Since the topic has been raised I think it is worth saying what I see as the purpose of the BCA Forum. For those who haven't realised it, I'm the person who setup and administers the BCA Forum. LesW helps out with the admin and moderation.

The BCA Forum is primarily there for BCA and the institutions of British Caving (Regional Councils, Hidden Earth etc). It is for the use of the Officers and those who interact with the institutions. If other members of the caving community want to use it, that fine, but as far as I am concerned that is not its raison d'etre. For example I wont be creating forums for individual clubs whilst UKCaving is willing to host them. As Graham says UKCaving Forum is a great place to chat about 'oles, BCA Forum is about running the organisations and as such I think there is space for both to happily co-exist.

For various reason BCA isn't as good as it should be at communicating with its membership nor between its Officers. I believe a Forum is a great new way of communicating that can make real and practical difference to BCA relationship with its membership and to its smooth running behind the scenes (Call me idealistic :halo. Thus I got of my arse and set it up. I'm just waiting for BCA's Officers to seize the opportunity they've been given ... 

Graham said:

I personally believe that there are two reasons why this place does better than the BCA site (which is visited - sometimes by porn spammers   ). The first is that it is older and thus better established, the second is that the BCA site is seen as more "formal" and related to the organisations rather than just being a place to chat about 'oles.

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I agree entirely.
Re the spam, that's only because I allow posting without registering first which I will change once I get bored of the extra work it creates. Actually come to think of it, that's now.

Bubba said:

The BCA forum was set up after this one, and I don't think the UK caving community is big enough to support a lot of forums. As PB says above, another forum is only going to succeed if it offers something different. Ukbouldering.com has still been pretty successful, despite the fact that ukclimbing.com already existed with a huge membership. Why? Because it fills a niche market, and it's properly moderated.

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All true. I think the BCA Forum and UKCaving Forum do occupy different niches.

For completeness, the cost of the BCA Forum is paid for by BCA, although it pretty much gets it for free anyway, since it has to pay for the domain, hosting and database in order to run the BCA Website. My time is voluntary; I get paid nothing except complements - occasionally.

Good Stuff.

I believe a Forum is a great new way of communicating that can make real and practical difference to BCA relationship with its membership and to its smooth running behind the scenes

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But only if the word gets around that this is the raison d'etre of the BCA forum.

The danger is something I have seen at club level. When the majority of members have access to email, a proportion of them use it regularly and are pretty much up to speed with whatever they need to know, and the rest are not using email habitually and often miss stuff. The minority of members who do not use email at all, rely entirely on verbal comms or stuff sent out in the post. When those who run the club use email almost exclusively, the minority are often ignored and drop by the wayside.

A BCA forum is a great idea, as long as it is not a replacement for more traditional forms of communication, at least not for some time into the future.

Peter Burgess said:

Good Stuff.

I believe a Forum is a great new way of communicating that can make real and practical difference to BCA relationship with its membership and to its smooth running behind the scenes

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But only if the word gets around that this is the raison d'etre of the BCA forum.

The danger is something I have seen at club level. When the majority of members have access to email, a proportion of them use it regularly and are pretty much up to speed with whatever they need to know, and the rest are not using email habitually and often miss stuff. The minority of members who do not use email at all, rely entirely on verbal comms or stuff sent out in the post. When those who run the club use email almost exclusively, the minority are often ignored and drop by the wayside.

A BCA forum is a great idea, as long as it is not a replacement for more traditional forms of communication, at least not for some time into the future.

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So, should the BCA revert to sending personalised messages carried by hand to every member? No, of course not, it cannot afford to. Speaking as a club treasurer, the vast majority of my members have access to email. All the active ones do. If any of them do not open their email that is no more the committee's fault than if they do not open their snail mail.

We use an email mailing list and every single member has been canvassed as to whether they wish to be on it or not. Those who declined are usually retired from active caving (and some of those still like to hear what's going on, so subscribe) or living abroad (where notification of tonite's digging trip is just frustrating).

No, Cookie is right, BCA should use every possible means of communicating with its members & those which have a very low marginal costing and allow feedback should be encouraged.

what BCA forum would this be then?

Cave_Troll said:

what BCA forum would this be then?

