Important motion for the BCA AGM

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
Motion (1) for BCA AGM 3rd June 2018

BCA has struggled to attract new officers and particularly to inspire a new generation of cavers to get involved with the organisation.  Some major reforms are needed if BCA is to thrive in the future.

BCA find it difficult to fill officer positions as they become vacant and officers are forced to sit in those positions longer than they would like or is good for the organisation.  Attracting young or new blood into the roles has proven very difficult.  There may be a number of reasons for this, disinterest, a dominance of the old guard, a distinct lack of vision and some criticism that the BCA is dysfunctional.  Whatever it is there are few positive aspects of involvement with BCA and these all contribute to the BCA being seen in a very negative light by those who could get more involved.

BCA never appears to be leading, the tail always seems to be wagging the dog.  Reacting to issues dominates business where a proactive agenda would be more attractive.  There is no vision that cavers can identify with and get behind.  Moving forward in a positive direction would encourage participation in the organisation by a new generation. 

Setting a new simple mission statement and vision should be a first step.  Developing a strategy of how to get there, reviewing the cumbersome BCA structure to see if it is fit for the future and finally rewriting parts of the constitution where needed should follow. 

Tinkering with the edges will not inspire new interest in BCA.  Positive reform will. Therefore I propose the following motion: 

?BCA to establish a ?working group? to determine a new mission and vision for the organisation.  To outline a strategy to achieve this vision and make recommendations for any changes to the organisations structure and constitution.  The group should be made up of a majority of younger cavers from the constituent bodies, regions and membership under an established convener agreed by council.  The group should aim to be established within six months (by the January council meeting) and should report on recommendations to the 2020 AGM.?

Proposed by Tim Allen

This issue was discussed at the October council meeting, see pages 6-8 of the minutes for more peoples thoughts on the matter, http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=about:documents:council_meetings:council_minutes_2017-10-07_with_corrections.pdf

Following that meeting a watered down proposal to review and tweak the anomalies in the constitution was put forward but this was unlikely to address a growing desire/need for a more fundamental review.  I hope this motion will attract support and set the BCA on a positive path to the future.

To vote for any motion at a BCA AGM you must attend the meeting in person with your membership card.  This year the meeting is being held in the Forest of Dean during the NAMHO Conference.  Alternatively you can make your views known to those who may be representing you at the meeting, or have your say on here.
 

Ian Adams

Active member
Nice post and an excellent suggestion on a way forward.

Is it worth considering this too  .... ?

Badlad said:
...... To vote for any motion at a BCA AGM you must attend the meeting in person with your membership card. 

The vast majority of BCA members cannot attend meetings (distance) and may well feel disconnected from the "body".

Just a thought  ;)


Ian
 

Alex

Well-known member
I think you could fill the officer posts more readily if people could do the work in their own time, such as web development or spreading the word, speaking to land owners and all the other work they do for the BCA without having to attend the committee meetings which often take place on Saturday in caving/work time and are often miles from most BCA members.

I am only speaking for my self here, but the thought of attending committee meetings when I could be caving, is what stops me. I would otherwise probably help out/try to bring about change (though not sure what I can do) but it would have to be on my own time, when it's good for me. I think its these onerous meetings that put people off.
 

droid

Active member
I'd certainly concur that the BCA need to be more proactive.

Recent events RE the Constitution were a farce... And an entirely predictable farce.
 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
Ian Adams said:
Nice post and an excellent suggestion on a way forward.

Is it worth considering this too  .... ?

Badlad said:
...... To vote for any motion at a BCA AGM you must attend the meeting in person with your membership card. 

The vast majority of BCA members cannot attend meetings (distance) and may well feel disconnected from the "body".

Just a thought  ;)


Ian

I did try and bring in proxy voting, but the clubs (who are effectively proxy voters on behalf of their membership) didn't vote for it enough...
 

2xw

Active member
I want electronic voting. This would be quite easy to implement.

I don't want proxy voting. Its open to abuse.
 

badger

Active member
Alex said:
I think you could fill the officer posts more readily if people could do the work in their own time, such as web development or spreading the word, speaking to land owners and all the other work they do for the BCA without having to attend the committee meetings which often take place on Saturday in caving/work time and are often miles from most BCA members.

