inform, inspire and energise reach its full potential two-way flow of information strategic framework implementation move forward interactive discuss and review impact increase participation encourage a two-way flow of information

There you go. Thats all the important bits from the website. Saved you £45.
‘two-way flow of information’ is definately my favoutite bit. 🙄

That BS up there reads like plagiarism of my exceedingly rubbish dissertation from a few years ago.

…it’s going to boil down to the Tourism flag – no matter how much you dress it up, the suggested course of actions will centre round some tourism angle

That’s not really a problem. Especially in the current economic climate any spend or resource is going to have to be justified by either saving money or generating incremental revenue. If it benefits tourism it will benefit the general and local biking communities as well. The disconcerting point is that on the conference forum I don’t see that much about strong engagement with the local business communities. Unfortunately it’s classic “we know best and we are going into our huddle to decide what you need” mentality.

The main reason I, and I suspect many others, don’t get more involved in this sort of initiative is because we come from the business environment where fast decision making, aggressive commitments, ensuring actions happen on time, and getting buy in from all parties is a way of life. I have been really frustrated when being part of a Parish Council, a local biking group etc at lack of clarity, ambition and progress. Winds me up so tend to steer clear, and unfortunately this Scottish MTB stuff smacks of the same kind of paralysis. I hope it isn’t, but the signs are not good

lol @bedmaker.

The main reason I, and I suspect many others, don’t get more involved in this sort of initiative is because we come from the business environment where fast decision making, aggressive commitments, ensuring actions happen on time, and getting buy in from all parties is a way of life.

quite. This was a major factor in CVDG getting so pissed off with the way things were working. These guys plan their careers around single projects and we weren’t prepared to wait two years for 500m of blue trail. I’m sure we’ll get the usual round of comments from the same folks on here about egos and personalities etc but fundamentally we were a confident, articulate group of people who were prepared to get on and make something happen, effectively challenging the FC to behave more like people in the “real” world.

CVDG?

Carton Valley Development Group

mountain biking community to be involved in the process of developing mountain biking and seeing this popular activity reach its full potential

i.e. money making…

The level of involvement they want from the ‘average’ mountain biker is: Once we’ve built all these trails (funded by the public purse wherever we can) make sure you come along and use them…

i.e. money making…

The level of involvement they want from the ‘average’ mountain biker is: Once we’ve built all these trails (funded by the public purse wherever we can) make sure you come along and use them…

Not even that…just make sure you come along and stick some money behind the counter…you don’t have to use them, just spend the cash…

I’m not knocking the riding on offer in Scotland…it’s brilliantly awesome…but the people in the power seats have had a real disengagement with they want to develop and do compared to the average joe public who rides their bike.

The CVDG failure did leave quite a few folk bitter and confused didn’t it 🙄

CVDG didn’t fail geoffj. The Forestry Commission failed their partners – of which CVDG were only one.

Bitter? Yes, undoubtedly. Confused? I don’t think so…

CVDG didn’t fail geoffj. The Forestry Commission failed their partners – of which CVDG were only one.

Perhaps, but then again, given some of the personalities and egos involved on both sides, that may be a simplistic view of things.

Maybe someone could have an indepndent and objective look at what went wrong and document the reasons so that others could learn the lessons from the mistakes made?

Whatever, one failed enterprise, shouldn’t stop others having ago.

Whatever, one failed enterprise, shouldn’t stop others having ago.

But it wasn’t just one and there won’t be any new ones on FC land, as per Mike Russell.

There’s no irony in the fact that a certain organization is such a big player in the Scottish MTB Development Consortium but won’t allow new development on the land they look after for us. None at all….

Does anyone know how many developments there were at the time of the first conference and how many there are now?

But its not just about building new trails on FC-owned land.

But its not just about building new trails on FC-owned land.

No it’s not but the organisation that is such a big player in a development consortium has stopped all development on their patch. There’s a bit of irony there.

It’s about a series of issues, most of which have been talked about at length, surveyed, analysed, talked about again, surveyed again and so on by the parties involved with minimal action having been taken other than the creating of this SMBDC, an opportunity for more talk, more conferences, more surveys…..

Off the top of my head, the only organisation that has made any progress at all has been Scottish Cycling, regarding grass roots racing and even then things aren’t perfect.

Geoff, what did you think of the 2007 conference, the discussions there etc and the progress (or lack of) since?

Geoff, what did you think of the 2007 conference, the discussions there etc and the progress (or lack of) since?

As an academic exercise, the conference was well run. The delay between the conference and the paperwork which came out was pretty shocking, and the framework itself is at best non-committal.

BUT, I honestly believe that the work Graham Maclean is putting in around setting up local clusters is worth supporting. It isn’t going to be lead by FC and it probably, wont lead to any new large-scale development on FC land, but it could make some difference. It’s a bit like riding. If you concentrate too much on obstacles that make you crash then you will. You have to keep your head up and keep looking forward, beyond the obstacle.

