More bad news for BCA modernisers

[Pegasus]

I'm sure newstuff won't mind me saying but yes he's been on moderation and banned in the past. However, he didn't throw his toys out, he took the warnings well and now posts in a more considerate manner. Same goes for every forum member, opposing opinions are ok, not being considerate is not.

 

[darren]

This site is welcoming and generally good to interact with. But it does have a political stance on BCA politics.

In the same way as the Guardian and Daily Mail have a stance on UK politics.  You don't get many Guardian Readers on the Daily Mail site and vice  versa. Why should this site be any different.

I try to read both newspapers.

 

[Roger W]

I'm sure that anyone wanting to put their argument for the opposing view (that caving is an indoor activity and CRoW cannot possibly apply to it, or - for reasons X, Y and Z - should not apply to it) would be perfectly welcome to do so on the forum as long as they don't start bandying personal insults about.

 

[JasonC]

This site is welcoming and generally good to interact with. But it does have a political stance on BCA politics.

In the same way as the Guardian and Daily Mail have a stance on UK politics.  You don't get many Guardian Readers on the Daily Mail site and vice  versa. Why should this site be any different.

Actually, I don't think this is right.

This site should be - and is - different from a national newspaper because it doesn't have an editor, or an editorial policy.  Yes, it has owners, who makes their views plain, but they don't stop other views being expressed.

Anyone with any view on BCA politics can post their opinion here as long as they do it politely (actually, they barely need to be polite).  If you perceive opinions here as being biased in one direction, it would be great to see someone putting forward a reasoned argument for a different direction.  If there is one to be put....

 

[Robert Scott]

...... Believe you me the BCA council list emails can be quite aggressive at times as Matt alludes to. ....
Isn't this a matter that the BCA chairman should tackle within the "BCA Bullying and Harassment Policy"? And don't give me the letter of the policy that a complaint needs to be made first. The BCA Council and the chairman needs to be on top of these matters before they get to this stage otherwise why are they there?

 

[darren]

This site is welcoming and generally good to interact with. But it does have a political stance on BCA politics.

In the same way as the Guardian and Daily Mail have a stance on UK politics.  You don't get many Guardian Readers on the Daily Mail site and vice  versa. Why should this site be any different.

Actually, I don't think this is right.

This site should be - and is - different from a national newspaper because it doesn't have an editor, or an editorial policy.  Yes, it has owners, who makes their views plain, but they don't stop other views being expressed.

Anyone with any view on BCA politics can post their opinion here as long as they do it politely (actually, they barely need to be polite).  If you perceive opinions here as being biased in one direction, it would be great to see someone putting forward a reasoned argument for a different direction.  If there is one to be put....

I didn't say it was like a national newspaper, I said like a national newspaper it takes a stance. The people who post tend to support one side of the argument.

Please notice the use of the word tend.  It doesn't mean the other side is excluded, its just the way things are. People tend to group with like minded indirviduals.

 

[Pegasus]

....maybe there isn't a large silent group of cavers who agree with the recent proposals. Maybe there isn't a large silent group not posting on the forum because of 'side taking'- maybe, just maybe the reason there aren't loads of posts putting across a different view, for example explaining exactly what was wrong with my work as P&I is because it's a small number of cavers and these very few  are causing a disproportionate amount of pain for BCA.....

 

[PeteHall]

Crossed posts with Pegasus, but I think we're saying roughly the same thing...

The other way of putting it, Darren, is to look at the results of recent BCA ballots and to realise that the views commonly held by cavers who use this forum are pretty common within the caving community as a whole.

I'm not suggesting that the "other side" shouldn't express their views,  far from it (as long as they are polite), simply that it is a minority view and therefore quite understandably less represented in discussion.

 

[darren]

As I've stated before. My view is most cavers don't care.

How many actually voted either way in the ballot?

I, like a lot of members only joined because my club made me.

So here we are, someone commenting on an organisation they don't want to belong to. I have to pay subs so I'm entitled to an opinion.

I've been told the insurance cost less than ?9 per member. The BCA are gouging me for the rest. It is a small sum so I don't feel the need to do anything about it.

And don't get me started about online ballots. It just means most of those who voted care a bit, but not much. Or didn't really care but it shut there mate up who did care. Ask someone for an opinion and most people will give you an opinion, doesn't mean they care much.

 

[mikem]

It may be a small group of cavers, but so are the numbers who post regularly on here...

 

[2xw]

If I divide my BCA fee by the amount of bolts, gates and Derbyshire keys I use it works out pretty reasonable

 

[Ed W]

mikem said,

It may be a small group of cavers, but so are the numbers who post regularly on here...

I would note that the number of people involved in backing the CSCC proposals was almost certainly a smaller number than post on here.  We don't know how many voting members were at the Feb CSCC meeting as the minutes are not available.  However, checking through the minutes of CSCC meetings available on their website (http://cscc.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=documents:start shows the average number of voting members to be a shade over 8 over the last 17 years.  It is also clear that the actual people voting (representing the various clubs) has not changed significantly over that time period.  i.e. just 5 like-minded people would have been able to effectively control CSCC over that time.

