Cycle Sheffield Governance & Email List Protocol

 Elected members act as coordinators and representatives for the activities within the group. Their role will be to ask for support from members, create working groups of interested people to comment on work in progress.

Other than the Chair role there can only be one role per person.

• Membership Secretary
• Campaigns Leader
• Treasurer
• Publicity & Events Leader
• Chair (can also be one of the above)

The elected roles will also be responsible for setting and agreeing budgets and working with the membership to agree planned expenditure. These proposals will be discussed and agreed at Cycle Sheffield meetings.

Typical non elected roles/responsibilities could be (not limited to):

• Super Tram Liaison
• Sheffield Cycle Forum Liaison
• Stall Organiser
• National Bike Week Coordinator
• Membership Subscriptions
• Rail Liaison
• Magazine Editor
• Magazine Column Writers
• Bike Ride Leaders
• Documenting cycle routes
• Tuesday & Thursday Night Ride Leads
• Cycle Nation Liaison
• Web Content Editors
• Email Moderators
• Bike Shop Liaison

In addition to roles and elected members it is proposed that we have trustees to help safeguard Cycle Sheffield. Their role will is to be guardians for Cycle Sheffield, keep watch over activities and ensure that the organisation is meeting the needs of its members. There is no financial liability for the role and they have no obligation to carry out voluntary work. They are required to :

• be up to date with activities and campaigns,
• deal with disputes amongst elected members
• be present at AGM meetings.

Trustees are invited to the group following nomination at an AGM and are not elected.

Election of Roles

Individuals can ‘stand forward’ for election, or in the event there is no one to elect nominations will be made at the AGM. The election process will be a closed ballot.

The process is as follows:

• Every year each role is up for election
• Prior to the AGM the Chair will send an email requesting people to step forward for roles or to announce their standing down to prevent re-election. Individuals can put themselves forward for more than one role.
• At the AGM if there are no volunteers the meeting members will be asked to suggest nominees.
• Nominees have the opportunity to decline election in response
• When there are nominees for each role then meeting members are given pieces of paper and pens to prepare for voting.
• The roles are then voted in the following order:
  • Membership Secretary
  • Campaigns Leader
  • Treasurer
  • Publicity & Events Leader
  • Chair (can also be one of the above)
• For each role the election works sequentially, returned votes are collected in a hat and counted by the Chair.
• Once elected then the election moves on to the next role. If there are no people after the first/previous round/s nominees are then requested from meeting members and the election continues and until the closed ballot is completed.
• Non elected roles are filled on a voluntary basis.

Dispute Resolution Procedure

In the event that there is a dispute amongst members the dispute process should be followed:

• With immediate effect the members email will be moderated
• Any disputes or discussions must take place off list.
• If the members are moderators or web content editors they are to suspend activity and passwords until a resolution is confirmed
• The first attempt should be to ask the members to meet and address the matter. If necessary another member should be present to help.
• If this doesn’t resolve the matter should the members concerned are non-elected members then elected members then review the situation and decide recommendations to address the matter.
• These recommendations are put to those at question. The members within the dispute are to then asked to accept the outcome if they are not happy with it and no settlement can’t be reached, then that member should be suspended for a minimum period of 2 months (max. 12 months if no resolution is found).
• If the dispute involves an Elected member, then the matter should be referred to the Trustees.
• Trustees then consider the matter and make recommendations. Their word is final.

In addition to this the following applies:

• Elected members do not have the right to eject a member from the organisation without putting it to the AGM.
• In the event that there is a complaint about a member from an external organisation then this should also be referred to by elected members.

Cycle Sheffield Email List Protocol

Q1 – What items are welcome on the list?

• Items about cycling relevant to Sheffield
• comment,
• personal experiences,
• ideas, requests for information and advice,
• information about events,
• occasional personal cycle-related sales/wants (as long as you are a CycleSheffield member)
• reasoned debate,
• discussion of specific problems or difficulties.
• requests for empathy when motorists mistreat you
• replies to requests for empathy
• advertisements for cycle promotion jobs in the Sheffield area

Q2 – What isn’t welcome on the list?

• Personal abuse or offensive comments of a personal nature
• language that some might find offensive
• trade adverts
• woffle
• sexism/racism
• trolling (starting an argument for the sake of it)
• Intemperate ranting.
• obsessive pursuit of a subject following a dispute on the list, that may cause offence even if the email content is courteous.

Q3 – If I come across a local difficulty for cyclists that I think needs drawing to someone’s attention what should I do about it.

Write about it to the list so that CycleSheffield who attend the City Cycle Forum (meeting with the council) know about it.

Q4 – How can I cope with all these emails?

One way is to use the digest mode. With the digest mode you get many mails batched together in one mail. To change this or other options go to CycleSheffield Listinfo and use the box at the bottom with your email address to get to your option settings. Another way of coping with many emails is to use the filtering mechanism that some email clients have to deliver different mails to different folders. Try looking up filtering in the help for your email program.

Q5 – Can I send attachments to the list?

Answer: No. Please do not post attachments to the list – they can cause decoding problems with different mailers, and clog up the mailboxes of those who are relying on dial-up or webmail to read their messages. If you have an attachment such as a word document you would like to share with other members please send it to cycleshefmail@ shu.ac.uk, and we will put it up on the web site for downloading, or notify members that it is available if they wish to contact you directly. If it’s a text-only document, pasting the text into an email usually works – but use the “paste unformatted”, “paste as plain text” or “paste unwrapped” formats in your mailer, or you may end up with HTML in your content. The list software will hold all postings above 40kb for approval by the list administrators.

Q6 – Can I ask someone to post a message for me?

No you can’t. If it’s worth saying you should be able to say it yourself.

Acceptable Use Policy

Exchanging emails with others generally involves using common sense regarding the content material and being polite and courteous. The vast majority of our members understand what is appropriate when sending or receiving emails. Regrettably, there are occasions when individuals or groups of people exchange emails or involve in online activities, which are considered to be unacceptable by the Internet community. This is described by the generic term of “abuse of email policy”.

Abuse of email policy

It is not always obvious whether an activity is innocent, inadvertent, or intentional but as a general rule, email users should be aware that what is unacceptable (and possibly illegal) offline (oral or written), applies equally online. As with telephone calls, you must not send any emails which cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.

You should not send messages likely to cause distress or any other material which is distressing, grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing or in any way unlawful. This includes any material which may be offensive to people on grounds of gender, race, colour, religion or other similar categorisation.

When dealing with others who are not members of the campaign, whether council or government, private companies or members of the public, always remain courteous and avoid personal comments or allegations as to the competence of the person involved. Failure to do so is regarded as a serious threat to the good relations the campaign has built up over the years with other organisations.

We will operate the following sanctions against those who break these guidelines.

1st occasion of abuse of email policy: Opportunity to address the problem, emails being moderated for a three week period

Any disputes or discussions must take place off list.

Immediate 2nd occasion of abuse of email policy: Permanent suspension from the list.

There is no right of appeal. However, the decision to suspend someone will be subject to peer review and the person making an abusive email will have the opportunity to right any wrongs and prevent a suspension. Except for extreme cases which will lead to automatic suspension without discussion.

Where such abuse takes place outside the realm of email, cyclesheffield policies apply equally. The following policy was adopted at the meeting on the 21st June 2001:

“anyone declaring membership of CycleSheffield should express only those views which accord with the agreed manifesto or decisions made at CycleSheffield meetings” .

Again, where this rule is violated it will be made plain to all concerned that the views expressed are not those of CycleSheffield.

Any Comments? send ‘em to the FAQ maintainer or the Mailing List Owners Ian Loasby or Simon Geller.