Evolution

[Alex]

kwatt wrote:My choice would be, as is but add Lawrence and Clive.

I’d rather add Alex or Carl, but…

However, if needs must, there’s more than one way to skin a fish.
K.

Add Alex!! I thought I was already here? As I’ve said, I’m doing my best to keep out of the forefront on the TA thing. Operationally I have something going on regards more work, and at the expense of another service organisation. There are times in business when one has to prrostitute themselves, (No I don’t do blow jobs) and this is one of them. There is a connection between that work and an associate member of DASA (Not Connect). I may have blotted my copybook as it is; but by slagging them off from within, and keeping my head down regards the outside world, I may get away with causing some damage and then evaporate from DASA.

I have said nothing in the general TA sectors as I don’t want to give the wrong impression, and then start a debate that is not appropriate, and could cause differences to appear that do not exist. The last thing you want is a storm in a tea-cup. Bad enough with Martin.

I agree there is a need for a new TA, and an even greater need for recognition. Bear in mind, we are perceived as the new kids on the block and some will look at this in a different manner than intended. Is there a risk we could turn fom poacher to gamekeeper? Some could look at it this way. I know it will work, and by God I want it to work.

An old saying…

If you are not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem.

In the case of UKW TA, nothing could be more appropriate.

Am I in the AC or not? I’m happy if you would prefer that I take a year out of the AC, and be re-elected once I’m back on stream.

Washdoctor BTW I’ve met, nice guy, bit new at the job but really cares and does his best. Well respected Repair Care agent, always high on their list of good performers. Oh and he’s Welsh! but don’t let that put you off., Martin & R600, I don’t think are candidates.

Alex

[johnmac11]

kwatt wrote:
JM, where you at on this? Personally I’d rather you stay in, it allows a certain balance even if you don’t input too much. Plus, it keeps Martin out which is reason enough to sell your soul to Satan!

There is that 😈

Sorry for not butting in earlier but have a few problems with them bloody yanks over the past couple of days.

I have went over all the posts re; the WTA and am struggling to make sense out of some of it. I will make a list and see if it makes sense 😕

Are we proposing that the AC becomes the ruling council for the WTA?

If so does the council not need to be elected because if it isn’t elected I dont want to be in the room when Adolf, sorry Martin hears about this.

Correct me if I am wrong but looking at the list of candidates is also a reason for concern, five of them IIRC have never been to a UKW meeting, do we not need people that will show there face now and then.

If the council was open to an election I could not serve on a council with Martin, he get really gets to me at times and I would need to buy a “black coat” 😆 The issue over the printer has really pissed me off, it was in an open forum and there was not a massive “no” campaign re the printer, Ken posts that he is going to buy it and we get that load of drivel!!! IMHO moderators and Directors of UKW should not be in conflict in the public forums as all it does is give ammo to the external hecklers/ DASA officers and manufacturers who want to say “I told you so”

I also don’t know what would be expected of each individual on the council, I am thinking of how much time would a councillor need to allocate to do the job and what would we be letting ourselves in for?

John

[kwatt]

Re: Evolution

Yes, the AC basically evolves into the ruling council. Something I have mooted since the discussions started as, frankly, it makes sense and allows continuity.

This council was elected. 😉

Martin can go find a short pier…

I know what you mean about open discussion, it works both far and against you at times. The problem here and, what really p1ssed me off in this case, is that I explained it fully to Martin by PM as Chris well knows. After that Martin continued his public assault. Hence I brought the discussion to a swift halt as I wasn’t going to give the prat more ammo.

That said, holding secretive discussion behind closed doors hasn’t exactly done DASA any favours and, personally, I don’t believe that’s how a trade association should be run if it is to be democratic. But then my model runs around the accepted democratic process, not an ad-hoc one. But anyway, we’re going to get the “told you so” brigade out in force irrespective of what we do and mistakes are bound to be made, cest la vie, we just deal with it.

