A balanced view?

Brains

Well-known member
Wouldnt say balanced, but light on facts and heavy spin. But then only being "reflections" that will be ok. Unlike most opinions posted on this forum, its appearance as an editorial tries to give it more worth than it is due. Wonder who the admin / editor is? Oh well oll grist to the mill and trying to accentuate regional divides and failling to mention the clarification will only ever apply to open access land...
 

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
Balanced or biased?  .. and brought to you by Graham, Bottlebank and Peter Burgess!

Yikes - what a team.  Good luck.
 

droid

Active member
Badlad said:
Balanced or biased?  .. and brought to you by Graham, Bottlebank and Peter Burgess!

Yikes - what a team.  Good luck.

Very constructive, Mr Allen.... :LOL:
 

Brains

Well-known member
As I feared this shallow opinion is being touted around FB as if it had real worth, rather than just a biased fact free attempt to derail the mandate given to the BCA
 

Brains

Well-known member
The BCA has a mandate to campaign for clarification of CRoW re caving. A minority of people vociferously wish to prevent this and maintain the vested status quo by confusing the issue and muddying the waters, implying that this will relate to all caves not just those on access land. While it is true empty vessels make the most noise, those that shout loudest get heard - a woeful situation where truth and the silent majority lose out
 

Brains

Well-known member
To clarify the law of the land? I believe so as if proven then the rights of the landowner on access land to control access are zero, but are unaltered on non access land. Ambivalent wording - yes, and it also needs clarification to prevent confusion. Respect is just common sense - give and you receive.
 

droid

Active member
Is it not better to respect the written constitution of an organisation, a constitution which hasn't been challenged yet?

Or is it a case of just ignoring those parts of the constitution that are inconvenient?

Or, indeed, is the statement of the BCA constitution in Darkness Below 'fact-free'......
 

Brains

Well-known member
My opinion is there is wriggle room in the constitution as it cannot contravene the law of the land, and I believe it needs revising
It is not being ignored but is in a state of flux
The opinions stated in the editorial or other sources are just opinions, the problem being they are wrapped as facts and given undue weight by the phrasing, or spin, that goes with them

I wonder why you seek to prevent clarification of the law - which according to highest quality opinion we currently have incudes caving, and maintain restrictions on access land where you should have the legally recognised right to cave beyond daylight, as well as traipsing about on the surface or dangling about on cliffs. The BCA have a mandate to do so, hwere is yours to gainsay this?
 

Wayland Smith

Active member
As stated there is a dilemma.

The ballot supported the proposal to "campaign" for free access.
Should BCA, on your behalf, campaign for The Countryside and Rights of Way Act to apply to going underground? 

But the existing, and binding, constitution gives different guidance.
4.6. That the owners and tenants of property containing caves have the right to grant or withhold access.

A simple question
Has anyone / any club tabled a motion to amend rule 4.6 at the forthcoming AGM?
If not then discussion here is meaningless. (IMHO)
 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
Quite a few things in Section 4 seems quite weird... perhaps the whole section could be revised at some point. Some of it seems like statements of fact about how things are currently done, rather than guiding principles that can be used for guidance when choices are being considered...

>>  4. GUIDING PRINCIPLES:

>>  4.1. The guiding principles are:

;) 4.1 seems rather extraneous!

>>  4.2. That caving is organised within a diversity of clubs or bodies, either based in a specific region or with membership drawn from particular localities and is also undertaken by unaffiliated individuals and other bodies with independent interests.

;) More of a statement of fact than a guiding principle? How does this provide guidance in a decision? Does it imply that caving _should_ be organized in a diversity of clubs or bodies; to what end? 'Independent' interests; independent of what?

>>  4.3. That regional interests are focused in a diversity of regional bodies made up of member clubs and individual cavers.

:) This makes a little more sense and is presumably arguing that, in general, local decisions should be made by appropriate regional bodies (i.e. devolution).

>>  4.4. That interest in specific facets of caving is concentrated in a number of national bodies.

;) Another statement of fact, but without saying what facets are concentrated in what bodies then I'm not sure what the guiding principle is here?

>>  4.5. That the nature of exploration and conservation of caves, and thus access to them, is based in science and technology, inextricably linked to the sporting aspects of the pursuit.

:) I read this as simply saying that cave science is important, and gives a mandate for the BCA to emphasize them even where 'sport' caving is the focus (e.g. money from sport caving could be used for science or something).

