Morning guys
It’s difficult to do a clear response when there are so many different points coming up, so I’ve copied the bits I think are of interest and commented below them.
BASC get a high profile at such times because they are on speed dial for all media outlets and as soon as anything gun related crops up they get the call for a comment. Unfortunately 'comment' in the media doesn't necessarily sway Government thinking. My own view is that BASC's policy of appeasement is very poor representation and we need something far more robust. They act more like apologists for our sport, rather than defending it
For what it is worth, I really do wish BASC would take a real stand against the continuing barrage of miss-represented information and mud throwing the likes of the RSPCA / RSPB / Environment Agency plaster across the press.
Also why do they not start lobbying for LACS and the aforementioned to be held accountable for dead-end cases bought before the CPS to then be dragged out and extinguished by the legal system? The public pays for these ridiculous antic by all of the above, and yet the BASC seem to do very little.
Speaking personally, I agree that the real threat to country sports is coming from these groups, and SACS is working on
exactly these points. In my view, the animal welfare’ charities have become ‘animal rights’ charities, and we are working privately with a number of others to have them stopped in their tracks.
It is a hugely difficult battle because they are VERY good at what they do, extremely well-financed and they all work together behind the scenes.
In my experience, the country sports associations fail to work together effectively in the way that the animal rights groups do. This is certainly not due to lack of trying on my part.
If as is likely the scottish government through there advisers make it mandatory for any one wishing to shoot alone in Scotland MUST reach a level of competence.
When the WANE Act was a draft bill, the report on deer welfare on which the whole compulsory training concept is based was written by Alastair McGugan, who was at that time I believe part of the Deer Commission, now included within SNH. He was of course formerly with BASC in Scotland.
In the SACS response to that stage, we made it clear that in our view the information in his paper was completely misleading in almost every respect. Our response to that Draft Bill is on record for anyone who has the time or inclination to read it, and in my personal opinion he should have been reprimanded for presenting entirely misleading information to the Government. To me it looked like simple empire-building, but again that is only my personal opinion.
Who do you think stands to make the most cash from this decision. Also how can BASC stand alone for its members when it rely,s o the government body,s for its stalking schemes. Also while we are at how can we have a fair and independent decision on these very subjects when the head of BASC Scotland is also one of the heads of the Scottish governments ad visors.
I agree entirely. I do not suggest for one moment that Colin Sheddon does anything improper – but in my view it is not enough to be honest – if one is in a public position, one should be
seen to be honest, and I don’t think it is possible to wear so many different hats without having accusations made. That is entirely a matter for Colin’s own judgement.
David Peter and all you BASC members wake up do you think SACS did not want to be in on some of the major decisions on the future of scotland's deer management. Yes they did and applied to be on the net works and were declined because they were not part of the clan .
Absolutely correct
SACS are the biggest supporter of the initial lowland deer groups bar none.
I hope this is true – we have certainly done everything we can to assist them, including helping to finance the urban deer control guide.
What’s the lead action group? – Do you mean lead Ammunition Group?
Of course I did – I’m a plonker
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!
You say Treachery abounds – could you expand / explain please?
This one seems to have got folk a bit excited. I can’t imagine why, unless there is something I don’t know about?
Read the words carefully. I did NOT say the LAG is treacherous, although I have strong reservations about some of the things they appear to have done. I say ‘appear’, because it is a closed group, which makes its own rules and changes them when it chooses. I asked if SACS could be included, and John Swift wrote back politely to say no. He added that it’s not relevant to Scotland…….
There
is a huge amount of treachery going on in the lead ammunition DEBATE as a whole, though – the WWT and others have been caught red handed in their endless battle to stop sporting shooting, most recently with their ‘Mickey Mouse’ science – the so-called ‘study’ of shot game, and their appalling conclusions that inland wildfowlers in E & W are not complying with the law. Maybe they are, maybe they are not – but it can’t be proved by the pseudo-science they produced which led to the completely unjustified public health scare.
This ‘study’ seems to have been done in some sort of partnership with BASC, and I can’t begin to imagine why BASC did not blow it out of the water on behalf of its outraged members instead of signing it and letting it go forward to Europe.
However, that is not a matter for this thread, or even this forum.
Ian Clark a quick question what dose SACS do for deer stalking and deer stalkers .??????
This might sound trite, but it’s true - we do whatever they tell us is needed for them.
That includes help and support for local DMG as well as individual stalkers, legal advice, getting them pistols for humane despatch if needed, helping them with leases, lobbying the SG and SNH on their behalf – all sorts of things. We also have an extremely good network which can assist with DSC Level 2 – frequently at no or minimal cost.
I am pretty sure David posts in his own time.
Yep,, like any other forum member I post when I can and when I choose, many times at night, at weekends and bank holidays.
I’m not sure what this was about, but I understood, perhaps wrongly, that David was employed by BASC to post on forums like this so perhaps David could clear that one up?
The question of whether someone posts between nine and five from an office or at odd hours from home seems irrelevant – I’m sure someone as dedicated as David will be able to confirm that when you work in a country sports organisation, there is no such thing as ‘your own time’.
Could it be that Ian is obviously too busy away working for his membership to be in a position to answer your questions... I dare say when he does get a spare moment he will get back to you.... So for the moment lets give it a rest.....
