A minor irritation gets less minor

OK, I've calmed down now.

No really, I'm fine. I might be in a bad mood for the rest of the day, but I no longer have the urge to commit violent crime towards whoever makes the decisions about who gets the use of the larger of our indoor venues, and who gets the short end of the stick.

You see, I had a phone call from the nice lady who looks after the hall bookings to say that we weren't going to be able to use the larger venue, and, instead, we were going to be shoehorned into the smaller hall.

I don't want to seem wholly ungrateful - it's great to be offered an alternative venue for when the larger venue is being used for other events which take precidence over a mere sports club's practice night. The venue is, as you've probably guessed, a secondary school, which I'm not going to name for obvious reasons, and they are bound to have events during the course of the year, which will require the use of their assembly hall, which we hire when they're not using it, and a smaller hall round the corner when they are.

They own both halls. They get to say who uses them, and when. I can cope with that concept. It's something that we, as a club, have operated under since before I was even a member. Fine. No problem. At all. 

It's all about communication. The school wants to have an event in the hall; they put it in the calendar; the nice lettings lady calls us, and we go where they have space for us. Give us plenty of notice, and we can let all our members know in advance, and if we get any calls from prospective members, we can say for definite where they're likely to find us. A month beforehand would be fabulous; even a week before would be great, so we can advise our members verbally at the club meeting prior to the venue change. A day or so beforehand is OK too, as we can put a notice on our website and email everyone to let them know.

However my patience is running out. This is the second time in two weeks that I've been rung up with less than nine hours until we're actually due to cross the threshold for our regular Wednesday night club shooting night. Just how are we meant to let all our club members and prospective members know in that timespan? And this happens with almost monotonous regularity, and I'm fairly sure it's losing us members fed up with being shoved from pillar to post at literally a moment's notice.

We could, of course, complain to the headmaster or someone in the Education Department. However, I have it on good authority that if we did, we'd lose the ability to shoot there altogether. It's a school. They don't need the money from the rent of the hall - it's secondary, if you'll excuse the pun, to their educational objectives. Probably not even secondary.

So if that's the case, why don't we just go elsewhere? Well, with everywhere else sensibly big enough to shoot safely under Local Authority control and geared towards clubs with a vast membership (like football clubs), renta prices just aren't sustainably affordable to minor clubs with smaller memberships such as ourselves.

However, I think it's time for a change, even if we have to raise our weekly 'target fee' slightly. We've almost reached 'critical mass' for sustainably renting the Sports Hall, and, with a word in the right ears, we might be able to make it even more affordable. With luck, we may be able to tempt back some previous members with a change of venue with all the bones of contention removed and, possibly, change of weeknight.

It's make or break. I hope we're doing the right thing...

Posted via web from Island Archers

A minor irritation gets less minor

OK, I've calmed down now.

No really, I'm fine. I might be in a bad mood for the rest of the day, but I no longer have the urge to commit violent crime towards whoever makes the decisions about who gets the use of the larger of our indoor venues, and who gets the short end of the stick.

You see, I had a phone call from the nice lady who looks after the hall bookings to say that we weren't going to be able to use the larger venue, and, instead, we were going to be shoehorned into the smaller hall.

I don't want to seem wholly ungrateful - it's great to be offered an alternative venue for when the larger venue is being used for other events which take precidence over a mere sports club's practice night. The venue is, as you've probably guessed, a secondary school, which I'm not going to name for obvious reasons, and they are bound to have events during the course of the year, which will require the use of their assembly hall, which we hire when they're not using it, and a smaller hall round the corner when they are.

They own both halls. They get to say who uses them, and when. I can cope with that concept. It's something that we, as a club, have operated under since before I was even a member. Fine. No problem. At all. 

It's all about communication. The school wants to have an event in the hall; they put it in the calendar; the nice lettings lady calls us, and we go where they have space for us. Give us plenty of notice, and we can let all our members know in advance, and if we get any calls from prospective members, we can say for definite where they're likely to find us. A month beforehand would be fabulous; even a week before would be great, so we can advise our members verbally at the club meeting prior to the venue change. A day or so beforehand is OK too, as we can put a notice on our website and email everyone to let them know.