For the moment I don’t think that anyone should be tasked with pretty much anything more than you do now. ATEOTD, you all have businesses to run which take presidence and, rightly so. It is here that the relationship with UK Whitegoods Limited comes into its own as, UKW (me/Sean especially) can be tasked with whatever without too much involvement from the ruling body beyond “do that will you?”.

One of the single biggest failings with DASA is that no-one steers the ship effectively compounded by the fact that there is no-one there willing to actually get stuff done. So, no leadership or direction followed by abject apathy from those asked to do anything as they are too busy with their own affairs but, I’d hasten to add, I think that’s right, that people serving on the council are there to guide the leadership with comment and opinion from the industry whom they represent on that council. The problem being that DASA relies on that council to BE the workhorse, leader and representative of the industry which it has repeatedly proven is a function that it cannot perform.

Strikes me as being awfully silly to repeat that mistake.

K.

[Penguin45]

Re: Evolution

Seeing as there is no WTA at the moment and that this is a closed forum, let’s be blunt here. Bit of secretive chat is probably exactly what is required…..

I can see no reason why we should not use the month available to us before the September meeting to identify five, say seven suitable candidates to be presented at Sibson. With some pre-publicity in the forums, even a vote for those unable to attend we should be able to shut Martin out completely.

He does seem to have become increasingly isolated on the site and no longer indulges in banter in the forums or even the Mods forum. He shouldn’t really be seen as a threat.

Sorry, I really have had just about enough of him.

Anyway, the names I put up at the top of this thread were a completely subjective list based on who’d been posting in the original discussions, nothing more. Everyone in here should be able to come up with some sort of list of their own – hell, there are probably great people out there who don’t even have computers who might be ideal candidates! Well, maybe.

If we want to do that – we could just throw it open at Sibson and see what happens. Personally, I think that that is a bad idea.

Chris.

[kwatt]

Re: Evolution

You’re right Chris, we do need to keep some of this very quiet for the moment.

I also think that the candidates should be identified and more or less installed before Sibson.

I am at my wits end with Martin, he just seems to pop up and cause trouble wherever possible, especially for me. However if you look carefully you will see that this started at the point at which Mr Heath became a problem and I do know that he and Heath talked. I also know, from the records that we have, that Martin was paid money to do stuff without my knowledge. However, I am not going to delve into it any further.

This past week Heath got served with the final bill from the solicitors who had investigated the matter taking into account damages and losses etc. and came up with a number, £130,000 approximately that they are after him for. Then Martin goes off the rails?

It’s hardly surprising that I am adding 1 and 1.

So yes, I to have had quite enough of Martin and his crap. To be honest I read some of his posts and cringe, I am also going to take him to task about the deletions that he has made.

I think we should clarify the people here first and then act over the next few weeks.

On the card printer, I’ll take advice from this room. Are there any that say no?

K.

[Del]

Re: Evolution

You know there is always some bugger wanting to throw a spanner in the works.
At the risk of upsetting Ken and yourselves I think I’ve got to point a few things out.

It is my considered opinion that we should delay setting up the WTA until we inform all the trade that we are about to launch it, not just those who either use or have access to the web.

I am just as convinced as the rest of you that DASA is dead, nobody is more qualified than myself to make such a statement having done my utmost to try to get it to work for the last seven years as a member of its council.

If we start this thing off by appointing one another on the ruling committee then we will be accused (and rightly so) of it being another arm of UKW with all of it’s legitimacy blown before it is even born.

DASA has always been accused of operating cloak and dagger tactics with secret hand shakes and private phone calls and here we are about to fall into the same trap.

Ken if you want to spend the subscribers money on something really useful then use it to mail shot every Indie in the land and tell them what we are trying to do and what we are trying to create. Do this by calling them to democratically structured open national meeting and address the attendees.

I am sure that Chris’s 10{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} rule will apply to the responses we get, probably not even that many. By doing it completely open and transparently, you will give the fledgling T.A. a clean and honest start of life.

Not only is this the correct way to go about this so that there will be no finger pointing afterwards but you will almost certainly encourage more of our trade to connect to the web as an easier means of communicating between members.

