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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: 180k cragx Mill Bridge

« Last post by Will Hunt on Today at 06:36:26 pm »

For what it's worth, I'm sceptical that nationalising would lead to better regulation, which is how you change internal governance. The reason the Thatcher government privatised in the first place is because they balked at funding themselves the future investment that was needed to pull the industry out of the hole it was in in the late 80s. Governments since have been able to enact the WFD and now the Environment Act (which, as I've said before, is a mind bogglingly costly thing to implement) and not had to worry about borrowing the money themselves to finance it, that's the water industry's problem. I personally don't think the Environment Act would have been enacted as it is if the government was going to have to do the borrowing and taxing to pay for it.

12

get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: 180k cragx Mill Bridge

« Last post by Moo on Today at 06:15:33 pm »

It’s worth noting that not even feargal sharkey is arguing in favour of nationalising the water companies. His argument being ( the last time I saw him speak about it ) that as soon as we do so then we all foot the bill. He’s arguing for tough regulations on the water companies, get them to sort the mess out they created and the shareholders will just have to suck it up for a while.

The basic premise of that argument makes sense to me but I’m certainly not wise as to how difficult that would be to implement.

I guess if you did nationalise the water companies then you could hopefully be surer of their governance being in our best interests.

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: BMC Resolutions shout out 📣

« Last post by remus on Today at 06:06:36 pm »

I'm no accountant but give me 1 day with access to the bank records for BMC 2022 and I could give you a pretty detailed picture of where the money has gone and on what.

Have you done any accounting? This seems extremely unlikely from the small exposure I've had to finance and accounting.

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: 180k cragx Mill Bridge

« Last post by Will Hunt on Today at 05:58:15 pm »

When I said before that the quality of reporting around this was poor, this is the kind of thing I meant.

While Britain was in the EU, a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law.

From 2016, the government decided to test water quality under WFD every three years rather than annually.

A single sentence separating two contradictory statements, each presented as fact. Can the Guardian really not be aware of when Brexit occurred? This is typical of the paper, which is happy to report on the water environment provided it can be used as an argument for nationalising the water industry/being in the EU (I mean, I absolutely hate Brexit, but the reduction in sampling frequency has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with budget cuts).

Ideologically, I'm in favour of nationalised water. That doesn't necessarily mean I think it would be a pragmatic thing to do now. Do I think that nationalisation is a solution to the "problem" (what is that exactly? Reduction of storm overflows? Elimination of storm overflows? Reduction of pollution incidents? Improvement of bathing water quality? Improvement of water ecology? All different things with different solutions)? Not really. Dwr Cymru have all these challenges; they have no shareholders. The same goes for plenty of other water and sanitation providers around the developed world.

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: BMC Resolutions shout out 📣

« Last post by Nails on Today at 05:47:25 pm »

Also Offwidth. I find your continual attempts to shield the BMC behind the fact that it's heavily supported by volunteers extremely hard to jusify.

A small percentage of people that we meet in life are takers. That's just how it is, people realise this over time and the takers aren't widely respected as a result. The vast majority of people help or volunteer with something. Whether it's charity, clubs, schools, community, sports, politics or whatever, most of us volunteer our time in some fashion or other. The notion that volunteers should be regarded as being in anyway special or holy is nonsense. Nearly all of us are volunteers for something or other. Being a volunteer should not make you immune to criticism. It one hundred perecent should not make the organisation you are volunterring for immune to criticism. The volunteers should be as outraged as the rest of us if not more about the state of things at the BMC. If any of the organisations that I volunteer for were behaving this poorly I would be kicking up so much shit you wouldn't be able to see me for the brown cloud.

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: BMC Resolutions shout out 📣

« Last post by Nails on Today at 05:34:17 pm »

I'm no accountant but give me 1 day with access to the bank records for BMC 2022 and I could give you a pretty detailed picture of where the money has gone and on what.

