Where did that week go?
I have read the thread through all the way, with much enjoyment - debate and discussion is always healthy, and it's genuinely good to see the views of individuals. It would be impossible to respond to every point in the thread, but several of them are worth a specific mention, starting with the original question - what does SACS do.
As it says in our mission statement, we represent country sports of all kinds, those who take part, and the environment on which they depend. To me as one of the founding members of SACS these are not just words - they say exactly what we wanted to achieve and they are as good a description of what we do now as they were when we were founded back in 1994.
Our original purpose was to provide a Scottish organisation, because it was clear that organisations run from leather armchairs down south had no idea what goes on up here - or ignore it. You can trust me when I say that has not changed much....
We were quickly victims of our own success, because as you all know we now have thousands of (happy) members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. For the record, I don’t care where a member lives – the service he or she receives will be the best we can provide.
The early post by patjack was spot-on - we are so busy DOING things we don't really have time to sit and boast about it - we took the decision a couple of years ago to save money by NOT producing a glossy magazine every quarter, and we now use newsletters which save around 50% of the cost of the magazines.
That money will of course be used entirely to help defend our members throughout the UK and the country sports they love.
Currently we are working on the aftermath of our Scottish WANE Act, because some of the new legislation will be coming up for the five year review soon.
We are running snaring courses all over the country so that our members will have their snaring certificates in time for the new law coming into effect on 1st April. We are taking part in the consultation on new firearms laws in Northern Ireland, and I was over there this week to shout at... sorry, to meet the Department of Justice and the head of Firearms Licensing in PSNI to put our usual common sense unbiased views to them and hopefully achieve a good result for our guys over there.
Those were private meetings, over coffee, and we achieved what we always try to achieve – a common sense outcome, without flag-waving, trumpets of publicity or anything else that doesn’t really matter.
Here, we are actively fighting the stupid airgun proposals at every level, working quietly in the background on tail docking (on facts, not emotion), trying to prevent blanket conifer planting on heather moorland, fighting the RSPB and Raptor Study loonies to make sure we can still use larsen and crow traps, and quietly sorting out the public general licenses for our members - that will impact throughout the whole of the UK.
There was a mention that SACS has limited resources - you might be interested to know that our party at the recent Scottish PAW conference included the three top Scottish experts in firearms and wildlife legislation.
We don’t employ them full time at a huge salary – if we need them, we bring them in – and often they provide their services free of charge.
In England & Wales, your WANE Act is coming up, and we did serious representations on the Law Society Consultation on that.
Didn't everyone? *looks innocent*
The progress of that will need to be monitored constantly, and we are currently heavily involved in discussions with SNH, DEFRA etc. on ALL of the public general licenses – a national review is due in a few weeks.
And of course you have the lead shot issue down there, where it looks as if the Lead Action Group are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Treachery abounds, my friends!
If we had more staff we could do more of course, and we are currently looking for a full time assistant director. When that post is filled and the new person up to speed, I will be able to spend some time having fun with the media, winding up the troops on web forums and the like.
I was interested in the points made in the thread about the media and how effective dealing with them is. My view on this is well known, and you might enjoy the following quote, which is from our recent submission on the airgun licensing fiasco.
“To say that the media has concerns is to credit the media with more social responsibility than it demonstrates. At best, media coverage of anything in connection with airguns is simply because it is newsworthy, preferably shocking, and even a cursory look at any incident as reported in any form of the popular media forms will show that the media report is highly selective and biased.
We submit that it is not appropriate for the Scottish Government to take into consideration any views which may appear to be those of the media – ‘the media’ is neither a reliable indicator of public opinion nor a reputable assessor of it – rather it seeks simply to popularise itself and to influence the views of the public in line with the views and policy of the owner of the medium in question.
We find it difficult to accept that the Scottish Government appears to be saying, not only that it believes what it reads or sees in the media, but that it is allowing ‘the media’ to influence its decisions – that would suggest that the media is taking an active part in the running of Scotland, and it would be a courageous (and probably short-lived) Government which would admit to that.
In our experience, the ‘general public’ comprises a large number of individuals who have little interest in matters which do not concern them directly, and that includes the matter of airgun ownership and use – unless the airgun in question is being misused – in other words, used unlawfully.
By definition, unlawful use can be prevented by police intervention, which of course is what should and does happen in such cases, and we believe that the current criminal justice system is perfectly adequate to deal with any such issues.
The comment about the sight of guns in residential areas no longer being acceptable is pejorative, misleading and unhelpful. Many thousands of law-abiding country sportsmen live in urban areas and transport their guns to and from their homes for various purposed without causing the least concern to anyone.”
I’m aware that in any newspaper which has an item on shooting, there will be a paragraph which begins ‘A spokesman for BASC said….’ Does that do us any good? Hard to say, but it must cost a fortune to do it.
I was amused at the comments about BASC ‘appeasement’ – I hear that often, although the term used is usually ‘rolling over’. Is it true? I couldn’t possibly comment.
Does SACS roll over? No.
Finally, the real threat to our country sports is still the animal rights charities – we are fighting them at every possible level and looking for ways to have them seen for what they really are – anti-shooting.
With the exception of firearms-related matters, almost all alleged wildlife crimes are based on evidence or ‘expertise’ provided by the RSPCA, SSPCA, RSPB etc.
If any of our members are affected by anything like this, we take the opposition on, and almost invariably thrash them – in open court if necessary. That would be thanks to our famous legal fees insurance, of course…….
