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News. Staff Travel Campaign Fighting Fund. This concerns the money remaining in the Staff Travel Campaign Fighting Fund account. I'm pleased to report that the campaign was extremely frugal and several thousand pounds remain in the account. Our printing bill was 30% lower than the price quoted by the Association's printer. As supporters will know, under my name but on behalf of all those in the campaign working group, a promise was made at the outset to refund to contributors any monies remaining at the end of the campaign. When I asked the Association Treasurer and his agency for the final statement of account two surprises awaited me. The first was that the agency had skimmed off over 6% in "charges". The second was that the Association announced that it cannot write the number of cheques required to make the refunds - a fact never revealed to us when the Association readily agreed to hold the Fund. Since the only service the agency had provided for its 6% was to pay in to the bank a relatively small number of cheques, I protested. Eventually, last week the Association, which had been maintaining that the charge was "only the agreed rates", agreed to halve the charge. However, the only way contributors who'd been more generous than was required were going to get the refunds due to them was if I undertook personal responsibility for doing so. This will mean that the Association will transfer to a business account run by me and my wife the remaining balance and I will write to each contributor owed a refund explaining what that will be and why their refund cheque will come from the particular account and not a more formal source. I have also set in place a system whereby the entire operation can be seen to be transparent. However, the records presented by the agency on behalf of the Association are so haphazard with many incomplete addresses, the construction of the initial database will take some time. Ultimately it will depend on the Association's willingness and even ability to provide the missing information. On behalf of all the Staff Travel Campaign Working Group, please accept my apologies for this fiasco. Update Letters have now been sent to all contributors for whom we have been given names and addresses by the Association's agency (which handled the receipt and paying in of the contributions). The addresses not supplied by the agency have been requested from the Association. When they are received letters will be sent to those people also. The "Shared Cost" - the level above which refunds are due is £25. If you contributed more than £25 and do not receive a letter within the next couple of weeks (assuming that the Association can fill in the gaps left by its agency within that time) please contact the webmaster - but at the latest by 15th July 2009. That will be the date on which applications for refund will be considered and the refunds commenced. As the letters explain, qualifying contributors have the option of receiving a refund cheque, donating their refund to the Association or, to cover the situation of those contributors who were happy to take part but who were not sympathetic to the Association in general, to danate their refund to Cancer Research UK. The Association's Website Whilst all this was going on the Association demanded control of the website and asked for a short notice meeting with me. I explained that I could not meet immediately and that I was going away for a holiday with my family in Korea. By the time I returned, the Committee had set up and put into operation another website, the objectives of which are exactly the same as the website I have run for the Association at my own expense for the past nine years. Some gratitude! For further information regarding your BA Pension click here.