woodlands

[running bare]

hiya toddy. im a newbie but having met eric once at the north meet. i find him very able and confident and have the highest respect for him. I dont believe he would have gone down this route if there where other options.. the more members the lower the contributions and if we (bcuk) could have raised the capitol for several sites around the country we could have had a network of woods for all members to use. as some folks may live in scotland but work in the south and vise versa they could have had access to bcuk sites reasonably close to wherever they may be.
like i said bes was set up after trying to get the woodlands going and not before posting. As far as im aware it was never set up as a competitor to bcuk but as a way to raise funds and im sure eric would agree. theyve done a lot of hard work in a short time and maybe that has caused others to think its a conflict of interests but to me i see it as a lot of enthusiasm pushing a project forward rapidly. maybe nobody thought of the repricusions of their deeds but i believe their hearts are in the right place . after a lot of negative feedback maybe all were carried away with the euphoria of proving the cynics wrong by going full steam ahead...regardless..

i sincerely hope that they are not banned from the site or anything like that as they are great guys...

 

[mossy]

It's a shame that some people feel so negative about the project. I can't see any reason why BCUK and BES cannot work hand in hand. It is not about one against the other as they have different purposes.

The BES was set up purely for the acquisition and management of woodland for ALL bushcrafters to use. The courses were to be free to members, but at some point may be offered to outside parties as a fundraising exercise. This is not a commercial venture in any way shape or form.

As the original idea cam from up north I suppose the logistics of the thing dictate that the resulting woodland from this project would be up north. There is no reason why similar projects can't run all over the country, with each supporting the other and complementing the BCUK site.

BES have now secured woodland for those in the north (or anywhere else) that are interested.

I really believed that bushcrafting was a community with shared values and support for all fellow bushcrafters, regardless of location, age, experience and financial status.

Here's hoping that more of us remember that and continue to support one another as best we can.

 

[running bare]

hiya mossy


bravo bravo bravo.............. well put and you have my support on that


tom

 

[Eric_Methven]

Right, there's some things need sorting out here and now. Who on earth said BES was in direct competition with BushcraftUK? On the contrary, it is meant to be complimentary.

The main reason for setting it up was to avoid some of the restrictions Tony has set on BCUK. From the outset, Alan, Stella and myself realised that in order to actually do something positive about getting some woodland, and I might say, with nothing but positive encouragement from everyone here, we realised we'd need some money for properly setting something like this up. Raising funds on BCUK as far as I can tell was a no-no as it contravened Tony's rules.

We set the forum up first simply to give interested people somewhere to talk about getting a woodland of our own, and also somewhere we could have raffles and competitions to raise a working fund. We designed the trader's forum in the hope that those advertising would donate a piece of gear from time to time so we could raffle it off and get some pennies in that way.

The web site followed on a couple of days later simply because I had thirty odd pages ready written from way back in the mid ninteys when I used to run survival courses for a living. I just changes the name survival to bushcraft, scrapped some of it, added a few new bits and whacked it up as a free resource for all to use. What's so wrong with that?

None of us are trying to compete. None of us want to poach members from here. I'm a full member myself and I think what Tony has done here is phenominal and I'll be paying up again when my year is up. But it still comes back to the orif=ginal point of needing somewhere to practice our craft - and we've done it! We have twenty six acres of woodland, exclusively for our own use and are negotiating with others to expand it up to one hundred acres or therabouts.

We haven't set BES up as a business, although that aspect might happen sometime in the future. We've set it up as a society and will have voting members and a committee. We envisage funding the whole project by raffles, subscription and running courses for Joe Public and corporate bodies. Members will get free courses as part of their subscription. Sound too good to be true? well, yes and no. Courses are going to be free to members but we'd like to think they'd volunteer to help out with any commercial courses we put on in return.

Basically BES will belong to it's members for the benefit of it's members. This post is a bit long winded, but please conider it a mission statement so you don't think we're up to some scam. You guys encouraged us to go for it so it pees me off to see such negativity rearing it's head.

And to Tony, please look on BES as complimentary to BCUK. We're not trying to go into competition, but we're looking at facilitating bushcraft for everyone from a slightly different viewpoint.

