 Poster: A snowHead
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...exasperation continues to be expressed on the SCGB website on a daily basis. Intelligent sociable people with a love for their club continue to voice their frustration at the loss of their friends and discussions.
...the number of SCGB members who have put their names to Jayne Durham's petition, demanding restoration of open access for SCGB non-members, has grown to 70. [In perspective, the number of SCGB members who attended the 2003 AGM last November was 49]
....The number of members of this forum [a statistic usefully provided from 'Memberlist' top right' has grown to over 130.
....There has been no official response on the SCGB site to either Jayne Durham's petition, or the hundreds of postings giving lovingly reasoned argument for the restoration of open access.
....Each day the threads and postings created by SCGB non-members (many of whom now reside here) drop out of the SCGB forum to the archives. But that intellectual property has now, apparently, been 'acquired' by the SCGB for its members only. That, and I speak as an SCGB member since 1962, is not acceptable.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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David, I wonder whether the ski club forums would ever be the same again, even if they did reopen them. Most people seem to be settling in nicely here.
Personally I think that the whole episode is a shame, and hope that the ski club does recover from it. They obviously had reasons for taking the decision that they did......we just don't know if they are "genuine" or "deliberate".
Hopefully a resolution will be reached soon.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Thanks for the update.
There were lots of discussions with members and non members giving feedback on what the club should stand for/promote. Thats how a club should work - not directives from on high. It will be interesting to see if the council will actually listen to its members in response to this situation - if they don't the club's days are numbered in this digital age...
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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There's no reason for the SCGB Council not to reverse their decision and incorporate something like the excellent software seen on this site, with a moderation policy determined by SCGB members as required.
I shall be handing a letter to SCGB President and Chairman Sally Cartwright OBE tonight. For those who don't know her, she is the publishing director of Hello! magazine and therefore knows something about the importance of circulation and readership interests.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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David
Good luck this evening - look forward to hearing about any reaction tomorrow.
Lawrence
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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David, I know you have very strong and long-founded loyalties to the Club, as an institution, and I have only been a member for less than 6 months, but I am beginning to wonder if it is ever going to be the type of Club within which I will ever feel comfortable.
Those members of Council who have put their heads above the parapet and responded to our comments on the forum have all shown themselves to be out of touch and reactionary, and we clearly do not have the same view of the Club’s “raison d’etre”.
Mark Ogilvie’s recent statement that he does not agree that minutes of Council/AGM meetings should be available to members was really the final straw.
I guess you would suggest that it is therefore all the more important that we stay with the Club and attempt to bring about change from within, but I am getting the feeling more and more that this is how it has always been, and that resistance is futile. The Club may be a democratic organisation on paper, but in reality I sense that it (or its management at least) is nothing more than a self-perpetuating oligarchy.
Do you have any ideas as to how, realistically, we might be able to effect change?
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David, thank you for your efforts and the efforts of the other members. I have been a member for a short period. It was only partly the decision to exclude non-members from the forum that was my problem. My major issues was how it was doneie without warning or consultation. the suggestion by Neil (Council Member) that the consultation was taking place after the event through the member's only forum was nonsensical. Further, the actual value of the forum was reduced enormously in one move. The information that non-members contributed was no less appreciated nor useful simply because they did not have a SCGB membership card.
I doubt that I will be posting on the SCGB site again and have cancelled my Direct debit, although my membership should not lapse until November. they have certainly lost one member through their actions.
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It might have to involve a judicial review, the cost of which I do not know. One of the central problems exposed by this affair is the wholesale change brought about by the Memorandum and Articles of Association (which actually replaced much more benign 'club rules') instituted a few years ago by a tiny minority of members who voted, but who were n the dark because the the papers had not been distributed to them.
That was a pretty extraordinary turn of events. I'd love to know what a judge would make of it.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I guess the way forward for ski club members is to try and get themselves elected onto council. (I'm presuming it's a democratic process?) That way, change really can happen from within.
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David,
We had much the same problem at our Golf Club (owned by the members)
Apathy from the younger members who had other demands on their time and the "Blue rince brigade" who had nothing else to do.
Result
Out of touch management.
Example
"Shorts allowed before 6pm in the clubhouse but must be worn with Long hose or sports socks predominately white and covering the ankle."
With deckshoes??????????
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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From my legal experience, judicial review is an extremely costly business. It is also usually very time consuming. I really can't believe that the Council cannot detect the ill feeling they have generated.
Are they still going down the route that only a tiny number of the 27,000 or so members actually use the Forum, so it doesn't matter if we upset those who do?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Elizabeth, I'm sure you're right, but just how easy is that going to be? If we look at this situation dispassionately, we (the disaffacted members of SCGB) are tiny in number compared with the overall Club membership. I'm quite sure that the ruling elite have a few block votes up their sleeves - in my experience oligarchies like this always have ways and means to ensure their survival. Sorry for being so pessimistic - bad morning! 
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I don't know which route they're going down, Peter, but I'm pretty sure it has a gaping crevasse a few kilometres ahead. Let's hope the avalanche of complaints promotes some common sense.
Any other snow and skiing metaphors for this situation welcome.
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You know it makes sense.
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DG - good to have tracked you down. Was suffering withdrawal symptoms.
Picking up on the metaphor thread - - somebody in the SCGB has side-slipped or maybe even done a kick turn (remember them, anyone ?)
