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Kent Wildfowler’s Press Release


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KENT WILDFOWLING AND CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION

 

PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE

 

KENT WILDFOWLERS DISAFFILIATE FROM BASC

 

Britain’s largest wildfowling club – with almost 700 members – The Kent Wildfowling and Conservation Association (KWCA) – has voted to disaffiliate from BASC from 1st January, 2018. The vote was agreed unanimously at the club AGM in September

 

The KWCA decision brings to an end an association with WAGBI and then BASC of over 60 years.

 

The club AGM discussed ongoing problems with BASC stretching back over two years. These included BASC disagreements with the KWCA over insurance cover for mutual trading – which BASC eventually conceded – and employers’ liability; the lack of accountability by BASC’s ruling council; the lack of transparency in BASC dealings; BASC continual threatening behaviour towards some members; and most recently a complete debacle in protecting the KWCA’s shooting rights highlighting its inability or unwillingness to have effective negotiations on behalf of the KWCA with both The Crown Estate and Natural England on this matter.

 

Secretary David Thorpe commented, “There was a mixture of anger and sadness at the meeting in a debate that lasted over an hour before the meeting voted to disaffiliate from BASC. The meeting felt that BASC under its current ruling regime no longer speaks for the wildfowling community.

 

“Whilst wildfowlers are a smaller part of BASC these days we are still an important part of the membership with high expectations. Those expectations include BASC giving support where and when clubs need it; being responsive to member enquiries in an open and transparent way, and above all recognising that BASC is a membership organisation accountable to the membership at all times for its acts and omissions.

 

“The KWCA feels let down by the ruling BASC council and senior staff. Under these circumstances the KWCA believes that BASC no longer speaks for the wildfowling community. The KWCA pays BASC almost £40,000 a year in affiliation fees and feels it is getting very little return on that investment. In future the KWCA will invest its members’ money in a better way.

 

ENDS

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: the KWCA is Britain’s largest wildfowling club with almost 700 members. The club offers wildfowling, rough shooting, pigeon shooting, airgun hunting and target shooting, as well as a growing coarse fishing section.

 

It has a land portfolio of over 13,500 acres across Kent, East Sussex, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. Conservation work is being carried out over many of these areas by the KWCA charitable conservation arm Wild Spaces Fund.

 

For membership details go to www.kentwildfowlers.co.uk or call 07836771715

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As Wildfowlers there are a lot of clubs controlling land individuals can't shoot over unless they are members of BASC...so Kent may have disaffiliated from BASC but their individual members will need to join BASC through other clubs, if they wish to shoot on many BASC affiliated club marshes!

So although The Kent Club may have disaffiliated, I doubt all Kents 700 individual membership will effectively disaffiliate from BASC?....So the loss to BASC will not be 700 members! and considering many Kent members will also be members of BASC through other affiliated clubs, and those multi club members can claim duplicated BASC club fees back from BASC........the loss to BASC will be somewhat less than the £40,000 Kent claim to pay in affiliation fees.....but it's still sad to see so many Wildfowlers vote to disaffiliate their club from BASC!

Edited by panoma1
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Is this not sour grapes? Thought one of their officers was mixed up in the problems at basc hq last year?

The last thing shooting needs is more organisation. We need one amalgamated boby encompassing basc, cla, ca, nobs, sacs etc.

It wont happen of course because of petty factions and jobs for the boys

 

 

 

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Well it had to happen.

With wildfowlers not prepared to represent themselves what a surprise. Don't be surprised to find more clubs disaffiliating. After they find the consultation regarding the consenting process for wildfowling on estuaries recommends more restrictions.

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18 hours ago, grahamch said:

Is this not sour grapes? Thought one of their officers was mixed up in the problems at basc hq last year?

The last thing shooting needs is more organisation. We need one amalgamated boby encompassing basc, cla, ca, nobs, sacs etc.

It wont happen of course because of petty factions and jobs for the boys

 

 

 

Well said Grahamch, and you are so right, too many snouts in the troughs to amalgamate.

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3 minutes ago, mudpatten said:

Why on earth would I, as a wildfowler, want to amalgamate with the chinless wonder fox hunters of the CA?

 

WAGBI was started by a handlfull of Fowler’s  with a passion and a love for there sport , let’s face it there is no one looking out for lot , your situation is worse than the rest of us shooters with regards being represented. 

Why cant you start up you own new modern organisation ?Like a WAGBI reborn. 

There are enough of you to have a louder voice than you do now . 

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On ‎03‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 14:57, grahamch said:

Is this not sour grapes? Thought one of their officers was mixed up in the problems at basc hq last year?

The last thing shooting needs is more organisation. We need one amalgamated boby encompassing basc, cla, ca, nobs, sacs etc.

It wont happen of course because of petty factions and jobs for the boys

 

 

 

Must admit that was the 1st thing that crossed my mind too, I thought  1 of there officers was heavily involved with wot ever happened at basc.

 

I think it's good for there to be a few shooting org's to keep each other on their toes (and cover there backsides when 1 orgs fails, as has been the case recently with basc on numerous fronts) But u don't want too many either.

But it would be good if the various shooting org's could group/work together sometimes with PR, or education/getting kids involved in shooting etc, but too many ego's and big fish small pond syndrome

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33 minutes ago, stevo said:

WAGBI was started by a handlfull of Fowler’s  with a passion and a love for there sport , let’s face it there is no one looking out for lot , your situation is worse than the rest of us shooters with regards being represented. 

Why cant you start up you own new modern organisation ?Like a WAGBI reborn. 

There are enough of you to have a louder voice than you do now . 

If one was started up I'd certainly signup, getting all the club's around the UK to do it is a whole other ball game.

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1 hour ago, mudpatten said:

Why on earth would I, as a wildfowler, want to amalgamate with the chinless wonder fox hunters of the CA?

 

There are chinless wonders who go wildfowling just like working class blokes who go hunting, the down fall begins when people get jobs trying to represent a sport they know little about. WAGBI was formed by wildfowlers for wildfowlers, that has long gone and that is when the problems start

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1 of the big problems u have is things like that take time, so ur limited who can do the work running the org.

 

Even look at basc, by rights the way they're set up should be ideal with the committee, but the type of folk that have the spare time to go on it will limit the type of folk that can sit on it.

Even when ther eelection time comes round many officers are getting in with only 1000 odd votes, that's a tiny % of votes cast by memebers.

Really if it wasn't for the apathy basc should be at the fore front of shooting, sadly its not.

And to be fair wildfowling is quite a specific almost niche type of shooting, it is hard for 1 org (possibly even harder for CA with there links to hunting) to cover all aspects of shooting and keep everyone happy 

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KWCA had an hour long meeting were people got there say and voted on it democratically, it has nothing too do with anyone person, KWCA are are large organisation and if they felt that they were getting poor representation from BASC and duly voted on it then that’s  fair enough in my opinion as I and many others on this forum weren’t party too the meeting.

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Well at last someone has the guts to stand up to BASC.

No they show no real interest in wildfowling ,happy to take your subs ,but never spend it ,

Sorry they do 2% on wildfowling !!!! so the rest goes to feed the trough .

Have the EVER bought any land ? i dont thinks.

So lets see who will leave ,next.

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7 hours ago, greylag said:

I wonder how many of Kent's 700 members voted on the proposal to leave BASC?.

NO IDEA but imagine all would be aware of the agenda so knew what was happening, but even then it does not necessarily mean as we are speaking here now all the 700 members are fine and dandy about the outcome.

I am of the opinion rightly or wrongly we are at the dawn of proceedings on this subject.

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