I'll publish details about our new woodland over on BES.

Thanks for the opportunity to express my views.

Eric

 

[spoony]

Ok i started this, and part of me feels sorry for doing so, typing in a forum can't really get my feelings for this over. I feel down, dissapointed, and angry, i know im the new guy, sorry for treading on toes, this isnt about us and them, i was hoping we could all work together.

We ARE NOT MAKING ANYTHING from this, courses are a long way away. Its impossible to find a woodland to suit everyone in the UK, i live up north, i can only source woods where i live, you cant expect me to drive to cornwall to find a woodland, so sorry if this doesn t appeal to you all. I would encourage any of you in other parts of the country to do the same and best of luck to you. We have spent a lot of time to get this off the ground, but think it will all be worth it in the end.

But what really pxxxxs me off is being accused of doing this for my own personal and financial gains. Theres a lot of talk on here but when someone tries to do something thing a lot of people can benefit from this is how you get treated.

For anyone intersted we did manage to secure woodland. I thank Tony for allowing this to go as far as it did here, and hope we can still work together, i know im the thorn in your side, but only wanted to help make bushcraft more accesible for EVERYONE.

Regards
Alan

 

[elma]

Eric and Spoony I stand corrected and have gone into back peddal mode, like normal I have skipped through the thread and come to the wrong conclusion.
Just read the report you put in the meeting update thread and I think its one the button.
I'm with you 100%
keep up the good work
Ian

 

[redflex]

I signed up to B.E.S. and keen on supporting woodland purchase,

I understood the forum was about just that woodland purchasing and management.

So not sure why the forum has a knowledge and skill section this is just repeating what is on this forum, would it not be better just to have link to here instead?

 

[Razorstrop]

...............

Mr Strop

 

[Emberglow]

Well I said my money was where my mouth was, I offered money got no reply, so unfortunately my mouth is now firmly closed on this subject not sure where all this is going, but I am comfy here

 

[Martyn]

Tom, nobody is "dissing" your project.

You know, why cant people ask sensible and pertinent questions without things degenerating isto schoollyard language? Anybody running a project like this should have the maturity to field intelligent and challenging questions without getting their knickers in a twist. You should be getting a lot more searching questions than the ones I'm posing here.

As a BcUK moderator, I've looked over the BES website, and it's great - but it is a general bushcraft website, with a forum and a skills section - just like this one. Please correctr me if I'm wrong, but dont you actually say yourself that "...the website is a totally separate entity from the woodland group buy"? You are also promoting courses. Nothing wrong with the website, it's fine - your woodland group buy is a fine idea too.

But tell me, as a moderator of this site, why should I allow you to advertsise and recruit for your project, website & forum, when others (equally excellent & worthy) are not allowed?

If you had kept it as simply a woodland group buy with a support forum for that purpose, then I could see Tony getting fully behind it. But looking at your site today, I see a replication of BcUK and I see you using BcUK to recruit into it. Tell me how my understanding of this is wrong? As a moderator here, I see you promoting your project when others are not allowed to do the same. Tell me why I should let this thread stay open? In a logical way too please, peer pressure is water off a ducks back to me, so emotive language has no effect, clear logic and a well reasoned argument however, sing to me.

Spoony, I'm sorry you feel ****** off. But let me point something out to you. You have made just six posts on BritishBlades - they are all adverts, no contribution to the forums other than to promote your own wares & projects. That pisses me off. Both my website and this site are the result of years of hard work. They exist for communitys to enjoy, but they dont exist simply for you to USE in order to further your own ambitions and projects, no matter how laudible or worthy they may be.

By all means, go do your project and the best of luck to you, it sounds like an excellent project, but you dont have the right to promote anything on these forums without the backing & permission of the owner. Next time, you could at least do him the courtesy of asking for it.