Hope that clears up the mystery about what SACS does
Best regards to all
Ian Clark
I have read the thread through all the way, with much enjoyment - debate and discussion is always healthy, and it's genuinely good to see the views of individuals. It would be impossible to respond to every point in the thread, but several of them are worth a specific mention, starting with the original question - what does SACS do.
As it says in our mission statement, we represent country sports of all kinds, those who take part, and the environment on which they depend. To me as one of the founding members of SACS these are not just words - they say exactly what we wanted to achieve and they are as good a description of what we do now as they were when we were founded back in 1994.
Our original purpose was to provide a Scottish organisation, because it was clear that organisations run from leather armchairs down south had no idea what goes on up here - or ignore it. You can trust me when I say that has not changed much....
We were quickly victims of our own success, because as you all know we now have thousands of (happy) members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. For the record, I don’t care where a member lives – the service he or she receives will be the best we can provide.
The early post by patjack was spot-on - we are so busy DOING things we don't really have time to sit and boast about it - we took the decision a couple of years ago to save money by NOT producing a glossy magazine every quarter, and we now use newsletters which save around 50% of the cost of the magazines.
That money will of course be used entirely to help defend our members throughout the UK and the country sports they love.
Currently we are working on the aftermath of our Scottish WANE Act, because some of the new legislation will be coming up for the five year review soon.
We are running snaring courses all over the country so that our members will have their snaring certificates in time for the new law coming into effect on 1st April. We are taking part in the consultation on new firearms laws in Northern Ireland, and I was over there this week to shout at... sorry, to meet the Department of Justice and the head of Firearms Licensing in PSNI to put our usual common sense unbiased views to them and hopefully achieve a good result for our guys over there.
Those were private meetings, over coffee, and we achieved what we always try to achieve – a common sense outcome, without flag-waving, trumpets of publicity or anything else that doesn’t really matter.
Here, we are actively fighting the stupid airgun proposals at every level, working quietly in the background on tail docking (on facts, not emotion), trying to prevent blanket conifer planting on heather moorland, fighting the RSPB and Raptor Study loonies to make sure we can still use larsen and crow traps, and quietly sorting out the public general licenses for our members - that will impact throughout the whole of the UK.
There was a mention that SACS has limited resources - you might be interested to know that our party at the recent Scottish PAW conference included the three top Scottish experts in firearms and wildlife legislation.
We don’t employ them full time at a huge salary – if we need them, we bring them in – and often they provide their services free of charge.
In England & Wales, your WANE Act is coming up, and we did serious representations on the Law Society Consultation on that.
Didn't everyone? *looks innocent*
The progress of that will need to be monitored constantly, and we are currently heavily involved in discussions with SNH, DEFRA etc. on ALL of the public general licenses – a national review is due in a few weeks.
And of course you have the lead shot issue down there, where it looks as if the Lead Action Group are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Treachery abounds, my friends!
If we had more staff we could do more of course, and we are currently looking for a full time assistant director. When that post is filled and the new person up to speed, I will be able to spend some time having fun with the media, winding up the troops on web forums and the like.
I was interested in the points made in the thread about the media and how effective dealing with them is. My view on this is well known, and you might enjoy the following quote, which is from our recent submission on the airgun licensing fiasco.
“To say that the media has concerns is to credit the media with more social responsibility than it demonstrates. At best, media coverage of anything in connection with airguns is simply because it is newsworthy, preferably shocking, and even a cursory look at any incident as reported in any form of the popular media forms will show that the media report is highly selective and biased.
We submit that it is not appropriate for the Scottish Government to take into consideration any views which may appear to be those of the media – ‘the media’ is neither a reliable indicator of public opinion nor a reputable assessor of it – rather it seeks simply to popularise itself and to influence the views of the public in line with the views and policy of the owner of the medium in question.
We find it difficult to accept that the Scottish Government appears to be saying, not only that it believes what it reads or sees in the media, but that it is allowing ‘the media’ to influence its decisions – that would suggest that the media is taking an active part in the running of Scotland, and it would be a courageous (and probably short-lived) Government which would admit to that.
In our experience, the ‘general public’ comprises a large number of individuals who have little interest in matters which do not concern them directly, and that includes the matter of airgun ownership and use – unless the airgun in question is being misused – in other words, used unlawfully.
By definition, unlawful use can be prevented by police intervention, which of course is what should and does happen in such cases, and we believe that the current criminal justice system is perfectly adequate to deal with any such issues.
The comment about the sight of guns in residential areas no longer being acceptable is pejorative, misleading and unhelpful. Many thousands of law-abiding country sportsmen live in urban areas and transport their guns to and from their homes for various purposed without causing the least concern to anyone.”
I’m aware that in any newspaper which has an item on shooting, there will be a paragraph which begins ‘A spokesman for BASC said….’ Does that do us any good? Hard to say, but it must cost a fortune to do it.
I was amused at the comments about BASC ‘appeasement’ – I hear that often, although the term used is usually ‘rolling over’. Is it true? I couldn’t possibly comment.
Does SACS roll over? No.
Finally, the real threat to our country sports is still the animal rights charities – we are fighting them at every possible level and looking for ways to have them seen for what they really are – anti-shooting.
With the exception of firearms-related matters, almost all alleged wildlife crimes are based on evidence or ‘expertise’ provided by the RSPCA, SSPCA, RSPB etc.
If any of our members are affected by anything like this, we take the opposition on, and almost invariably thrash them – in open court if necessary. That would be thanks to our famous legal fees insurance, of course…….
Hope that clears up the mystery about what SACS does
Best regards to all
Ian Clark
