BBC 5 Live interview on the BCA's CROW campaign
- Thread starter David Rose
- Start date
jasonbirder
Member
Lets be honest - if you're reduced to quoting paragraph and clause in some small-print document that 99% of BCA members never read...you've lost the argument haven't you?
Peter Burgess
New member
I am going to propose that the BCA renounces its whole constitution. It clearly doesn't need one.
jasonbirder
Member
The BCA is a members club for cavers...why exactly DOES it have a massive and detailed constitution that nobody in their right mind (other than those with a peculiar interest in bureaucracy) has ever read and digested?
I'm members of lots of other clubs...and most of them seem to get by on something fairly simple...and trust and goodwill...
Will the earth stop spinning on its axis - if the BCA starts to represent the already agreed wishes of the membership to support CRoW access for Caving? Are there some "Club Constitution" Police waiting on some Tracy Island style base to swing into action if a minor bureaucratic infraction is made? Will BCA members spontaneously combust?
Or will caving members simply think - good on 'em for actually DOING something rather than sitting around supping tea and drinking biscuits and boring everyone to death...
I'm members of lots of other clubs...and most of them seem to get by on something fairly simple...and trust and goodwill...
Will the earth stop spinning on its axis - if the BCA starts to represent the already agreed wishes of the membership to support CRoW access for Caving? Are there some "Club Constitution" Police waiting on some Tracy Island style base to swing into action if a minor bureaucratic infraction is made? Will BCA members spontaneously combust?
Or will caving members simply think - good on 'em for actually DOING something rather than sitting around supping tea and drinking biscuits and boring everyone to death...
Peter Burgess
New member
Yes let's get rid of the constitution. Then it will be free to do whatever it wants to do, no need to consult its members, no need to even get agreement between the officers. No need to have officers, no need to keep accounts. Bliss!
cap n chris
Well-known member
It would cease to exist as an organisation. Because it would no longer be organised. QED.
jasonbirder
Member
Isn't that what you're hoping for? Isn't the whole point...that you'll be able to leverage from some obscure motion passed at a remote meeting attended by a few dozen BCA members that haven't decided to go caving or climbing or mountaineering on one of the first weekends of spring a figleaf that you can utilise to obstruct the express wishes of the BCA as polled and agreed in a referendum of ALL BCA members?
David Rose
Active member
There is a real risk that manipulating the AGM so that it quashes a campaign supported by a referendum of members would destroy the BCA. In the eyes of many cavers, myself included, it would erode its legitimacy to the point where it would seem there was no point in having an organisation that could behave in such a manner.
I am concerned that the meeting will be held in the Hunters on Mendip, the stronghold of anti-CROW cavers, and will effectively be "packed" to produce an anti-CROW majority. This is the faction that emailed all BCA members before the referendum urging them to vote against the campaign. It is quite capable of mounting a determined drive to get out its local vote and so override the wishes of most cavers nationally - wishes that have already been clearly expressed. My hunch is that such an effort is already underway.
Be careful what you wish for, Peter Burgess and cohorts. As Joni Mitchell once put it, "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone."
I am concerned that the meeting will be held in the Hunters on Mendip, the stronghold of anti-CROW cavers, and will effectively be "packed" to produce an anti-CROW majority. This is the faction that emailed all BCA members before the referendum urging them to vote against the campaign. It is quite capable of mounting a determined drive to get out its local vote and so override the wishes of most cavers nationally - wishes that have already been clearly expressed. My hunch is that such an effort is already underway.
Be careful what you wish for, Peter Burgess and cohorts. As Joni Mitchell once put it, "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone."
Kenilworth
New member
This topic is already such a mess that I don't guess a few ramblings from a "neutral" party can do any harm...
Rather than talk about the application of the CROW act, I'd like to share some general observations that I think apply to both UK and US cavers. These primarily have to do with ideas of governance. That we ever came to need someone other than ourselves to govern our caving activities is, like it or not, a product of caver overpopulation. Informal groups of dedicated cavers are more than capable of organizing, accomplishing, and documenting. Even solitary individuals can and have done much productive and fulfilling caving without any help from organizations. Such "independent" groups and individuals have historically been required to supply their own motivation to cave. This led to diverse and individualized and impressive accomplishments that had only relatively little to do with boasting in the mainstream.
