Last week saw a somewhat lively, but productive, Club meeting held during which certain memories touted as fact by some members were proved incorrect, and the misconceptions held by some others dispelled.
Thank you to all who attended, it was good to clear the air, though unfortunate that some of those who were the most vociferous ( and who were also very keen to point out that it’s the members who make a Club ) did not actually make an appearance.
It is to be hoped that we can move on from here, without the constant sniping endured by the Committee and other active members, who give up a lot of their valuable time towards the running and organisation of the Club. Please note, as has been stated before many times, if you have any questions or complaints on any subject to do with the Club, these should be raised at the monthly meetings. The Facebook page is for information and news, and should be used as such.
The Kelvin?
Nope – this was taken from the East Kilbride Angling Club Page Facebook page.
It just goes to show that all the local clubs are the same – still it makes me roll my eyes though as it makes the links between keyboard warriors on Facebook and how their talk can cause annoyance and disruption.
There was a time when being an opinionated arsehole on the internet was actually quite difficult. I should know…
You had to create a blog, write authoritatively and have actual evidence (see above) to back up the fact that you are not in fact a chancer/bam. Over time you built up enough readers that what you wrote about actually meant something. Even on forums folk recognised you and at least what you had behind you was your blog as people knew your opinions and what you stood for.
Now of course with Facebook we have a whole other issue. People are given kudos and are listened to if all they did was click a few buttons to create a page first. It is not all bad though – the Fish Clyde page is pretty good even if they did ban me from their forum for quoting a Bob Wyatt book. Ironically, the person that banned me then went on to be banned himself and has now set himself up as an advocate for poaching the Clyde Catchment area, you couldn’t make some of this stuff up. They then contacted me months later annoyed that I had wrote about it.
To be fair it was a fairly honest but anonymous interaction and I do not hold it against them.
Thankfully, my credentials are well known though – this site was the first (not the best) fly fishing blog on the internet. It is about fishing in urban and sometimes the non urban places in the Clyde Valley.I used to walk to the Kelvin for my fishing whenever I wanted, now I drive and have kids – they both even each other out. Around 10 years ago we staged a bit of a coup and took over the association that managed the Kelvin as quite frankly the old farts that ran it were doing bugger all apart from draining the club funds down the bookies. I created a wishlist and campaigned hard and eventually we have a great river and a great bunch of guys that fish it.
When people talk about fishing clubs online all I see is negativity, misinformation and rumours that are spoken about as facts. Relative new guy on the blogging front Colin Liddle aka The Dogged Angler (Hurrah a new blog) summed it up quite nicely:
I saw a thread the other day concerning LLAIA and how the accounts for this organisation should be publicly available for members and others to view and to demonstrate transparency.
As a member I was interested to see this information.
Having asked for a copy of the report of accounts for last period from LLAIA I was duly sent these. I have yet to read this report but as I suggested earlier such information IS in the public domain and freely available. I am advised by LLAIA that the Report of Accounts is also distributed within the minutes of annual AGM.
So I am afraid that I cannot see any evidence of concealment or withholding of information.
Colin, I suspect you will find this is a fairly common occurrence.
I suppose the thing to remember is that the clubs on the Clyde catchment are ran by ordinary guys with families that really do not have the time or inclination to counter every negative aggressive attack online. I should know as at one point I tried it and now I just find it wearisome.
When we do try and sort out issues online and answer with a reasoned response we are faced with folk that do not play with the same rules. We have got to be polite and answer truthfully as quite frankly being caught out with a lie or talking bollocks just means that the detractors shout louder ” YOU SEE HE WAS WRONG WITH THIS TINY DETAIL WHICH PROVES MY POINT THAT THE CLUB IS RUN BY MASONIC BIGOTED ELITIST UPPER CLASS TOFFS THAT WANT TO RESTRICT ACCESS TO THE WORKING MAN ON A SUNDAY”
Anyway, on the fishing front I have not been out much (as you can tell), caught a few mackerel last week and hopefully will manage to catch a trout from a river soon.
Good article with some real truisms. Thanks