I am only speaking for my self here, but the thought of attending committee meetings when I could be caving, is what stops me. I would otherwise probably help out/try to bring about change (though not sure what I can do) but it would have to be on my own time, when it's good for me. I think its these onerous meetings that put people off.

what day do you suggest council meetings should held? working groups and sub committees of bca use video calling, but this is only good if the meeting is under 10 people
what part of the country should they be held in, that is approx the same distance for the council members, this includes sussex, devon and cornwall as well as Yorkshire

not being argumentive, just seeking peoples opinion.
 

nearlywhite

Active member
I have one or two thoughts on this matter, unsurprisingly.

I'm not against root and branch reform and I think it is probably needed - I agree with Les Williams minuted comment in the October meeting that much of the constitution belongs in the manual of operations. A constitution should be as simple as possible. I really don't think inserting a mission statement does anything though - it reminds me of NHS England writing a constitution in 2011, something that did sod all to change anything in a body that had already been working effectively for 63 years. You get the leadership from the people not the papers.

This brings me to my second point: the BCA actually does a fair amount. A lot more than many of its overseas counterparts. The green card is a prime example of this; regardless of whether it is valuable for insurance or not, what it gives us in access alone is far more valuable. I explained this to my American counterparts and they were very impressed that such a thing could exist (now there's somewhere to go if you want to see what dissatisfaction with a governing body looks like), I could happily provide more examples.

Unless you can change the axe grinding session that happens at each quarterly meeting, i.e. grievances continually being raised and circular discussions that have been going on for years and years then the BCA won't ever be able to give time to the things it needs to at council. I don't know how you can stop things like Draenan being discussed for the nth time, possibly constitutionally, possibly reducing the number of positions on council. I think a better strategy is to take more operations away from council and into working groups with periodic reports: this allows more work from home so to speak and to quote Alex '...you could fill the officer posts more readily if people could do the work in their own time, such as web development or spreading the word, speaking to land owners and all the other work they do for the BCA without having to attend the committee meetings...'

droid said:
I'd certainly concur that the BCA need to be more proactive.

Recent events RE the Constitution were a farce... And an entirely predictable farce.

I'd suggest you elucidate your post otherwise it smacks of 'Mr Cynic is cynical', and opposition to the issue does rather help to highlight the subpar points
 

Mark R

Well-known member
Taken from the BMC website-

?Our Vision

To be the organisation that every climber and hill walker wants to join.

Our Mission

To be the natural champion and community hub for all those who climb hills, mountains, rocks, ice and indoor walls; to promote the interests and protect the freedoms of climbers, hill walkers, mountaineers and ski mountaineers.?

Now if that isn?t an aspirational mission statement I don?t know what is. I?d love the BCA to have something similar to refer back to. Something we can all just stop and remind ourselves about as we enter the 5th hour of the next council meeting :)

I?ve had a look at the BCA website and if we do have such a sense of purpose, we certainly dont advertise it very well. Perhaps the closest we come is this... http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php?id=about:start
but I stopped reading after the third bullet point...  :sleep:
 

ZombieCake

Well-known member
I think Mark R has it.
Think of a pyramid with the one line vision statement at the top.  It should be clear.
Next step down will be the mission statements, equally concise and clear with a bit more detail - simple marketing not lawyers reams of pages - i.e. what am I about and what do I want to do.
The next level down has some policies, and so on.  Each stage should connect with each other.
This would then be transposed to the management structure pyramid. i.e the the various boards, groups and committees and reporting lines.
That is think of the BCA as a proper business with aims & objectives, and not a shouting forum for beards.
A lot of businesses would dream of a ?230k pot of cash without having to sell their souls to the bank.
 

2xw

Active member
Rostam is right about more stuff being done in working groups then reported on rather than being debated endlessly. Less minutiae would be good. Less personal grievances please.

Agree with the aspirational statement stuff. Needs to be kept short. We go down holes in the ground. I want to help other people go down holes in the ground with minimum of hassle.
 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
I think the BCAs 'federal government and independent states' nature is basically set up to breed conflict. There is no accountability from the regions to the BCA. If the regions (and access bodies below them) start doing something really silly, BCA can do nothing about it (and neither can the regions or access bodies). See PDCMG, CCC and BCA failure.