 

[bogflogger]

Erm, can I poke my oar in here please. I joined BCUK yesterday....I was so pleased to find such enthusiasm for bushcraft on a british website. I was buzzing with enthusiasm when I opened this thread,but nine pages later, all I can see is bickering and dissilusionment. this is so sad. As a new member, I do not know the politics or personality's involved in this,but what I do know is that a good idea, from positive people,is in danger of collapsing into power politics. can I suggest that all involved read this thread again (from page 1 to 9) and refocus their energy on the idea of acquiring woodland! this is such a good idea, with a lot of potential benefits, don't squander the chance of doing something real!! regards. Bogflogger.

 

[Martyn]

Erm, can I poke my oar in here please. I joined BCUK yesterday....I was so pleased to find such enthusiasm for bushcraft on a british website. I was buzzing with enthusiasm when I opened this thread,but nine pages later, all I can see is bickering and dissilusionment. this is so sad. As a new member, I do not know the politics or personality's involved in this,but what I do know is that a good idea, from positive people,is in danger of collapsing into power politics. can I suggest that all involved read this thread again (from page 1 to 9) and refocus their energy on the idea of acquiring woodland! this is such a good idea, with a lot of potential benefits, don't squander the chance of doing something real!! regards. Bogflogger.

Fair comments bogflogger, I wish life was that simple, but it isn't and politics is part of life. This website has rules, partly to preserve the ethos of the community and partly to further the ideals of the site's creator. It's my job to enforce those rules as best I can.

If it were simply a case of power politics, you'd be right, it would be petty, but it is also reasonable to ask fair questions about activities that are being promoted on this site. Yes it would be nice not to have to do that, but that's not the world I live in.

If the BES website and forum was set up simply to promote and manage the group buy of a piece of woodland, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. But a 5 minute look at the site an you will read that...

Just so there's no confusion, membership here refers to the web site and everything within it's pages and not to any subsequent woodland ownership. That's a completely separate issue.

Eric

...and is in fact a general bushcraft site, which is pretty much a carbon copy of this one.

How did a woodland group buy end up being a replication of BcUK?

My point, if you are going to set up an organisation soley for the group purchase of a piece of woodland, power to you and I'm sure Tony would get behind it 100%, I know I would. But if you set up a carbon copy of this website (which the BES website clearly is), then trawling for members will be frowened on for what should be obvious reasons, and the rules regarding advertising & promotion of what seems to be a BcUK clone with a school tagged on, will apply the same as they would apply to any other website, no matter how worthy their cause may be.

 

[scanker]

Well, I'm fairly new around these parts too. I haven't posted in this thread because early on it was stated that this isn't the place for negativity. It just so happens I tend to always think around the "what might happens" and they can be negative sometimes!

My own personal view is I'd love to own some woodland. However, the main reason for this would be to "get away from it all" and observe some nature, and I'm not sure that the sound of a dozen SFAs chopping away is what I'm after. But it's horses for courses and that's my own personal opinion.

As to the promotion of BES on here, I agree with Martyn's posts. I've seen a very similar thing happen when www.downsizer.net grew from www.rivercottage.net (I'm a moderator on RC).

 

[bogflogger]

Martyn & Skanker.I have just had a troll around the BES site and I now see your concerns. regards. Bogflogger.

 

[mossy]

As a BcUK moderator, I've looked over the BES website, and it's great - but it is a general bushcraft website, with a forum and a skills section - just like this one. Please correctr me if I'm wrong, but dont you actually say yourself that "...the website is a totally separate entity from the woodland group buy"? You are also promoting courses. Nothing wrong with the website, it's fine - your woodland group buy is a fine idea too.

The main section of the forum is for the purchase of the woodlands. In the future there will be others come across the website through means other than BCUK and may want a forum to discuss certain issues of bushcraft, or indeed people who have attended courses may want to chat with others. Should that not be provided for them? Having read all 10 pages, nowhere can I see that anyone has suggested that you all jump ship. This is a great site with great information and the BES site indeed has a link to this.

 

[Eric_Methven]

Martyn. In what way is BES a carbon copy of this site? Are you suggesting we plagerised BCUK? The forum is a bog standard layout and the web pages were written by me a long long time before BCUK was even thought of.

I originally stated that membership of the website was a completely separate issue from woodland purchase simply because one member thought paying his ten quid a year would get him a share in the woodland ownership. I was just correcting him that was not the case.