Now, caving is viewed as a "sport" and is often undertaken in the most superficial ways imaginable by people without anything approaching an honorable level of dedication and respect and understanding and affection. A large population of vaguely motivated individuals with a common interest; the formula for an National Organization. One of the jobs of such an organization is to grow itself, and so the BCA and NSS both help create problems of conservation and claim to prioritize their solutions.
It is interesting to see prophecies of organizational collapse in this thread. Mr. Rose, for example, apparently refers to the destruction of the BCA as a worst case scenario. I believe that the opposite is true. I would that both the BCA and the NSS be dismantled. This wish is not the result of a wish to have things for myself, or to exclude anyone. It is a wish for a cleaner, saner, more noble form of caving, open to anyone willing to work for it. The removal of broad enfranchisement and mainstream exposure could do much to bring into balance the critical aesthetic and biological caver/cave ratios. Besides, look at ourselves! The arguments in this forum and in other forums and in magazines and meetings are an embarrassment to our dignity and are the direct result in focusing on a particular brand of governance instead of the only real way to accomplish anything worthwhile. That is: to be good to one another.
No secular law can give anyone freedoms that cannot be had more completely and happily by compliance with moral law. So all of the work being done on the CROW debate is done in an attempt to win an argument that is not worth winning, and that does not need to be won, at least by anyone who cares about the health of caves and of their fellow more than the health of their ego. Forget that nonsense, and be good to people. Let the BCA burn, and be good to one another.
I do not think that many of the individuals involved in campaigning for or against this issue are blatantly harmful, but there are obviously lots of egos involved. I believe that if everyone involved really wanted to learn and do what was best, not for "caving" as a sport, or for their reputation or legacy, or for their Organization, but for caves and for people, that the entire issue would vanish, along with lots of other issues. I also believe that this has zero of happening.
Let me wrap up by saying that I am not speaking against organization of work and activity. Most significant jobs of work can only be done collaboratively, and there is value in knowing what has been done before you or by geographically removed contemporaries. I believe though, that any organization that outgrows its bounds risks doing damage and being poisoned by struggles for influence and control. The proper bounds of a caving organization would necessarily be geographical, but to define and adhere to them would require much thought and significant restraint. Nothing of much use can be done by the BCA or the NSS that cannot be done by smaller, more intimate, attuned, and localized groups.
Battle on!
Rather than talk about the application of the CROW act, I'd like to share some general observations that I think apply to both UK and US cavers. These primarily have to do with ideas of governance. That we ever came to need someone other than ourselves to govern our caving activities is, like it or not, a product of caver overpopulation. Informal groups of dedicated cavers are more than capable of organizing, accomplishing, and documenting. Even solitary individuals can and have done much productive and fulfilling caving without any help from organizations. Such "independent" groups and individuals have historically been required to supply their own motivation to cave. This led to diverse and individualized and impressive accomplishments that had only relatively little to do with boasting in the mainstream.
Now, caving is viewed as a "sport" and is often undertaken in the most superficial ways imaginable by people without anything approaching an honorable level of dedication and respect and understanding and affection. A large population of vaguely motivated individuals with a common interest; the formula for an National Organization. One of the jobs of such an organization is to grow itself, and so the BCA and NSS both help create problems of conservation and claim to prioritize their solutions.
It is interesting to see prophecies of organizational collapse in this thread. Mr. Rose, for example, apparently refers to the destruction of the BCA as a worst case scenario. I believe that the opposite is true. I would that both the BCA and the NSS be dismantled. This wish is not the result of a wish to have things for myself, or to exclude anyone. It is a wish for a cleaner, saner, more noble form of caving, open to anyone willing to work for it. The removal of broad enfranchisement and mainstream exposure could do much to bring into balance the critical aesthetic and biological caver/cave ratios. Besides, look at ourselves! The arguments in this forum and in other forums and in magazines and meetings are an embarrassment to our dignity and are the direct result in focusing on a particular brand of governance instead of the only real way to accomplish anything worthwhile. That is: to be good to one another.
No secular law can give anyone freedoms that cannot be had more completely and happily by compliance with moral law. So all of the work being done on the CROW debate is done in an attempt to win an argument that is not worth winning, and that does not need to be won, at least by anyone who cares about the health of caves and of their fellow more than the health of their ego. Forget that nonsense, and be good to people. Let the BCA burn, and be good to one another.