Have no fear that the right people will be voted to get the job done the vast majority of those in attendance will be UKW members who are already aware of who have done most to assist their fellow tradesmen.

There are some among us who have more to loose than their own livelihoods, they are responsible for others too. Let’s face it we have rattled the cages of enough manufacturers and work providers to make ourselves unpopular.

If we want the multi engineer members to be able to take full part and to be seen as members of this new T.A. then it has to be created from a process that is beyond reproach. It cannot then be accused of being a puppet organisation of UKW.

The guy’s in here that have given of their time and efforts over recent years, to help members of the white goods trade community have already demonstrated their commitment and would stand in good stead if It came to any open vote.

What I’m basically saying is have a little more faith in democracy. It’s often slower, but infinitely more palatable than all the other alternative options.

Sean

[kwatt]

Re: Evolution

There’s two schools of thought here you either…

Hit the ground running with everything, or as much as possible, in place

or

you ar$e about setting it up for months after the event

That’s it. There’s no in-between, no room for maneuver and no chance of doing it any other way.

What you propose here Sean is that we do the latter as, what you are suggesting will take months and months to get done. There is no chance that you will have a TA this side of the New Year using that method, end of story.

Please drop it with the mail shot as, in time, that will be done anyway but you need a carrot or three before you do it. There’s absolutely no point sending a mailshot out when you have nothing to say, report or offer and, whilst we may be reasonably good at what we do, we can’t conjure up something from nothing.

You speak here as if we’re going to have some huge seminar, we’re not. This will start small, just as UKW did and grow into itself in time, we will not get many attending that wouldn’t have come along anyway IMO. Therefore, there is little point in flogging a dead horse as, remember, we mailshotted every single repairer in the land offering a load of free stuff on their doorstep in many cases and they didn’t bother their ar$e to turn up, why should they for this? I’m sorry, but the reality of it is that this would not succeed.

I have said it over and over, the fingers will be pointed, accusations will be made. That’s it.

Who cares whether someone attends meetings or not unless they have to or have committed to do so, it’s an irrelevance. The point is to be involved, in whatever way, not just to to turn up and be a tailor’s dummy.

Being unpopular I’m used to, I can live with it as the agenda is to help the repairers, not pander to the manufacturers or WPs. Sod them if they don’t like it.

Multi-engineer businesses are only a very small part of the industry, the sole traders outnumber them by at least a factor of three to one. If you want to represent the industry at large then that’s an important factor. However, as I have said to you before, the vast bulk of the multi businesses are either Service Force or Whirlpool, they have their own agendas and their own meetings etc. to deal with that. In most cases that will constitute over 80{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of their business, they care very little about anything outside of that for the most part IME. I can also say this with authority as, I was one.

I have huge faith in democracy and I believe that it is the way forward but, by the same token, I don’t think that anarchy is the order of the day and that the candidates have to be suited to the task as best as possible.

K.

[Alex]

Re: Evolution

We need to ensure we don’t put the cart before the horse. Set it up, keep it at a small initial level, as enthusiasm and membersip dictates, and let it grow. As it germinates and establishes then you cross the t’s and dot the i’s. I would suggest that once the TA is settled, then you re-visit the AC and address accordingly.

I’m impressed by the input by Carl, however we all know one of the critiscisms UKW gets is the anonymous posters. We know they are no better, but it is a cudgel they beat us with. Therefore what I’m saying is, Carl cannot be high profile on input, yet low profile on identity. I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you of that.

We may as well use this part of the forum to make such discussions, and that way keep Martin out of it. I’ve always said he was a to55er, and now it shows. Note: I apologised following the slagging off I once gave him, albeit was a rather veiled apology. What the hell can you do with him, he has access to all the forums I can access, except this one, as well as the moderators forum. He is out of his depth! Is he going to Sibson?

Alex

[kwatt]

Re: Evolution

I agree Alex, start small and let it grow.

So far as I know Martin isn’t at Sibson.

