IAM = Imploding Advanced Motorists

After my previous post I received another communication from the Glasgow North Group of the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) and this time it's getting serious!

The Extraordinary General Meeting called for by some of the motorcycle section members has now been granted.  I don't know how many people are involved in this, as I said previously I haven't been there this season, but I have to think it must be a significant number. 

The whole problem surrounds the committee's decision to change the format of the Wednesday evening bike runs and instead of travelling to one of a wide variety of destinations, as of last year it was a choice of one of four McDonalds outlets only a few miles from the start point.  The previous post has a bit more of the background.

So the previous letter from the IAM Regional Group Co-ordinator has obviously done nothing to quell the disquiet (unsurprisingly), and the committee have decided to grant the EGM and put it to the vote.

But here's the sting in the tail.

Instead of canvassing the voting opinions of the biking members who are affected directly by this, the committee has decided that the sole question to be voted upon is

Do you support the committee choice of  the four destinations?

and in a breathtaking display of mass petted lip and sharp practice has announced that if the vote goes against them they will resign en-masse, and therefore since this would then affect the WHOLE of Glasgow North Group the vote should not be confined to bike section members but opened up to car members too, thus ensuring that they'll almost certainly win the vote since, let's be honest, car section members won't give a flying toss about the actual issue.

Call me cynical, but this strikes me as a blatant attempt to manipulate the system, worthy of the worst of the Westminster/Holyrood politicians themselves (or jumped-up local councillors and oxygen-thieves as I think of the Holyrood ones).

I really can't be arsed turning up to this bunfight, so it was a no brainer to use the postal vote offered, which is to be sent to an independant adjudicator from a different IAM local group.  But it seems that although votes at the EGM may be anonymous, it states specifically on the voting paper that postal votes can not be anonymous to ensure that only those who have voting rights (full IAM members, not associates) can vote.

Since the committee have chosen the specific wording, and taken pains to point out that they did so to make it simple, I had no choice. 

I have voted NO. 

Quite simply I do not support the decision to change to less variety, and I never have done, even prior to this raising its head (remember, I haven't been to any meetings this year so I haven't influenced or been influenced by anyone else's opinion on the matter).  The fact that the committee, in a blatant attempt to influence the voting, has decided to effectively make it a vote of no confidence in them while avoiding wording it as such is unfortunate, and I don't intend my NO vote as such a vote of no confidence, however in all conscience I can only answer the question posed, that I don't agree with the four destinations.  So I also added words to that effect in the comments section of the voting form before I posted it.

Realistically there's no chance of those with a quite reasonable objection to this decision winning the vote because of the way it's been set up by the committee, and unfortunately now I'm likely to be seen as a trouble maker because my name's on a form supporting the dissenters, but the committee left me with no choice, and in any case since I was likely to be leaving the group after this year this might just be the final impetus to jump ship.  I'll still remain a member of the IAM though, just probably not of a local group.

Watch this space for the official result, some time soon after the EGM on 29th July.