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Click here to find out

There's a web site as well...

No, honestly there is.

http://british-caving.org.uk

Ive said it before - and I'll say it again - I dont think the british caving scene is large enough to support, or indeed needs more than one forum.

I know there are room for smaller, more specialist forums - and I see the BCA forum as one of these. And Im not against the idea persey.

The problem with there being, is that if there is more that one place - then the caving community gets devided and fractured. That way - news and info does not get spread very well.
The ethos behind UKcaving was that it would be the one place all UK cavers could come to swap information, news ideas *and* yes - "chat about oles".

It would be no good if BCA posted up some access info just on their site. Say "caving at Alum pot banned". Sure, news would get around - but if there is *ONE* place everbody comes - then news gets round much quicker.

Hey ho - I think UKc is suitably established. I keep thinking that this topic would make a good article in Descent - I just havent got round to writing one yet (too busy posting on here).

SamT said:

The problem with there being, is that if there is more that one place - then the caving community gets devided and fractured. That way - news and info does not get spread very well.
The ethos behind UKcaving was that it would be the one place all UK cavers could come to swap information, news ideas *and* yes - "chat about oles".

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Sounds to me a bit like a "one stop shop"... now that's a marvellous idea 

cap 'n chris said:

Sounds to me a bit like a "one stop shop"... now that's a marvellous idea 

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You'll be relegated to a small corner of the BCA Forum with talk like that. 

I like the idea of BCA being an open organisation with discussion between it's committee members being open to perusal by anyone who has interest in doing so.

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Open Government comes to British Caving. Think of the fun we'd all have if we could do this with National Governments!

SamT said:

Ive said it before - and I'll say it again - I dont think the british caving scene is large enough to support, or indeed needs more than one forum.

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But there are already a couple of dozen on this one site!  So your argument breaks down: clearly the UK caving scene is big enough to support more than one forum.   

Perhaps the point is not that there should be one forum, its that there could usefully be just one gateway to the information.  In fact, with Google, that's probably the case now anyway: http://www.google.com/search?q=uk+caving

I think one should be cautious about over-stating the case for any single resource. Im not sure that it is necessarily true, as you said, that "if there is more than one place then the caving community gets divided and fractured". I think the community can (and has, of course) make its own decisions. But it could equally well make new decisions when new resources become available   (You shouldnt read anything into that, by the way).

DavidGibson said:

SamT said:

Ive said it before - and I'll say it again - I dont think the british caving scene is large enough to support, or indeed needs more than one forum.

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But there are already a couple of dozen on this one site!  So your argument breaks down: clearly the UK caving scene is big enough to support more than one forum.   

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Sorry Dave but this argument is nonsense.  Yes, there are subforums on this site, but when you click on 'show unread posts' you get everything that's new in every one - it's a genuine one stop shop.  It is inevitable that one forum will prevail as the most popular and clearly it is this one.  One of the big problems with NCA/BCA has always been communication - you have a real chance to do something about that if you choose to transfer the BCA forum here.  This of course means radical thinking, people shifting entrenched positions, and the subjugation of a few egos - in fact all the usual crap that prevents British caving from getting its act together.  Be radical.  Eat a bit of humble pie.  Shift it here.  Surely this makes sense!!!

Andy Sparrow said:

Sorry Dave but this argument is nonsense.  Yes, there are subforums on this site, but when you click on 'show unread posts' you get everything that's new in every one - it's a genuine one stop shop.  It is inevitable that one forum will prevail as the most popular and clearly it is this one.  One of the big problems with NCA/BCA has always been communication - you have a real chance to do something about that if you choose to transfer the BCA forum here.  This of course means radical thinking, people shifting entrenched positions, and the subjugation of a few egos - in fact all the usual crap that prevents British caving from getting its act together.  Be radical.  Eat a bit of humble pie.  Shift it here.  Surely this makes sense!!!

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No, Andy, you're the one who's lost the plot. Talk of egos and humble pie are trotting out the same old crap about BCA and you should know better.

Like it or not, BCA _is_ the National Governing Body for the sport. Yes, it should do better at communicating with the caving public, and the use of a forum such as this can certainly play a part in that. However, unless the moderators of this forum are going to cede ultimate editorial control to BCA, BCA must retain its own forum over which it has total control and which it can use for its official business.

