Moving on

Over the last few months I have been reviewing where I want to be going with regard to my time with PCG.

This has included talking to other contractors on discussion boards inside and outside PCG as well as the team at Webtastic.

The last three years have been a steep learning curve and I will be looking to put the lessons learnt, into practice in the near future.

Having looked at what I have done together with the team at Webtastic we can feel proud of what we have achieved for PCG members.

History

I started PCG as a campaign not for personal gain, but because I thought and still do, that IR35 was unfair and if around when I started, may have prevented me starting my other businesses. I just wanted others to have the same chance I had. WYSIWYG with me.

I proposed a campaign budget for the first year. Went out and personally underwrote the start up costs. Recruited the team. Reported every qtr with management accounts in the public domain how we were doing against budget. I owned the Company together with David Ramsden. The initial Directors were myself, and David Ramsden and Kevin Miller joined at the end of 1999.

For a good summary of what we did and the history of the IR35 campaign check out these newsletters.

This is just the public bit. Behind the scenes we were trying to get websites to stay up, sort out VAT cock ups. And a myriad of other distractions. As members flooded in I had to resort to choking the demand by doubling the subscription from £50 to £100! I have never worked as hard for so long and without break.

I had planned to give this a shot for a year with the intention of winding up the campaign in May 2000, after the proposed legislation had either been defeated or was in place and dispersing any monies to Charity.

However, as PCG developed Members said they wanted to keep it going as a Trade Association so I put a proposal to them for a vote in late 1999.

Over 1500 voted in favour with 29 against.

The new constitution was drafted up by Gareth Williams in conjunction with Lawyers. In simple terms the Company would be transferred to the members who would elect a 30 man consultative council who in turn would elect a Board of Directors. Gareth Williams was elected Chairman and the first board was Jane Akshar, Neil Wilson, Pamela Edwards, Philip Ross, Simon Griffiths, Ian Durrant, David Ramsden, Kevin Miller and myself. At the time it was felt that the departure of the existing Directors would send the wrong message to potential new members, so David, Kevin and I agreed to stay in place.

My company, which had underwritten the costs of the start up and had built a team to serve the PCG, tendered an outline proposal to members in Dec 1999 that we would run the executive services for the PCG. Allowing the PCG directors to be voluntary and remain contracting. It was envisaged to be an outsourced partnership where we could build best practice in the Trade association sector and PCG could access high level resource. To my knowledge no one else submitted a counter proposal. A contract was finally signed in March 2000.

I will leave the final word to members who nominated PCG for a New Statesman New Media Award in 2000.

The future for PCG:

The new board of Directors elected early this year have started strongly in developing their own vision of where they want to take PCG. They have held several "away days" to build a plan with a simple objective of greatly increasing membership numbers by the time of the next PCG elections in 2003. They are in the process of implementing and are taking on board far more of the activities that Webtastic has done in the past with some directors putting in significant amounts of time on PCG matters.

The last thing I want to do is hamper the chances of them succeeding in their ambitions. They have been elected by the members and I want to provide clear blue water between the actions in the past and what they want to achieve in the future. That way they can rightly take full responsibility for their decisions.

I also must think of the team at Webtastic. Much of the work they have done in the past has now been taken over by Directors. This is leaving them unsettled and frustrated. They are a high-level team, becoming under utilised. Our focus on PCG for the last three years has hampered our ability to develop our other products and ideas and I now feel the time is right to focus on finding many willing customers for their talents.

Webtastic has therefore submitted notice on our contract with the PCG.

We have a long period of notice to allow careful and pragmatic analysis of how to manage the transition. The PCG have engaged a consultant to help understand the process involved and we look forward to working with them to see if the work we have been doing can be improved.

Although Webtastic is stepping away, I still believe in what PCG stands for; A Trade Association for the IT and engineering contractor community and I remain a member.

My future

I set out in 1999 to defeat an unfair tax measure. As far as I am concerned it is still unfinished business and I will be looking to see how I might help get closure.

My agency business has just merged and I am grateful to them for supporting me during the first year. If you want to get real jobs delivered to your inbox, not spam from the job sites I recommend you register.

PCG has cut ties with UKTECH. I think this is a good move. It allows us both to be independent. I look forward to building traffic back to the site, but in a more co-operative arrangement with other sites than was possible before, when we were considered the official news site for PCG.

I am helping organise a national SME conference next year. Working with a group of MPs to help them consult better, faster, cheaper. Helping Webtastic grow. Develop a neat bit of software called Novacaster.

Generally having fun. Life too short for alternatives:-)

If anyone else has some good ideas email me on andy@UKTECH

If not, I look forward to seeing you at our leaving do in London.

Carpenters Arms, Whitfield Street, London W1 on Thursday, September 19 from 6pm (opposite the Saatchi & Saatchi offices - nearest Tube Goodge Street or Warren Street).

If anyone has any questions they can always post them below and I will try my best to answer them.

For information on joining PCG