Leaders change as owners fight back
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OWNER-drivers have elected new officers for the struggling British Association of Owner Drivers in an attempt to keep the association going.
At a meeting in Coventry at the weekend 80 drivers elected Charles Williams of the East Midlands Owner Drivers' Association as the new chairman and Gerry Smith of the Bradford ODA as vice-chairman.
And for the first time .the association has split the offices of treasurer and secretary: Paul Gray of the South Western ODA is treasurer and his wife, Mrs Sylvia Gray, is the secretary.
A statement from the association issued on Monday after the Press had been excluded from the Sunday meeting said that there had been an "outstanding" attendance and it paid tribute to the efforts of former chairman George Kelly and vicechairman Harry Boland both of North Humberside ODA and former secretary Mike Wells.
Vice-chairman Mr Smith said that the meeting had been "united in the wish for the association to continue." He added that there was no wish for it to "crumble" as it was thought would happen.
Mr Smith said that the negotiations with the Road Haulage Association would be continuing. "The ball is still int eh BAOD court and it is up to us to vote and give them an answer," he said.
Asked about a possible break-up of the BAOD with the threat of a southern association being formed to cover the southern half of the country Mr Smith denied that there would be any breakaway. Future plans for the association are to be based around consolidation of its current situation. Mr Smith said that the 272-member organisation had lost some credibility and it was out to recover lost ground.
But the threat of a breakaway still exists with the news that southern associations are being contacted with a view to holding a meeting to set up a new organisation.
Former secretary Mike Wells had circulated BAOD members with a letter warning them of the future and accusing members of failing to co-operate with the association and revealing that in the past four months new recruits to the BAOD had been outnumbered by those failing to renew their membership.
Mr Wells accused BAOD executive members of looking on the association as a game "rather than the serious commercial venture that it was meant to be".
He urged the BAOD to "take the sensible line and wind up• the association," and he warned, "failing this the saga Of the BAOD will drag on and on until such times as it dies a natural death."
It is thought that former chairman and vice-chairman George Kelly and Harry Boland did not attend the meeting on Sunday, like Mr Wells, and this week neither man was available for comment.