17

news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by ferret on Today at 04:48:33 pm »

Michael Piccolaruaz has made a solo ascent of a line called Ganja in Zillertal. I think there's some dodgy old bolts in it, but it sounds like it's typically done as a trad route at 8a/+ ish. Who knows what it'd get grade wise for a solo but pokey 8a crack sounds like a pretty hardcore solo to me.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6tjSvLNEZU/

Hard bit looks like the bottom - E4

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: BMC Resolutions shout out

« Last post by Oldmanmatt on Today at 04:02:16 pm »

I can quite easily see how things can get messed up, simply by not doing things properly and not keeping records. What I can't accept is that having discovered that things are in a mess, they can't then see what was spent where. Surely they can just look at bank records. The BMC is not that big. It's simply not that hard. It's also accounting 101 that if you've messed up your accounts, you then go through them in minute detail, so you have a solid base to continue from. You don't say "forget all that" and carry on. "It'll all be ok cos we're all working jolly hard"

Ex-fucking-zacertly

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: BMC Resolutions shout out

« Last post by Nails on Today at 03:56:38 pm »

I can quite easily see how things can get messed up, simply by not doing things properly and not keeping records. What I can't accept is that having discovered that things are in a mess, they can't then see what was spent where. Surely they can just look at bank records. The BMC is not that big. It's simply not that hard. It's also accounting 101 that if you've messed up your accounts, you then go through them in minute detail, so you have a solid base to continue from. You don't say "forget all that" and carry on. "It'll all be ok cos we're all working jolly hard"

20

get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: BMC Resolutions shout out 📣

« Last post by Oldmanmatt on Today at 03:52:55 pm »

A surprising lack of imagination there Matt if you are asking "how can it be so hard".

What if your CFO left tomorrow, and it took 3 months to get someone else in post? What if the successor decided to start using some new accounting package? What if they then left after 6 months? What if someone outside the organisation started asking for reports on things you weren't previously tracking, like "what if we categorised this expenditure as X rather than y?"

Not to defend the BMC here as obviously they should be on top of their accounts and be exercising appropriate financial control, but it's not hard to see how an org can get itself in to an accounting mess.

Because any irregularities should have been spotted within weeks, if the Directors and CEO have their eyes on the ball, even if it’s just an hour a week. Frankly, our CFO works under the directors (which I admit is unusual) and only came into post a year ago, anyway. The group ran for 40 years without, but grew to a point where it became justified. Any changes would need to be agreed by us and the boss (that is all the directors of all the companies in the group, around nine of us, I have only met five of them and then socially, we don’t even have board meetings). My boss is the most humble Billionaire I’ve met, works hard and is damn sharp, but hardly superhuman. Shows up at 12 midday and buggers off at 6 and yet has all his ducks in a row. I’ve known him for 24 years now. No, every director has an up to date financial report for their bailiwick every week. We’d need to lose the entire accounting division before that point and everything would pretty much grind to a halt anyway. Losing the CEO, is a different matter. Nothing over 10k could move without him and that includes payroll… However, he’s training up two of his nephews (one of which is my CD. He has no kids himself). By training up, I mean has been using them as proxies. 16 years now for my friend.
I understand your point, but the BMC was supposed to be under  professional board control, with council oversight, correct? That’s a lot more than our group.
So, there doesn’t appear to have been any oversight.
Friendship or no, I would have been fired for that kind of crap, if it would have even been possible for me spend money without two other signatures.
We fuck up. Lose money, choose duff clients that stiff you on payments, have cost overruns that strip margins, blah blah blah, but we alway know how and why. In fact, we usually see it coming in time to cut losses, because we get weekly reports…

Edit: My point is, it isn’t justifiable. Or, at least, should not be. Nor has any adequate justification been presented. Or, to my knowledge, even an explanation of where the money went. To the stakeholders. The membership. WTF.
All I’ve seen is whitewashing and obfuscation.