Austrian Alpine Club (UK) Ltd

The Management's refusal to have the Club's Accounts audited

  1. The Club is very definitely a UK Private Limited Company.
  2. Its annual accounts are never audited,
  3. The relevant Government website listing audit exemptions for Private Limited Companies, (https://www.gov.uk/audit-exemptions-for-private-limited-companies), states that:“Your company must have an audit if at any time in the financial year it’s been one of the following”, (which list includes) “carrying out insurance market activity.”
  4. The only reasons for joining all other UK mountaineering clubs are to meet up with other members at club meets/events and/or to access the club's own UK mountain huts.
  5. The AAC(UK) is uniquely different. The Club's 2023 Annual Report confirmed that: “In 2019, the last full year before Covid, the membership of the AAC(UK) totalled 16,000+”, which proves beyond any doubt that the overwhelming majority of our members did not join to take any part in club activities, since fewer than two dozen ever support any activity, but only because our membership package includes worldwide mountain rescue, medical and repatriation insurance without age limit, so we are definitely marketing insurance to them, since if we were not doing so, they would have no incentive to join. This marketing of insurance provides nearly all of our Club's income, so we cannot possibly pretend that we are not marketing insurance.
  6. Supporting evidence was provided in the Club’s 2011 Membership Survey, as shown below:

Our members' views of the relative importance to them of the several key benefits of membership.

In each case Row 1 = Irrelevant and Row 5 = Important

Survey

Furthermore, throughout my 20 years’ service in the RAF, we were required by HMG to join the AAC(UK) before mountaineering abroad, solely to obtain the AAC’s worldwide mountain rescue, medical and repatriation insurance.


The two inevitable conclusions:
Firstly, we are definitely marketing insurance and
Secondly, we are breaking the law by not having our annual accounts audited


Reflections on the above findings

We employ a firm of auditors who provide us with a report we publish each year which positively states that they have NOT been requested to audit our accounts. Since the only reason to hire auditors is to audit accounts, it must surely be the case that they very positively HAVE been directed NOT to audit them. Why? The cost of doing so is very easily affordable. This leads to two conclusions:

  1. The most obvious reason for a perceived need to publish an auditor’s report is to 'window-dress' our accounts to make them look respectable in the eyes of our members, even though their report admits that they have not carried out an audit.
  2. The most obvious reason to prevent our accounts being audited is to hide something detrimental that our Directors do not want our members to know. Since the management's refusal to have our accounts audited has been going on for many years, despite being regularly challenged, this must surely be the case. But why? To prove that you have read this webpage, please be able to quote the name 'Tosca'.

I drew this audit evasion to the attention of (our then) Chairman Mike Garrett in 2017, but his response was a loss of temper and the start of his long drive to force me out of the Club for airing an issue he desperately needed to remain hidden. He failed to drive me out, so he persuaded his loyal disciples on the Board to permanently terminate my membership.

This paragraph carefully makes no accusations, but just records facts. The principle task of our Directors is to carry out our Club's ADMINISTRATION. In some of our Annual Accounts in recent years the cost of our Club's ADMINISTRATION has almost reached half a million pounds. All expenditure eventually ends up in the pockets of someone or other. In whose pockets does our cost of ADMINISTRATION end up? We are entitled to receive a detailed (and audited) explanation or some of us might justifiably conclude that our Directors are paying themselves a generous salary behind our backs.

Adding further fuel to the fire, the principal provision the Club makes to its members is of events in the mountains, but none of them are the result of committee action, they are all set up and managed voluntarily by ordinary members. The secondary provision the Club makes to its members is the provision of training courses in the Austrian Alps, but all our Club does is to promote courses provided by the Österreichischer Alpenverein. What does the Board do that our members consider to be essential?

A couple of decades ago, our published accounts were very much fuller than they have been in recent years. It costs nothing to web-publish full accounts. Why are they now so heavily abbreviated that it is well-nigh impossible to know what has been going on? The most obvious answer is that there is a perceived need to hide the full picture from our members (who own our Club). Coming on top of our deliberate unlawful audit evasion, this is obviously the best bet.



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