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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That snow joke!......Sorry 
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Poster: A snowHead
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| David Goldsmith wrote: |
I don't know which route they're going down, Peter, but I'm pretty sure it has a gaping crevasse a few kilometres ahead. Let's hope the avalanche of complaints promotes some common sense.
Any other snow and skiing metaphors for this situation welcome. |
They were as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or getting hit by a snowboarder or avalanche or something.
"Oh, bob, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student on a 50p-a-pint Apres ski night.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Has any of this dispute regarding the forum, and the wider isues of the SCGB been picked up by any other media?
Any budding Alistair Cambells out there?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Yes, I do believe Alastair Campbell has children. "What did you do in the war, Daddy?....."
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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To which he might reply "I spun the lies that were used to start it"
ALLEGEDLY
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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There has to be the argument that when a ‘club’ is being run on the premise that a fiscal profit is required from ALL it’s activities’ or the corollary that ‘the inmates are in charge of the asylum’, than perhaps it’s time to view the public reaction as a legitimate alternative.
As visually ugly as it is, this forum site may be a path way forward;
Rather than griping about the past, perhaps we should consider this as a route to the future?
John B.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I agree, John.
We must learn from the mistakes of the past, or else we are destined to repeat them.
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Masque. I don't find this website "visually ugly". It is elegant and functional, in the Bauhaus tradition.
As for your other comments, they are commendable, apart from the errant apostrophe in the first "it's".
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| David Goldsmith wrote: |
As for your other comments, they are commendable, apart from the errant apostrophe in the first "it's". |
Time for the grammar police to reappear, David?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Great minds appear to think alike 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Mea culpa, as you’re well aware I;m(sic) not a proof reader and tend to type from the hip. As for design, you seem to be going through a particularly random Gestalt gestation. Bauhaus! Careful David you’re wandering onto my turf.
Admin: It’s (got it right this time – but don’t count on it) not my prob. that I’m being directed onto the ‘test’ style sheet, please fix the readability issues there first.
John B.
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Admin,
I think it's only right that Suffolk pig farmers should go through the test site. We wouldn't want them mucking up the main entrance even if they do talk all posh like would we?
David,
If you think the Bauhaus DIY stores are "elegant and functional" http://www.bauhaus-ag.de/?cat=6 then I can only assume you haven't visited their stores in Vienna.
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You know it makes sense.
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That helmet would certainly appeal to a Fox.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Well having not gained anything of benefit over the last four years of membership (except a couple of free magazines...) I'm going to cancel my membership.
Anyone got any suggestions as to what I can spend me 50 notes on?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Aha! The Vienna sausage swallower rises to the occasion. I’ll have you know that most Suffolk pig farmers are (delete as required) Royalty – Titled – Obscenely rich by dint of the CAP – Wearing plastic pants and calling a Gloucester Old Spot “me missus”, all of the above?
I prefer to be vegetarian given those choices.
But we’re moving away from the point . . .
Is this now the ‘defacto’ SCGB?
And where does it go from here?
JB
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Phew! Such drama...and all online. Nice to have found you all again.
I think the SCGB has committed commercial suicide. As far as I know, most websites would be delighted to have the loyal attention of the ABC1s who frequented their board.
My best metaphor (but I'll think about it) is a ski resort taking all the lifts down because it encouraged people to go up the mountain.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Mark,
You could "Spend" your membership sponsoring me!
www.justgiving.com/wtfh
I'm off to Austria on 13th March to ski 24 peaks in 48 hours, to raise money for Scope - to help people with Cerebral Palsy.
Thanks
S
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Ian: there’s not a ‘pigger’ around round here that doesn’t have ‘feed’ crops on big acreages and his pigs on ‘set-aside’. Trust me, when a very local ‘yokel’ who’s ostensibly farming 50 farrowing sows can afford to buy his daughter a new Porsche Boxter for her 18th, there’s an imbalance in the system. Don’t get me wrong, there are many farmers in dire straights, there are also some that should be buried headfirst in a midden!
JB.
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ABC1 !!! thats the nicest thing anyone has called me in years. 
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Fox. As an enthusiastic sponsor of your heroic ski marathon, do I get to see a flag planted on each of these 'peaks', or do we read 'top lift station' for 'peak'?
I'll give you at least another tenner for 24 flag photos, especially if you're wearing a monkey suit.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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slightly soiled?
I'll take 24 photos if I have time.
Would the bases of my pistols do for flags?
(Bad idea, cause I'm planning to take my 3Vs)
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multiple post:
“The time has come - the Ski Club chat forums have become members only! The forums have really taken off this winter and there are over 60,000 messages that contain extremely valuable information about resorts, ski schools, websites, equipment, accommodation, driving to the Alps, family skiing and a lot of general chit-chat about skiing and snowboarding. This is a fantastic resource that we want to preserve.”
For what purpose?
Furthermore , in a public forum (and having read their terms and conditions), the poster (if not an employee) retains their copyright against commercial usage and would render any exploitation by the SCGB in breach of that. The SCGB is claiming a fiduciary benefit for your property!
I suggest that those who have posted to the SCGB forums, formally require the Ski Club of Great Britain to inform you of that value. The alternative would be a class action suit to recover that value.
‘There is a difference between making love and being screwed’
You could always ask them to scour the forums (current and archive) of all your contributions and to demand compliance.
JB (evil incarnate)
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FAQ
? Your profile has been updated to the 'pretty' one 
Grammar police time 
