they can and quietly hope that things will get better.

Or you can try to do something. It’s all about freedom of choice.

GWOCGB has a lot to be proud of but also needs to change with the times. The WingSpan is made of a high quality paper so great for photos but also heavy and bulky so costly to print and distribute. Newer members will appreciate the magazine more than longer term members as is gives a taste of what goes on in the club and the regions. Alternatives need to considered, costed and put to a vote at the April AGM.

The club is sadly missing a financial leader on the committee at present. Costs can be saved by moving to internet solutions but it appears only a handful of Members log onto the Forum thus the opinions of the few will outweigh the views of the larger audience who are still voting by renewing their membership.

The GWOCGB is not dead just yet … I am a new member and have to admit had two very different experiences – one – the very real and enjoyable experience of getting involved and – two – the unreal experience of reading blogs like this and the petty bickering on the forums.

So I shall just continue to enjoy the real experience of riding and stick to forums like Goldwing Riders which is fun, upbeat and friendly.

The Gwil.

It would of course be up to individual Federation Clubs (eg GoldWings North West) to decide who they admit to their membership. But I would hope they would be open and inclusive on this sort of issue, as in all things. I can’t imagine GoldWings North West ever wanting to have a formal vote on such an issue; it is people we welcome into our Club and we have already agreed to welcome people who are interested in GoldWings, even if they don’t yet own one.

But I suspect Stevie was referring to the current N Wales Wings situation in which, following the mass exodus to GoldWings North Wales (provoked and precipitated entirely by GWOCGB’s National Committee) the lady who volunteered to Rep has Special Membership, awarded by the National Committee because her husband had sold his trike and they were ineligible for ordinary membership. I understand they attend Events and Rideouts using their car.

As you imply GWOCGB is clearly is in urgent need of a new approach. But the present Committee have done so much damage and lost so much credibility for being either willing or able to make changes – or even being capable of developing new ideas at all – that unless they are replaced with new talent the Club’s decline in paid-up GWOCGB membership will inevitably continue.

And anyone who volunteered and brought along fresh ideas would come up against such opposition from the dominant die-hards that they would have great difficulty changing anything and would need to be something of a masochist to even try.

But that doesn’t mean the Federation will benefit because it isn’t trying to be an alternative or a replacement national club. No rules, no ruling committee, just useful resources and facilities for Wingers and for GoldWing Clubs so that they can form and thrive – including GWOCGB Regions if they want to make use of them. It’s a Club of Clubs rather than individuals Wingers and it doesn’t boss anyone around. Although there is a facility for individual Wingers to become Federation Associates, that’s really intended to help them find or form a GoldWing Club.

What I would like to see is the Regions running themselves and talking to each other to coordinate their activities as necessary. Common sense will tell the Regions that they should avoid choosing conflicting dates – so who needs a ruling committee just to compile and publish an events calendar?

And why does everything have to be agreed and spelled out nationally anyway? The idea, for example, of (another) national vote on whether to accept Valkerie Owners into the Club, so that all Regions will then have to abide by that decision is at the very least unnecessarily restrictive.

Actually it’s plain silly to have any unnecessary restrictions or rules if you are facing a serious and continuing decline in membership. Having a cull of all the unnecessary rules and restrictions would be an obvious first step towards recovery if the Club wasn’t burdened by such a bunch of visionless no-hopers who can’t even see what they are doing wrong.

So if a GWOCGB Region wants to take advantage of Federation facilities while at the same time continuing to operate as a GWOCGB Region in the traditional way too that’s fine by the Federation – it’s all about freedom of choice!

The dinosours in power of GWOCGB need to get their act together or the Club will fold & this no doubt will benefit the Federation in the long run.

As far as the Federation is concerned it’s entirely up to individual GoldWing clubs (and Regions) whether they have any rules and officials at all. The Federation exists purely to provide a range of facilities which GoldWing clubs can use as they wish. In many cases the clubs don’t even have to affiliate to be able to use them. Clubs can be of any size and for any purpose which is connected with GoldWings – so who needs rules and officials if it’s only a few Wingers who are loosely linked as a club? Yet they can use Federation facilities and they can buy cheap and reliable PLI cover, just the same as a bigger club.

So there is no reason why a GWOCGB Region couldn’t use the Federation’s facilities if they wish, with or without affiliating. They can affiliate if they wish – for example in order to get benefits which require it, such as the free website or good, cheap PLI cover. But by doing so they would not be joining a rival national club or anything like that – they are just signing up to buy a good cheap deal. No reason from the Federation’s viewpoint why they couldn’t continue to be a GWOCGB Region as well.

It might not be easy to get your head around this alternative system if you are used to GWOCGB’s complex and rigid system of rules and a ruling Committee. But there aren’t any rules in the Federation; it’s all about freedom of choice.