However before I publish it, get a read at this piece I wrote to explain a lot, I hope:

Quite often I see people a little confused by the term “trade association”. It would appear that it is often misunderstood or construed in some manner to suit the individuals notion of what it actually is and does.

Below are various quotations about what a TA is lifted from various sources on the internet. Whilst these may prove not to be definitive in any true sense as an “official” capacity as the definition of a TA they do give a good idea of the notion behind such an organisation.

• This organization comprises member firms and performs a number of services for them, one of which is lobbying the government.
• An organization that represents the interests of the member firms of an industry. It usually differs from a cartel in that it has no monopolistic intent.
• A group of food-service businesses that band together to promote food service and keep members informed about important matters and legislative developments.
• A professional organization of manufacturers or other businesses formed to promote and industry or adopt uniform standards.
• An industry trade group is generally a public relations organization funded, founded and formed by corporations that operate in a specific industry. Its purpose is generally to promote that industry through PR activities such as advertising, education, political donations, political pressure, publishing, and astroturfing.

I’ll leave that list for a bit and come back to it throughout this article.

History

TA’s seem to have risen in the post-war era, after the Second World War, as a modern take on the old notion of trading guilds and the likes where, likeminded traders, would often form a loose association in order to gain preferential trading terms, promote their businesses and increase buying power.

These sorts of guilds have been around for centuries in fact, looking back through history, they appear to have been rather successful in their times. With the modern day equivalent not much appears to have changed outside of the moniker that such organisations operate under.

The difference now largely seems to be the fact that some trade associations appear to be little more than a vehicle by which some at the top, running the organisation, earn a living through delivering services to the members. Now, it could be argued that, were the association not delivering benefit to the businesses involved, that the membership would dwindle away over time and die and, to be fair, we have seen this happen in some cases.

Meanwhile any business has to look at being a part of any trade association as either an investment in an ideal or look at whether or not the cost of membership is offset by the benefits of being a member. The lower the cost of membership the less it has to be justified.

Just what does a trade association do?

Well that is up to the TA to decide. There appears to be no hard and fast rules that depict what a TA has to do or not do, in fact there is little regulation at all from the research I’ve done. It would appear that anyone can setup a TA and that’s pretty much it.

But, if you think about it, that is entirely correct.

Any TA earns respect within its industry; it doesn’t just get given it because it’s there. The TA has to prove its worth to its members and onlookers outside of it perhaps teetering over the merit in joining and becoming a part of any association. So, to expect overnight success with a TA is both unreasonable and, without massive backing, just about impossible. It has to grow over time, earn respect from within the industry and earn respect from government or any other bodies with which it has dealings.

But the members will ultimately determine success or failure and, if no-one joins or the members dwindle then this is a warning to any TA, especially and established one.

However to get back to what does a TA do, here’s a short list of possible reasons for a TA to exist:

• Representation of members to government
• Representation of members to suppliers
• Securing better trading terms for members
• Promoting standards to other businesses and the public
• Promoting better standards throughout the industry
• Formation of buying group/s to enhance trading terms
• Informing members of matters that may affect them within the industry
• Informing members of legislative changes that affect them
• Knowledge and information sharing
• Lead sharing

This list is far from a complete one, there are many more functions that a TA can provide to its members but, theses are generally consider to be “bells and whistles” additions over the core functions of a TA as, just like it’s older cousins, the guilds, it is there to represent and benefit its members and if it fails in that task then it will fail overall. The basic premise must be established and must be upheld.

Rules?

Quite simply there seems to be virtually no rules to govern how a TA operates or to set out the scope of its functions. The purpose and modus operandi of a TA is determined entirely by its members but with the caveat that “conventional wisdom” is often applied. That is to say that, people hold certain expectations of what a TA is, what it does and how it should conduct itself.

It would seem that these perceptions are routed in the history of guilds, unions and early trade associations as they appeared to be “legitimate” organisations somehow craving acceptance in the eyes of government and public alike. Therefore the structures were put in place in an attempt to appear officious and authoritative within their own fields. In many ways this has turned out to be counter-productive as many TA’s now seem regarded as no more than pompous, self-serving (management) little clubs that do little for the actual members. Of course that may well not be the case, but the perception is very real.

