Oh my giddy Aunt 'We're' off again!
Thank you Willie G for that initial link - very useful and your post on that thread was extremely helpful. Quite aside from working solidly toward answering the originating post it provided a great balance - seems to me the thread has thrown up much that is the best and worst in SD.
Luckily the thread has gone 'heated' so there will be few readers by now, so I feel ( its Andy - dont tell John I'm writing ) that I should - with due shame - confess I just can't seem to get very excited about 'Trophies' - sorry, sorry, I know -
It gets worse - I'm a supposed professional - cant find a suitable emoticon for Seppuku action.
Dont get me wrong, I have a good number of assorted heads dotted around walls and I can readily share joy with a happy client. Equally, the clients that feel their stalk was ruined because the possible Silver at 400 yds transpired to be a Bronze at 60 yds - though they still took the option to shoot it - leave that old hollow feeling. Its easy to lapse into elitism - anyone who has met me will appreciate I'm about as elite as a house brick - its pure and simple my feelings. Others have different ones and an equal entitlement to them.
So the caveat must continue to say this isnt an area I pay a great deal of attention to and any views/ comments made should be seen in that context. - ie ignored by everyone!
Reading this thread, one could be surprised that the BASC scheme is several years old, not a new thing. Although reference to the above-noted link will cover changes etc. My understanding is that there were several issues with the CIC scheme and, from what little reading I have done - and purely guessing here - several personalty clashes along the way amongst measurers and the CIC governors. Given the constant state of personalty conflict on here and across stalking - and lets face it every single other human endeavour - that isnt really an earth shattering revelation.
As I understand it, the BASC scheme has an avowed intent to capture various data that was otherwise being lost and achieve that by a difference in approach - whilst retaining a level of meaningful comparison between the systems. How's that going?
What's the point in any of it? From the above, I'm probably not the best to comment. But even so, I can appreciate there is a commercial aspect in terms of estate:client interaction and trophy fees. Loathe it or love it, it exists and until human nature changes radically, will continue. Within that, whilst it is not for me, if someone derives additional / enhanced pleasure from a gong of whatever hew, more power to their ribbon. Perhaps of higher moral tone and logic, a year on year sensibly consistent capture of data allows those who wish to do so an opportunity to measure the effectiveness of a management strategy. My gut feeling is the latter doesn't get overly used, I'd love to be wrong and at least the data will be there for the future. So far so good enough reasons.
If someone is new to this question, to what extent will they have been informed, educated and possibly enriched from reading this thread to date? Not a lot. Anyone on SD for 15 minutes will already be adequately acquainted with what a bunch of self serving, money grabbing scammers BASC are ( from a tongue in cheek perspective here guys ), possibly have got the T shirt, become bored and moved on to another hobby
. For pity sake can we club together and take over the Board of BASC - then either change it to the Utopian ideal or wind it up - if for no other purpose than making 60% of SD threads more interesting!
David of BASC - I do believe some of the comments were relatively valid. A question was posed, not necessarily for BASC to answer, but once a decision was made to do so, addressing the points with facts would have possibly changed the complexion of subsequent posts - maybe not, but maybe. I can appreciate the feelings that many comments engender as you read them. Some are deliberate to goad, some deliberate to express a genuine angst - whether accurate or not and 'other'. Occasionally there are positive ones. Nothing, but nothing you can say or do is really going to change the opinions of the few. The forum is their voice as much as any other member's. Play it straight, punch the wall rather than the key board and lets the readers make up their own minds.
Obviously the single most outrageous comments here must fall to the venerable BogTrotter. There is simply no way his threats to set up as a measurer can be taken lightly. His prowess with all things mechanical is leg-end- dry, the simple thought of him at large with a bucket of water, a spring balance and caliper is the stuff of nightmares....