Ian's made 7 posts since 2009! He must be very busy
You genuinely have NO idea how true this is!
Does Ian still work out of a shed in his garden?
Yep.
For anyone who might be a bit ‘hard of thinking’, the office is what we surveyors call a por – ta – cab - in. It’s actually three, all joined together, with all mod cons like illuminated light bulbs and see-through windows – they are used by thousands of businesses who find them cost-effective.
They are located on my land, which means they are rent and rates-free. The TOTAL accommodation cost to SACS has been around £5k, which over the seven years the office has been here works out at around £14 per week. Cool, eh? The only other cost to SACS is the electricity physically used, which works out at around £40 per week.
We'll all have to have a whip round and build him a multi million pound media centre
.
Thanks for the kind offer, which I accept J
Actually, if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t spend it on posh offices – I would have more por-ta-cab-ins and use the rest wisely in bribes, sorry, donations, to political parties so they would lay off the countryside and leave running it to those of us who know what we’re doing!
I can't see legal ownership information on Ian's web site (which is a legal requirement) so I can't even run a credit check to see what the size of the operation is.
Oh my! I had no idea this was a legal requirement – I will email our website provider and get that sorted out – thanks.
I don't mind BASC, they put on a good show and pretend well but my top tip for David would be to stop trying to knock Ian or SACS because it's not about a man or the organisations ideals.... it's about cheap liability insurance that is just a photocopy sent off to prove you've got it because that's what we've all got to do for leases our as part of what we do! The other stuff Ian does is a bonus for us all, you the man!
As a shooter and indeed as someone who makes their living from shooting I get very frustrated when people appear to ignore the importance of delivering on an effective political and media strategy and focus simply on cheap insurance.
If people were to be asked why they join a organisation ,90% will tell you for the insurance nothing more or less ,not a glossy magazine (that is full of adverts)no doubt to keep it afloat .
This is a very serious and genuine point, and it actually reflects badly on the
members, not the associations.
All of the associations do what they think best for their members – the things that NEED to be done in parliament and in all the other places behind the scenes. How many of you would join ANY association if we didn’t provide insurance? Very few.
The simple truth is that the insurance is a carrot to get you to join – so we can do the things that need to be done for you, most of which you never even hear about. Without the membership income, we couldn’t do that, and there would be no shooting or fishing for sport by now.
Most importantly, it’s entirely misleading to keep talking about cheap insurance. The insurance we provide for our members will cost pretty much the same as the BASC and CA insurance – these rates are worked out by actuaries based on risk/claims analysis and from memory it’s around £2 per person.
What you should be talking about is the membership cost. SACS ‘full’ membership costs £35, of which £2 pays for your insurance. The other £33 runs the association for its members.
BASC individual membership costs £66, so £64 of that goes to run BASC.
So if Ian (or anyone else from SACS) can answer these simple questions for me I'll commit to signing up to SACS straight away:
1. How many members does SACS actually have, to the nearest 100?
Can I ask (without any malice at all intended) how many direct employees and how many members SACS has?
Easy – I checked the database - 13570. Ask me again tomorrow – it will be more
2. What is the organisational structure of SACS - board, committee, regional officers, etc?
SACS is an unincorporated membership association – run by the members for the members.
We have an elected management committee (of up to sixteen people,) who are responsible for the overall direction and running of SACS.
They appoint a director (that would be me!) and we currently have two other paid staff and are advertising for an assistant director to take some of the huge workload off me.
Everything else is done by people who give their time voluntarily because they believe in what we do, although on occasions we employ temporary staff on a fixed-term contract to deal with a particular task.
3. Where can I find the SACS Annual Reports, including Financials?
Produced each year at the AGM – prepared by independent accountants and approved and adopted by the members. Pretty boring stuff…..
4. What has SACS done, what is it doing, or planning to do, for members South of the border?
As for the deerstalkers - whatever is needed, as and when it is needed. At the moment most of the work for members in E & W is legal advice, but that can change. With a WANE Bill in the offing, there will be a huge amount of work coming up, and SACS will do a full and thorough response.
5. When will SACS finish its website? (just joking on this one)
You said on your previous post that you had written your response to the Airgun licencing proposals and were going to post it up ‘The full response, in which I am not kind to him, should be on our website in a couple of days ‘ – the consultation finished a while ago and the airgun section on your web reads ‘This section is currently under development’ and no sign of the response?
HA! When we get time! Actually there is a problem with the site at the moment, which is why the airgun representations are not loaded yet – something awf’ly technical involving a change of server and a new system, which has me tearing my already scarce hair out. I’m told it should all be working again soon…..
And of course if any of you would like to produce information or articles for the website on things you are good at, feel free….
Our airgun response should be available on the SG website – we made it fully public.
Many thanks. Is there a list of the regional chairmen anywhere? I'd like to see if there's one for England at all?
Currently we have regional chairmen covering the whole of Scotland and Northern Ireland, each of whom has a local team who assist when needed.
We don’t have a formal regional structure in England or Wales – yet. I deal with that personally from here at the moment, although it will come if and when there is the need for it – there is nothing to stop us having regional groups wherever they are needed.
We do have the all-important legal experts there, of course, and many good members who are happy to help others – some of them use this forum.
That’s all for now folks – I need to go and do some real work
Best regards
Ian
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