>>  4.6. That the owners and tenants of property containing caves have the right to grant or withhold access. Where caving bodies have control of access delegated to them by the owners, such access should be obtained and granted as freely as possible for all responsible cavers, within the terms of those agreements. When obliged to make new agreements, the appropriate body should endeavour to ensure that this freedom is maintained or improved.

;) The controversial one! Is the first sentence a 'guiding principle' or merely a statement of fact through which the remainder should be considered? Is it to be read as 'owners _should_ have the right to grant or withhold access'? Given the next sentences argue that access should be 'obtained and granted as freely as possible' that would seem odd... The BCA constitution should surely argue for the rights of cavers first. Even if you don't agree with (for example) the CROW stuff then this doesn't mean that landowner's rights should be enshrined into the constitution to (potentially) a higher degree than they are entitled in law. A statement like 'Cavers should abide by access restrictions where those have been agreed for the benefit of cavers' is quite different to how it currently stands.

If you read the first sentence as a simple statement of fact then I don't see why the BCA should feel bound to preserve that statement of fact.

>>  4.7. That the Association will make its services available to all sections of the sporting community. There will be no discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, creed, colour, occupation, religion or political opinion.

:) Now this sounds much more like a guiding principle to me. The second part should hopefully come with saying, but the first part also seems important to me.

>>  4.8. That caving is an activity best pursued in a club environment and that the Association recommends individuals be members of a club.

:) This is, I guess, a guiding principle although I'm not sure whether it really needs to be in the constitution (what harm do people who don't want to be in a club do?).
 

TomTom

New member
Seems odd to suggest that a constitution is more important than the law of the land. If the BCA constitution said that speed limits didn't apply to cavers then I don't think Mr police  constable speed gun would let me off if he caught me at 120 on the m6...

 

royfellows

Well-known member
Yes, Mr Tom Tom, and it goes a bit further than that. You cannot contract out of law even by agreement between the affected parties. For example you cannot sell your car to someone if it is in an an unroadworthy condition even if the purchaser agrees to take it like that. You would still be committing a criminal offence.

The constitution of an unincorporated body, (one that is not a limited company) is in effect a contract whereby anyone applying for membership agrees to abide by the constitution, so this forms a contract between individual members and is what binds the organisation together.

As an aside, its not difficult to see the attraction of a limited company which in effect has a life of its own.
 

droid

Active member
Brains said:
I wonder why you seek to prevent clarification of the law

I don't 'seek to prevent' anything. I just think that the campaign might carry more weight if it didn't contravene the BCAs own constitution. Otherwise the whole thing seems rather thrown together.

 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
droid said:
I don't 'seek to prevent' anything. I just think that the campaign might carry more weight if it didn't contravene the BCAs own constitution. Otherwise the whole thing seems rather thrown together.

Does it? The constitution contains a statement, under 'guiding principles', that landowners have the right to grant or restrict access. It doesn't say (to my reading) that they _should_ restrict access; I read that as a simple statement of current fact (at least if you believe NE/NRW). I would make the argument that it simply provides context for the remainder of 4.6; perhaps specifically to remind access bodies that they only control access at the behest of the landowner. To me the 'guiding principle' here is given by the remainder of Section 4.6 which argues that access bodies should increase, not decrease, access.

If the statement was: 'That the owners and tenants of property containing caves should have the right to grant or withhold access', 'It is in cavers' interests for landowners to be in control access to their caves', or 'free access to caves is to be avoided' or anything unambiguous then I would agree, but I don't think one (not terrible explicit) statement about the current status quo can be that binding.

If the end result is that Defra etc. agree that caving is covered under CROW but the BCA hold that their members have agreed not to use this right and must continue to ask for permission then it would seem counter-productive to remain a member...
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
It would be very heartening and positive if BCA urged access control bodies to be more inclusive, rather than exclusive, when their own training scheme award-holders are seeking to arrange educational underground visits, rather than the present embarrassment of having people fulfill the tenets of the schemes and, having qualified, then discover they are disallowed access to sites. Seems counterintuitive, spiteful and illogical, arguably.  Urging? Telling, more like. About time.
 

droid

Active member
Andrew:
It is to avoid confusion such as yours that the Constitution should have been changed before the campaign commenced.
 
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