I do not think that many of the individuals involved in campaigning for or against this issue are blatantly harmful, but there are obviously lots of egos involved. I believe that if everyone involved really wanted to learn and do what was best, not for "caving" as a sport, or for their reputation or legacy, or for their Organization, but for caves and for people, that the entire issue would vanish, along with lots of other issues. I also believe that this has zero of happening.
Let me wrap up by saying that I am not speaking against organization of work and activity. Most significant jobs of work can only be done collaboratively, and there is value in knowing what has been done before you or by geographically removed contemporaries. I believe though, that any organization that outgrows its bounds risks doing damage and being poisoned by struggles for influence and control. The proper bounds of a caving organization would necessarily be geographical, but to define and adhere to them would require much thought and significant restraint. Nothing of much use can be done by the BCA or the NSS that cannot be done by smaller, more intimate, attuned, and localized groups.
Battle on!
droid
Active member
Some correspondants on here state that the 'Constitution problem' is a non-issue.
David Rose presents an apocalyptic vision of the BCA 'being destroyed'
Just the sort of hysteria that's needed. The 'problem' will no doubt be sorted. The campaign will continue. World Order will be restored.
David Rose presents an apocalyptic vision of the BCA 'being destroyed'
Just the sort of hysteria that's needed. The 'problem' will no doubt be sorted. The campaign will continue. World Order will be restored.
NewStuff
New member
He's right though.
If the "anti" crowd manage to stop or deflect the current course of action, then an awful lot of people are going to lose faith in the BCA. Why would you bother with them when a minority can get their own way, which is contrary to what was voted for? What's the point in having a club? Might as well just get on with going underground and dispense with all the formalities.
I *Hope* it won't happen, but I think it's a distinct possibility. I've already openly said that if it happens, our club will be getting dissolved, and we'll just go back to doing things the old way. None of us think it's worth bothering with a body that can't do what it's members have voted for.
If the "anti" crowd manage to stop or deflect the current course of action, then an awful lot of people are going to lose faith in the BCA. Why would you bother with them when a minority can get their own way, which is contrary to what was voted for? What's the point in having a club? Might as well just get on with going underground and dispense with all the formalities.
I *Hope* it won't happen, but I think it's a distinct possibility. I've already openly said that if it happens, our club will be getting dissolved, and we'll just go back to doing things the old way. None of us think it's worth bothering with a body that can't do what it's members have voted for.
droid
Active member
Which is the equivalent of saying that those on here that dismiss the problem are wrong. Funny that none of the pro-CRoWs stepped up to tell them that.
It's hysteria. Another stick to beat the CRoW-cautious with.
Although I'm rather surprised that none of the pro-CRoWs bothered to tell BCA that this might be a problem before the Referendum was formulated. Bit slack, that....
It's hysteria. Another stick to beat the CRoW-cautious with.
Although I'm rather surprised that none of the pro-CRoWs bothered to tell BCA that this might be a problem before the Referendum was formulated. Bit slack, that....
Simon Wilson
New member
Peter Burgess said:
crickleymal
New member
badger said:
Like
Duncan Price
Active member
David Rose said:
I've been wondering whether the damage done to a cave in the vicinity of the AGM will be used as leverage to sway the debate against open access. Which then leads to the question whether this damage was done deliberately by cavers to achieve such an outcome. Surely not?
jasonbirder
Member
The BCA members were all asked a VERY simple question...in a referendum...their response was OVERWHELMING in favour of moving to have caving recognised under CRoW
Can anyone give a sensible or moral explanation as to why a year down the line there is still opposition to that happening...
And NO referring to clause 17 paragraph 12 of subsection xvi as laid down by the subcommittee on October 14th 1871 isn't a justification...
It's a figleaf by those that are obsessed with trivia and administration for comprehensively shafting the members who expressed their wishes in good faith...naively thinking that they may be listened to...
Can anyone give a sensible or moral explanation as to why a year down the line there is still opposition to that happening...
And NO referring to clause 17 paragraph 12 of subsection xvi as laid down by the subcommittee on October 14th 1871 isn't a justification...
It's a figleaf by those that are obsessed with trivia and administration for comprehensively shafting the members who expressed their wishes in good faith...naively thinking that they may be listened to...