There is room for two forums. They serve different purposes. It is important that BCA has a forum it can use for its own business, but it is equally important there is an unofficial site which BCA does not control. Given the nature of caving, it's no surprise that the unofficial site has far more traffic that the 'official' one (and I, for one, would be worried if it were otherwise) but that does not mean that the BCA forum is a failure.

Nick.

nickwilliams said:

However, unless the moderators of this forum are going to cede ultimate editorial control to BCA, BCA must retain its own forum over which it has total control and which it can use for its official business.

There is room for two forums. They serve different purposes. It is important that BCA has a forum it can use for its own business, but it is equally important there is an unofficial site which BCA does not control. Given the nature of caving, it's no surprise that the unofficial site has far more traffic that the 'official' one (and I, for one, would be worried if it were otherwise) but that does not mean that the BCA forum is a failure.

Nick.

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This doesn't make any sense to me. I don't see that it is necessary for any organisation to control/own a method of disseminating information in order to make disseminating information possible. i.e. BCA doesn't need to own the post office, TV, newspapers, magazines etc. in order to use them to disperse information relevant to people who are looking for it. If a forum exists and is run by individuals rather than committees they tend to be more efficient tools and, as such, are probably a better way of imparting up to date info to as wide a group of people as anything else. Come to think of it, if it's about disseminating info to a wide group of people surely any BCA announcements should be made in this forum before they even feature in BCA's own forum.

Just an observation.

Sorry, slightly off-topic. Can anyone tell me exactly what the BCA does (apart from insurance)? And how that work imparts itself to grass root cavers?

It does lots of things, Hughie. Techie stuff like rope testing springs instantly to mind. Also, remember the DRT thing?... that was successfully countered (a lot of work was required) so that cavers weren't affected. BCA also administers training, presides over certain funding such as C&A and Sport England grant applications, produces publications etc..  :chair:

nickwilliams said:

Andy Sparrow said:

Sorry Dave but this argument is nonsense.  Yes, there are subforums on this site, but when you click on 'show unread posts' you get everything that's new in every one - it's a genuine one stop shop.  It is inevitable that one forum will prevail as the most popular and clearly it is this one.  One of the big problems with NCA/BCA has always been communication - you have a real chance to do something about that if you choose to transfer the BCA forum here.  This of course means radical thinking, people shifting entrenched positions, and the subjugation of a few egos - in fact all the usual crap that prevents British caving from getting its act together.  Be radical.  Eat a bit of humble pie.  Shift it here.  Surely this makes sense!!!

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No, Andy, you're the one who's lost the plot. Talk of egos and humble pie are trotting out the same old crap about BCA and you should know better.

Like it or not, BCA _is_ the National Governing Body for the sport. Yes, it should do better at communicating with the caving public, and the use of a forum such as this can certainly play a part in that. However, unless the moderators of this forum are going to cede ultimate editorial control to BCA, BCA must retain its own forum over which it has total control and which it can use for its official business.

There is room for two forums. They serve different purposes. It is important that BCA has a forum it can use for its own business, but it is equally important there is an unofficial site which BCA does not control. Given the nature of caving, it's no surprise that the unofficial site has far more traffic that the 'official' one (and I, for one, would be worried if it were otherwise) but that does not mean that the BCA forum is a failure.

Nick.

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Oh please, Nick, don't be so patronising!  I have just been to the BCA forum and of the 40 or so postings only a few relate specifically to BCA matters - the rest is general caving related stuff that would be quite at home here.  You say 'they serve different purposes' - that may be the intention but it is not the reality!  Trouble is the fine fellows that created the BCA forum now feel obliged to defend it and are resorting to spurious arguments.  A BCA subforum here can have a BCA moderator I am sure. AND IT WILL GET READ!!!!!  Don't you get it?  It's better for everyone!!  But it does require a small number of people admit they might be wrong.

Why not have a BCA section here, which consists of no more than links to important topics being discussed in the BCA forum? That way, those who frequent this forum can see when information is being published by BCA, and BCA keeps editorial control. Seems pretty simple to me.

Go one step further and have a BCA section along the lines of the Club sections?

Ask and you will (probably) receive.....