The rules that govern a TA are set by the members, not by any governing legislation or by any outside party. The members run the TA for the members benefit.

Where it gets murky

The murky side of this is where a TA claims to represent the industry as a whole.

Fact is that, without an overwhelming number of traders in any given sector being a part of the one TA or an amalgamation of various TA’s, no TA can claim to represent an industry as, it does not. It represents its own members and its own members interests, no more and no less. To claim that a small band of traders represent an entire industry is a falsehood.

What it can say is that it offers its members views and opinion on a given subject and that is correct. This is part of the basic functions of a TA, to represent its membership. However in order to do that, the members must have an opinion on the subject in hand and, through the TA, that opinion is voiced wherever it is required to be heard.

Often however, to hear that any one TA represents an industry is false.

Structure

Again this is determined by the members, not a rule book.

However, it is generally accepted (again, through conventional wisdom) that there is a small steering committee, board of trustees or council that steer the TA.

These members are elected generally by the membership whom they then represent on the governing body of the organisation in much the same way as a democratic government structure works with members of a parliament representing the views of many.

Where this does and, has, fall down is where organisations that wish to influence the TA manage to find themselves involved in that process as this then means that the TA is no longer serving its members but rather that of outside forces. Again this does happen and it is a danger as the TA will lose relevance to the membership if it chooses to serve another agenda.

Above the “council” there tends to be a director. This is not a director in the same meaning as a director of a business per say in some ways and, exactly the same in others. He or she is there to “direct”, to steer, to advise and to act in the best interests of the members, just as in exactly the same way were it a director of a business, they would act in the best interests of the company.

Summation

The summation of this piece is to say that every TA is different. Every TA has a different purpose and agenda and therefore it is probably inadvisable at best to draw comparisons between TA’s in some ways and, at the same time they should all perform the same basic functions. But, like ships on the sea, they all float and they all travel from A to B but that does not mean or require that they all look and act alike, in fact, they do not. Each one has a purpose and each one is built to serve that purpose especially and individually.

Perhaps it may be time for people to re-think what a trade association is and does in the modern world.

[kwatt]

Well that killed the conversation. 😉

The point is, re-think what you think you know. Don’t make assumptions and move with the times and/or circumstance.

That’s what kills most organisations IME, an inability to change.

K.

[Penguin45]

Re: Evolution

Ok, we have to make a decision, then.

Do it now, whilst the conversaition is still fairly fresh and set up something perhaps a little rough and ready.

Or we aim for new year perhaps. If we do that, we need to use the time to get this set up properly – but when we go, it’s got to be a complete -a “turn-key” job. Trouble is, we have to keep the conversation going for another four months and the interest going.

Or we wait for the next UKW meeting and try and do it then. Discussion will probably be getting tired by then, but we should have developed this fully….. Problem would be to get any real momentum restarted.

In some ways, we have missed the peak of the discussion. It has quietened down, moving soon to pick it up again is my own gut instinct. Waiting ain’t going to help.

There is one other option – call a meeting un-related to UKW activities, specifically to found the WTA. It would have to be fairly soon, Mr Watt might have to stand off and let some of the rest of us get on with it. I don’t see it working, somehow.

We’ve been doing this for four years. Those of us who have not overcome or subdued our manufacturers and work providers in that time should be asking “When”? I can’t see that waiting much longer is going to change anything, so why not let’s get on with it.

Chris.

[kwatt]

Re: Evolution

This weekend I’m actually trying to have a little rest as I’m knackered.

Over the next few weeks I’ll sort it and do a lot more work on the whole concept. I think that from this we have gleaned that keeping it lean is the way forward and then building upon a core of people and values which is the sensible approach IMO.