You are perfectly correct that it is not fair to poach members from this site over to a site that has similarities in many ways. Had this started from scratch and completely independantly, I wouldn't have had the audacity. But the whole concept started HERE with members expressing an interest in buying their own woodland and where nobody else was willing to actually get of their backsides and do something, we did.

Please remeber that this is being set up without funding and without capital. There was no other way to fund it except to set up a website and forum of our own to bring funds in so we could administer the aquisition of woodland. We need to be looking at public liability, equipment, H&S, first aid and the like and the money has to come from somewhere. That's why we set the forum up.

I added the web pages so people joining our society and contributing funding to a common end goal would have something other than just a forum to look at.

The courses part was simply what I already had on offer back in the nineteen eighties and ninetys and I left them there because we might have to go down that road to finance the society and it's aims sometime in the future. There will certainly be no courses run for at least six months. Anyway, I do realise that there are rules forbiding the advertising of bushcraft schools, and had this not all started here, I wouldn't have included a link that led to it but I was simply answering people's posts about how the search for woodlan had gone.

It's only been a couple of weeks since this whole thing started and obviously links were posted before I put the web pages and course info up. So, I apollogise for infringing the rules. I won't mention BES or advertise it on here again and to reiterate, this is NOT direct competition. We are trying to provide a service to bushcrafters and are NOT making money from it. On the contrary, so far it has cost me a lot of my own money which I know I won't see again.

Eric

 

[leon-1]

The main section of the forum is for the purchase of the woodlands. In the future there will be others come across the website through means other than BCUK and may want a forum to discuss certain issues of bushcraft, or indeed people who have attended courses may want to chat with others. Should that not be provided for them? Having read all 10 pages, nowhere can I see that anyone has suggested that you all jump ship. This is a great site with great information and the BES site indeed has a link to this.

Yes that is true now, but @ 9.30 AM yesterday it didn't and setting up links on a page doesn't take a long time.

I think that has been one of the few things that Tony may have ever asked for in return for letting other people advertise their sites as part of their signatures and this includes other forums is that they have a reciprocal link.

Also Martyn had mentioned if people had spoken to Tony about the site in a bit more detail, that may have been an idea, from my point of view the way that B.E.S. was launched was more like an assault, it was targetted and repetetive and two pronged, targetting both here and British Blades opening multiple threads in a short space of time.

It would of been nice to know a little before we got slapped with "HEY LOOK AT THIS".

When you do look for all intents and purposes the site looks commercial and as has been stated by others already there are quite a few rules to do with advertising of commercial sites on here.

Incidentally Mossy you have done a good job on the site.

Oh as an aside did you want your other profile deleted because you are only allowed one user profile on here?

 

[MagiKelly]

I have to say I am with Martyn on this. I was and am fully behind the idea. There will be problems. There was a start at looking at a Scottish plan but given our access laws it became a waste of time. We can use any woodland we want, pretty much.

Anyway, back on track. The alarm bells started ringing for me when a forum was formed. The idea of the web site and a membership is all fine. Take subscriptions and have a members forum to discuss your plans etc. Indeed had this been the case I would have joined, but a public forum aimed at Bushcrafters is what BCUK is here for. Dividing that market reduces the viability of BCUK. BCUK has had plans for a dealers sales etc for a while and this now has direct competition.

As Martyn has said I think everyone is 100% behind your goals and would support you as much as we can it is just the forum that is seen as creating competition. And on a side note, if the formation of a forum would generate enough money to buy woodlands I think BCUK would already have a number of them

And to be clear, I have met Eric on a couple of occasions and have nothing but the highest regard for him, I am still allowed to disagree with him on occassion though.

 

[mossy]

.

Oh as an aside did you want your other profile deleted because you are only allowed one user profile on here?

sorry you lost me there does another one exist? Had problems logging in and tried to register again but did not think it had gone through. Have checked and only one mossy on the member list.

Cheers
Mossy

 

[leon-1]

sorry you lost me there does another one exist? Had problems logging in and tried to register again but did not think it had gone through. Have checked and only one mossy on the member list.

Cheers
Mossy

No there is another one of you here I have checked, you are registered as mossy1 as well.