In comparison the thread "Thoughts on the BCA AGM Proposals" (https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=26342.0
) has had 40 different cavers express an opinion and this thread has had 34.

Surely if the CSCC proposals had a significant level of support beyond the small group who have made them, then there would be more posts on these two threads showing them in a more positive light?

From that point of view I would suggest that UKCaving probably provides a fairer representation on UKCaver's views than the CSCC ever could.

 

[kay]

Whilst the majority of stuff on the forum is great, it's not independent of the issues, as Pegasus is BCA Publications & Information Officer & Badlad is CNCC Rep. That's one reason the CSCC committee won't engage here.

I find this bewildering. You are saying CSCC Committee won't post on here because the people running on it are the Publications and Information Officer of an organisation that CSCC belongs to and presumably supports, and a representative of another region on that same organisation?

 

[Minion]

I found this while looking through the meetings segment on the BCA website. I?m not sure why it hasn?t been posted on this thread - or the recent other various threads on similar subjects.

https://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=about:documents:council_meetings:council_meeting_11th_january_2020_david_cooke_late_submission.pdf

I?m not a supporter of the CSCC - far from it, in fact! I just thought it was worthwhile brining attention to.

 

[nearlywhite]

Might be worth reading the (draft) minutes too... Especially the part where this is discussed. As well as the secretary's brief or the web masters brief.

https://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=about:documents:council_meetings:bca_council_meeting_11th_january_2020_draft_minutes.pdf

Also: my impression of the 'CSCC proposals' are that they are a bit last minute and weren't discussed with the actual organisation. That said, any member can still propose motions. I am just pointing this out so that the couple of members on CSCC that I reached out to over  these proposals aren't forced to defend things they didn't write.

 

[andrewmcleod]

Currently, there is nothing to stop anyone holding the BCA hostage, by overwhelming the agenda with crap and forcing a national ballot to clear it out again, only to do the same thing again.

Both the original and revised versions of the BCA constitution can be easily gamed by people if they want to. You can build a system that is immune to procedural messing around by one person, where the meeting doesn't want it. There is no procedural defence that will stop a determined meeting screwing with the system.

If I submitted 6,000 proposals to the AGM, BCA Council could submit a motion to dismiss all of them without debate, and hold that first. Then it's up to the AGM to deal with. If you have enough people at the AGM to make sure all 6,000 proposals go through to a national ballot, then you just need enough people to push the dismissal motion though. Mostly people just need to grow up and realise playing silly buggers won't get anyone anywhere.

Personally I would require at least 20 signatures on every AGM proposal, which must be submitted several months in advance of the AGM, so that BCA Council can (probably off-line) submit feedback giving a chance for pre-submission amendments (at the proposer's discretion, of course) and the Executive to agree their comments on it (or even take on the proposal themselves).
Other bodies require a collection of signatures to propose a motion (see the BMC and all the faff that happened over the vote of no confidence where most of the signatories on the original submission denied agreeing with it).

 

[darren]

Also: my impression of the 'CSCC proposals' are that they are a bit last minute and weren't discussed with the actual organisation. That said, any member can still propose motions. I am just pointing this out so that the couple of members on CSCC that I reached out to over  these proposals aren't forced to defend things they didn't write.

I've heard rumours of this as well.

 

[mikem]

Having seen comments about the concessions made to CSCC committee to get them to agree to formation of BCA in first place, I'm not sure they've ever supported them - I guess making sure they had a say in the decisions made was more to the point.

Yes, the CSCC committee are a smaller subset than those posting here, but 34 people is still only 0.5% of the membership, so also can't be taken as truly representative of the community as a whole. That's what the ballot was for - & was, in this case, in line with most views expressed here, but dangerous assumption that bias of threads always aligns with the majority.

& the issue isn't that the forum's owners are on BCA committee, it's that they are on the other side of the argument that's currently splitting it.

BTW I don't necessarily agree with the CSCC position on this, but I do think they've spent more time considering the ramifications than some others have.

 

[Ed W]

Also: my impression of the 'CSCC proposals' are that they are a bit last minute and weren't discussed with the actual organisation. That said, any member can still propose motions. I am just pointing this out so that the couple of members on CSCC that I reached out to over  these proposals aren't forced to defend things they didn't write.

I have had this confirmed by one of the CSCC Officers.  The February CSCC meeting instructed an officer to draft a set of proposals "to bring back to the CSCC".  Apparently said officer only drafted the proposal on the evening of the submission deadline, and submitted them without at least some of the CSCC Officers, let alone member clubs, seeing them.  Although I accept that this was most likely due to cock-up rather than conspiracy, surely the proposal should have been made in the name of the officer concerned, I would have though that member clubs (or at least the CSCC officers) should have authorised the text in some way prior to submission for these to be "CSCC" proposals.

I have asked my club to raise the issue of how the CSCC authorised the submission of these proposals to the BCA AGM at the next CSCC meeting  (whenever that may be).

 

[mountainpenguin]

In any sensible world the individuals responsible for this continued mess would be kicked and banned from the privilege of joining the BCA and benefiting from its services such as insurance