The BMC is a top-down organization but it is set up to build consensus - there are area meetings where local climbers can (and do) turn up and air their local grievances, and build a local consensus. Yet there is still recognition that national issues need a national consensus.

The BCA is like a federal government without the federal power - they aren't 'allowed' to interfere in local matters (e.g. Draenen) yet the regions don't submit to the BCA's authority on national matters (e.g. CSCC and CROW).

I can't help but feel caving is just not big enough for these layers and layers of duplication of democracy. There just aren't enough of the wonderful helpful people who fill committee and council positions to go round. In a differently organized body the same volunteers would probably still be doing the same helpful things in roughly the same places, but there could be much more opportunity for cross-over and communication rather than conflict.
 

Kenilworth

New member
BCA will cease to exist before very long. Cavers should ask themselves if they wish to put a lot of sweat into a dying organization. Difficult thought is the first step, but it leads inevitably to some rather liberating realizations. What motivation is there or should there be to prop up an organization of little utility other than as a political plaything? What will be lost or gained if BCA crumbles? What will be lost or gained in the effort to save it? What will be lost or gained if it is saved?

BCA has no American counterpart, but NSS is equally expendable and too will fall apart soon enough. American cavers who are impressed by the green card and who feel that NSS is a governing body are poorly informed and lack initiative.

Can there be a useful national cave/cave-related organization? Perhaps so. Must there be? No.
 

2xw

Active member
Kenilworth said:
What will be lost or gained if BCA crumbles?

Something similar would just form in its place, maybe it could be called the national caving association or something.

Here's some things the BCA does: green card (access, insurance), publications, funding for stuff like gates, locks, access systems, making entrances safe, bolting schemes. The system of qualifications. Setting up new uni clubs. Then the bodies that are part of the BCA: checc, which provides training for university cavers, the scout teams which introduce lots to the sport, the CSCC, CNCC and DCA all do valuable stuff with negotiating access (and have you fucking seen the CNCC website? Its quality!). The BCRA and it's journals, and it's meets! The British Caving Library. Maybe you could argue all of these things could function singularly but would they end up under the umbrella of an organisation anyways? Probably.

The failure of people in your country, and the arguments you read here are the things which fuel your ignorance. Of course there are things to be improved and we are vocal about them. But perhaps oftentimes the good efforts of many volunteers are not mentioned enough to counteract this. Bad news gets more clicks I suppose.

Quit poking your nose in to stuff you know nowt about. Never have I seen someone write so much but say so little.
 

Kenilworth

New member
I don't know what "the failure of people in my country" means, but I am very aware of the "benefits" of the BCA. Yes I have seen the websites, read the journals, drank in real pubs and talked with my real mouth to real British Cavers in real Britain. Yes I am ignorant too. I'm not poking my nose or making any claims of specific insight, but general comments on the nature of hobby organizations and their future. They are all the same and if unchanged will suffer similar fates eventually, not because of their flaws but because of changes in society. This means that BCA cannot be "fixed" or successfully relaced by something nearly identical.

If caving organizations want to continue to thrive, they have two basic choices. They can change their structure and goals to ultra-accessibility and inclusiveness and ease, which is most likely, or they can narrow their scope and specialize, foregoing large memberships in favor of productive memberships.
 

2xw

Active member
I don't know what "the failure of people in my country" means,
>
NSS is equally expendable and too will fall apart soon enough. American cavers who are impressed by the green card and who feel that NSS is a governing body are poorly informed and lack initiative.

I'm not poking my nose or making any claims of specific insight
but apparently your crystal ball was able to predict
BCA will cease to exist before very long.

Then you went on to repeat what everyone else has said but with more words
If caving organizations want to continue to thrive, they have two basic choices. They can change their structure and goals to ultra-accessibility and inclusiveness and ease, which is most likely,

quit trolling
 

paul

Moderator
[gmod]2xw and Kenilworth, please stop the arguing and keep to discussion rather than personal attacks. [/gmod]
 

badger

Active member
2xw, nearly white, both good replies, the BCA is far from perfect, but it is trying to get there, it does a lot of good,
does it need to look at itself, almost defiantly
has it got the right people on council, possibly
can we do better, most certainly,
I believe in the BCA, and believe the BCA does it best for all cavers, whilst trying to keep all cavers happy, a very difficult job.
(y) (y)
 
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