What I actually think is what I usually think and how I often approach most things…

Get the basics setup, get it running and operational and then slowly build onto that platform. IME and opinion this leads to a stronger organisation as you can learn from early mistakes and make adjustments and corrections whilst it’s not a major problem.

Right at this point in time the WTA does not really need additional funding, it has enough money in reserve to kick it off.

What we do need to do is get some special paper, £100 at most. The card printer, ~£2.2K. And, if it is deemed appropriate, a mailshot to the trade.

On the trade mailshot we’ve discovered a way to outsource that cheaply although it will still cost a couple of thousand to do it. However we can collate and cleanse the listings to a large degree.

In the end what many people are unlikely to see is that this is a marketing exercise to begin with as first you have to sell it to the trade and, then, you have to sell it to the public. Once you have some general trade and public awareness life becomes a lot easier.

Getting to the manufacturers, leave that to me as I do have a strategy there to ensure that we are known about very quickly.

All in all I reckon that we can easily launch this and get some exposure for under £5K which, TBH, is a shoestring budget but it’s all that we have so it has to be made the best of.

Need to go out now.

K.

[kwatt]

Re: Evolution

Hehe… I am bad. 😛

Published that little article on a couple of sites during the week and also here as well

Food for thought, for some, methinks.

K.

[Alex]

Re: Evolution

The AC, as it stands now, was democratically appointed.

The only thing I’d do is add two people to it and leave it unchanged. The reason that I say this is that we already have the people in place and, whilst I appreciate that they’ve been on that body for a while, they represent a good spread of opinion and the industry. However, the big plus to my mind is that it hits the ground running with no need to reinvent it.

Further to the above taken from the subscriber forum.

I’m happy to stay on the AC. Who are the 2 additional names you have in mind?

Alex

[kwatt]

Re: Evolution

I’ve no-one specific in mind Alex although I have an idea of who is suited obviously IMO.

But I’ll expand on this a little now.

I actually think that there’s the nucleolus of something quite special in all this with the way that I tried to setup and maintain this AS/Subs thing as we have a good spread of opinion with vested interests in each of the major areas. In some ways some barriers, if not broken, have certainly been weakened and it’s nice to note that, really, none of the repairers have been shafted this year by anyone. It’s one of the longest periods I can recall that something bad hasn’t happened to us, although I can’t be sure but it’s certainly not been as eventful as I thought it may have been.

Whether this is down to what we’ve been doing or not is open to debate.

But, in the end, where all this goes is up to you guys in most every way. I and the rest of UKW will help as much as and wherever possible, but it’s not a UKW puppet and it’s not UKW in another guise. IT just so happens that UKW/ISE spends most of their time as a commercial organisations supporting the independent trade.

Now, isn’t that a strange coincidence. 😉

And, strangely enough, much of what UKW delivers as commercial products and the directions it’s moved in seem to coincide with the will of the independent repairers or retailers as well as attempting to help them both in financial terms through retention of business mainly as well as in general terms of support.

Wow, another strange coincidence.

From my exalted position of “Big Giant Head” as it’s often put, of UKW or MD on paper, I’d have to say that when I look into my crystal ball that I can see some more strange coincidence being almost inevitable in the future, funnily enough.

I can also say that, as long as the TA functions as it should in representing the independent trade as it sees fit, so long as the ship is steered in that direction I can pretty much guarantee the support of a couple of companies at the very least, UKW and ISE.

How other organisations view the TA is, TBH of little or no concern. What does it matter really? If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, well what’s been lost by trying to make things better? Let’s face it, it hasn’t cost any of us any substantial investment other than a bit of time and effort on our part and a lot of the groundwork has been done a long time ago.

I kept on being told that UKW was a TA in everything but name. Perhaps so, but it’s not a TA in other’s eyes nor will it be. This “Evolution” is.

That doesn’t mean you can’t do things a new and different way and the only people that have anything to fear from change are those that are unwilling to embrace change, but, that seems to me to be a folly of epic proportion to not change. Many extinct species failed to adapt.

So since it’s been proved that the old way doesn’t work I’d say it was time for something new.

K.

[Author]

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