Who owns the 'club'
There has been much talk in the 'new name' discussion as to if the CMCC is a club or not. So should the CEO and Chairman decide to vote through a decision to sell the club and all its millions of assets to an equity company or commercial operation (as other clubs have), where would the proceeds be distributed; there's an interesting question, any ideas.
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https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00646027/filing-history
Have tried to insert a link to the CC info at Companies House.
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I think you will find that the assets are still owned by The Caravan Club Limited,we have all be transferred, without our consent to a new club that owns nothing. The same thing happened a couple of years ago to the Civil Service Motoring Association (CSMA), overnight all the members were moved into Club called Boundless, but CSMA Ltd still continued will all its assets for the management to do with at will.
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And so you should be JVB, me thinks things are not as they seem, somebody is not being forthcoming, who are these Directors in the new company who out there has ever heard of the Touring Europe Club? It either a tax fiddle or something much darker. Time to come clean
I now expect this to be locked
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There are many reasons for setting up a dormant limited company to run alongside an active limited company. It's not a tax fiddle and there's nothing dark about it. This happens a lot and it has many advantages.
One of the reasons for doing this, particularly in the past before companies could be set up online (before online, setting up a company with paper and snail mail was very slow) is that a dormant company can be used to trade immediately. This has happened here. The accounts have not yet been made up for the company trading as Caravan Club Limited so what has happened to enable the rebrand, is the dormant company has had a trading name change to the Caravan and Motorhome Club Limited and trading under this name can begin immediately, without the need to first audit Caravan Club Ltd.
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I can't speak for what the directors intend to do with Caravan Club Ltd, none of us will be privy to that information, until something changes at Companies House
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When the RAC was sold, each full member received £34K.
Full members being those that paid over £600 a year and had use of the Pall Mall facilities. Ordinary roadside breakdown and recovery members received a grand total of nothing
Unsurprisingly, almost all of the 12000 full members voted in favour of the sale.
Not a bad return if you had only been a full member for a year or two eh?
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Must be very tempting for Chairmen, CEO's, et al of a club to hive down all the millions of assets into a separate company which they can do without membership agreement, and then sell the assets, which would of course include the membership. A chosen few are then left with a sizeable amount to distribute as happened with the RAC (were you ever offered the opportunity to join the RAC elite?) and apparently the CSMA according to contributors to this site.
Is the CMC or whatever we are called now being groomed the same way? I wonder or perhaps EG could let us have a view on this.
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As a motorhome owner I have nothing against the new name as such. My only concern is that as a club member I would have expected to have been consulted on such an important issue such as this.
There seems to be a lot of censoring on the club website though.
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I suppose the question here is whether the new name for the club is just a trading name for the Caravan Club Limited or if the company is changing its name to the Caravan and Motorhome Club Limited.
My understanding was that the Caravan Club Limited is a company limited by guarantee, therefore all full members are guarantors of the company and as such owners of the company in the same way shareholders are for larger listed companies.
The Directors will be given powers by the Memorandum and Articles of Association for the Caravan Club Limited to act in the best interests of the Company in its day to day trading.
My question to the Diectors is if the company is changing its name at Companies House should this change have been placed before a General Meeting of the Company as a resolution to be passed by the Full Members or does the M&AA allow the directors to make the change without a specific resolution?
I must stress that I am neutral in my opinions on whether the name change is a good or bad thing, but I am interested to know the process behind the outcome.
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I joined the Caravan Club, because I have a Caravan! As did my Father before me. The STRANGE Logo and name at the top of this page have not been our Logo or name since 1907, and I think this is a misrepresentation !!!
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Before everyone gets excited about being the owners of the Club please read the M&AA in particular section 12.2
There is a difference between being a Full Member and being a Club Member
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The link works for me, not sure what the problem is? Anyway, The M&AA can easily be found via the Companies House website. Search under Caravan Club Ltd and it's in the list of filed documents.
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Here is the opening line of the first full paragraph taken from the Annual General Meeting 2016 notification
All members are very welcome to attend, but only Full Members are entitled to vote
Full members being individuals who have applied and had their applications approved by the Directors and are the guarantors of the Club with limited liability.
As Club Members (i.e. you and me who pay our £49 a year subscription) we have no rights to vote on Club decisions or who represents the Club at Director level. To put it bluntly, if you think you can rock up at the next AGM and force a change in the top level, think again, it's not going to happen
If I were to speculate, I would imagine a General Meeting was called to vote on the rebrand and rename of the club, and this was passed by the Directors and Full Members.
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Thanks Nigel, they make fascinating reading, particularly that in the demise of the club, the assets are not sold and returned to the members, but are to be given or transferred to other institutions, which of course may have only just been formed.
The member issue is interesting as well, and I think I may write and ask for a list of the special members, and what the pre qualifications are of being a special member or a full member. (Not sure I will get a reply though, probably under that catch all, the data protection act - lol))
Interesting also to note that the magazine should not contain more than 15% advertisements,
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On a slightly different note and just looking at the CC's company house listing I find the ages of the 13 listed directors amazing:
Glynn Malcolm BALL 61yrs
Edward BAXTER 68yrs
Grenville James CHAMBERLAIN 67yrs
John Peter GASS 62yrs
Malcolm GROVES 70yrs
Peter JOHNSON 78yrs
Rodney Norwood Paul LAMBERT 73yrs
John Francis LEFLEY 69yrs
Christopher John MACGOWAN 70yrs
Janet Irene MOORE 72yrs
Barry John SHARRATT 68yrs
Gordon Fordyce SMART 67yrs
David Charles TURNER 63yrs
Now while there is nothing wrong with life experience you would think that there would be some advantage in having a bit of younger blood in amongst the older generation to represent the membership a bit better. Maybe not so surprising the apparent web site issues/ seemingly slow uptake of social media involvement, poor booking system etc. Could this have something to do with some of the more idiosyncratic features of the caravan club in 2017?
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I spotted this too, was about to post something like you have done but didn't want to come across as ageist. You have a valid point though.
The other Club make a big point of promoting their President as a young icon of outdoor life and pursuits. She's on the TV a lot, is well liked and is no doubt a massive coup for the C&CC by way of promoting the link between the Club she now represents and the increasingly popular taste for the outdoors
Thomas Coke, the 8th Earl of Leicester, not exactly what you'd call a well known character that you would associate with leisure
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