>Perhaps, but then again, given some of the personalities and egos involved on both sides, that may be a simplistic view of things. <

No offence geoffj but that’s precisely the type of pat response that is taking a simplistic view of things…

>Maybe someone could have an indepndent and objective look at what went wrong<

Well, most of the factual information is up on the CVDG website so you could start by trawling through that. I guess I’d be very surprised if your sole conclusion was that it was an ‘ego problem on both sides.’ Whilst you’re at it, do a Google on ‘Scottish Public Service Ombudsman’ and you’ll soon realise why nobody has been called to account. As sure as night follows day, the same old mistakes are going to be made…

>Whatever, one failed enterprise, shouldn’t stop others having ago<

In any other situation the answer might be yes but Grant’s now raised one of the key issues: the same FC management team were overseeing numerous projects – same finger on the trigger. Also, that would be exactly the same management team that remain in post ergo the usual supects pulling the strings / trigger with their partners at the SMBDC gig. If (and it’s a very big if) THAT problem could be tackled at source then you might be able to start to tackle some of the shortcomings of the SMBDC itself…

So ‘the point,’ if it’s not too simplistic for you, is:

1. In the real economy we fire those who are dishonest and or incompetent.

2. If one of Scotlands most savvy politicians (the SNP’s Mikey Russell aka ‘The Fixer’)couldn’t or wouldn’t sort that shower out then what chance for a handful of poor innocents shelling out £45 of their hard earned, giving up a day of work and thinking they are doing their bit for Scottish mtb?

3. With one notable exception, the same key Civil Servants (and that’s not just inside FCS) are still in post and pulling the strings.

4. It’s absolutely no coincidence the same faces pop up on these threads time and time again(and no, they are not all CVDG.) They have all been there, done it and are warning people not to waste their time.

In summary, there are folk on here that know stuff that would make your toes curl but even they don’t have a simple answer to the problems above -aside from a recognition that certain key players are exerting an unhealthy amount of power and influence.

Also, seems to me that the majority of folk on here are far more concerned with an arms race for kit than setting up a grass roots org to look after the mtb communities interests? There was an attempt by some guys on the now defunct MTB Scotland website (apologies if that’s incorrect I know there is more than one) to put together a body. Everyone huffed and puffed about the same old problems – about how unrepresentative IMBA and CTC were but in the end it died a death through lack of popular support.

Is there no defining ethos in the Scottish mtb community – is that the problem?

If you’re reading this Pete – thanks for the quote 😉

[/quote]No offence geoffj but that’s precisely the type of pat response that is taking a simplistic view of things…

No offence taken. That section of the CVDG website does read a little bit like the diary of a petulant teenager though…..and for that reason I’m out.

You Jocks make me sad. You’re so much better organised up there than we are in England. If we could get this kind of thing going in Englsnd, and have a much better contact with government we’d get a much better crack of the whip,

C

Is there no defining ethos in the Scottish mtb community – is that the problem?

It would appear so. Its not really a community tho is it? People MTBing in Scotland are a very diverse group with diverse wants and needs – and very few of them are interested in being involved with promoting and organising stuff.

Having said that I don’t see the situation as bad as some do – I see the fantastic facilities we have and see my cup is more than half full

>does read a little bit like the diary of a petulant teenager<

Sounds eerily familiar 😉

The old FC ploy of characterising them as a ‘small group’ of bolshie radicals (activists as Russell put it)who threw their toys out the pram because they didnt get their own way. Classic.

Which leads back to your own point geoffj. CVDG, Blairadam et al were wiped out but did FC and Co learn from the klusterfcuk they’d made of proceedings? Were they called to account for their actions and inactions? Of course not, they are unelected / answerable only to the transient politicians they play like a fiddle. And let’s not forget – they did nothing wrong after all 😉

Returning to the OP. What they’ve done with this SMBDC malarky is to add more layers of impenetrable bureaucracy in an effort to protect themselves from enthusiastic amateurs. SC have walked into it with their eyes closed, CTC and IMBA have moved to fill the void which really could (should?)have been represented by an indigeneous Scottish mtb org for ordinary riders and it appears that few see a need for one anyway. We are too diverse, we have greast access rights and we can all drive to these shiny mtb Trailcentres in our Audis 😉 It does appear we’ve got the controlling bodies we deserve.

And as articulated in some of the posts above, most of the grass roots punters who would be prepared to contribute just see instantly straight through their BS and switch off completely.

That section of the CVDG website does read a little bit like the diary of a petulant teenager though

It probably does Geoff, but we decided to put everything up so folk could see the picture warts and all. Apart from the redaction of personal data and the filtering of some of the superfluous emails then what you see is what happened.

We may well look like ego’s or personalities but we were comprehensively lied to on several occasions and i think they thought we buttoned up the back sometimes. Spending half a decade and hundreds of your own money trying to make something good happen, just for your major partners to stab you in the back, is unforgivable.

I’m not trying to deter people from getting involved, far from it. i just want people to enter into these things with their eyes wide open, because the puppet masters who shafted the CVDG project and others are still very much involved and leopards dont change their spots.

Major partner…the Councils were still backing the plans…as was Scottish Water…The FC were the only ones causing the issues (and the other partners also let them know their thoughts so it wasn’t just CVDG who felt betrayed by it all).

And as articulated in some of the posts above, most of the grass roots punters who would be prepared to contribute just see instantly straight through their BS and switch off completely.

Got it in one, thats me and most of the people I ride with 🙄

I was actually in Wales with the Yanks(2001,Bluementhall, Klien etc)from IMBA the day Daffyd Davis MBE and other FC parties had a meeting to set up IMBA, decided there and then not to bother joining 😐