However my patience is running out. This is the second time in two weeks that I've been rung up with less than nine hours until we're actually due to cross the threshold for our regular Wednesday night club shooting night. Just how are we meant to let all our club members and prospective members know in that timespan? And this happens with almost monotonous regularity, and I'm fairly sure it's losing us members fed up with being shoved from pillar to post at literally a moment's notice.

We could, of course, complain to the headmaster or someone in the Education Department. However, I have it on good authority that if we did, we'd lose the ability to shoot there altogether. It's a school. They don't need the money from the rent of the hall - it's secondary, if you'll excuse the pun, to their educational objectives. Probably not even secondary.

So if that's the case, why don't we just go elsewhere? Well, with everywhere else sensibly big enough to shoot safely under Local Authority control and geared towards clubs with a vast membership (like football clubs), renta prices just aren't sustainably affordable to minor clubs with smaller memberships such as ourselves.

However, I think it's time for a change, even if we have to raise our weekly 'target fee' slightly. We've almost reached 'critical mass' for sustainably renting the Sports Hall, and, with a word in the right ears, we might be able to make it even more affordable. With luck, we may be able to tempt back some previous members with a change of venue with all the bones of contention removed and, possibly, change of weeknight.

It's make or break. I hope we're doing the right thing...

Posted via web from Island Archers

Arrows long enough for the long arm of the law...

Well, it seems that the article we had on the back of the Stornoway Gazette publicising the LHSC Sports Festival archery event, and by extension, the club, seems to have created quite a lot of ripples in Isle of Lewis life.
First off, directly after the article was published, we had an enquiry from BBC Alba for doing an interview for their weekly sports programme. The only trouble is they wanted gaelic-speakers, and we're not overflowing with gaelic-speakers in the club, it seems. Hey ho!
And now, I've just had a call from the Club's secretary, Stuart, who after the usual pleasantries, said,"I've just had a call from the Procurator Fiscal's office..."
My blood froze.
For those of you who haven't got a clue what the Procurator Fiscal's office is, they're the Scottish equivalent to the Crown Prosecution Service. They are, as they say, THE LAW.
What had we done? What allegations had been made? Who'd shot someone with an arrow? Had the club or its members broken and laws, and where and when? How, after having made such positive strides just recently, were we to contain the PR nightmare?
It's not a guilty conscience, it's just that you tend to assume the worst.
"Don't worry," said Stuart," we've not done anything. They've got a corporate 'away day' sometime in May, and want to know whether we can do some archery with them."
Phew!
So having consulted the diary, I reckon we can help 'em out. Still a few things to sort out, like a weekday venue, and an archery leader or two who might be free during the working day to help coach any judges or clerks who might turn up. But it's good that we're getting the interest from quarters who, previously, would probably not have known that the archery club even existed on the island.
Just goes to show what a couple of posters in the local supermarkets and a picture on the back of the local rag can do!

Posted via web from Island Archers

Filler post

Well, having several re-directs through to this Blog, I had to write something to avoid disapointment!

More interesting snippets will inevitably follow...

Posted via web from Island Archers

The building of the Achmore harbour wall

I'm amused. Very amused. By a politician, no less.

But not because one of the electioneering local candidates has suddenly developed the stand-up skills of Eddie Izzard, or has come up with the perfect razor-sharp put-down one-liners worthy of one of the charismatic US political greats.

No - it's a gaffe, and it's a big one. It's a foot-shooting of immense proportions, and, as I recently twittered to a mate of mine, it's priceless - and for everything else there's Martercard. And I hope that the deposit has been put on Mastercard, because it's not coming back.

Now, I'm not usually one for political commentary, least of all during an election year where all the political parties seem to want to better each other with the inane drivel they come up with in order to con the electorate into putting them into office, only to renague on their never-meant pre-election promises, and go about what they wanted to do in the first place, which was to line their pockets with our money.

However, I couldn't pass up the opportunity, given recent comments to a local newspaper hack by the Conservative Party candidate for the Western Isles.

To give you a little background to the Western Isles political landscape, the seat has never, to my knowledge, been won by a Conservative candidate, to the extent that no-one wanted to represent the Tory Party in the forthcoming General Election. So a candidate was 'parachuted in' to fight the seat.

And it's obvious that even the most deluded bigwigs at Central Office don't think that they've got a snowball's chance in hell, given that their candidate, Sheena Norquay, a former researcher for Conservative MP Alex Johnson, is 22 years old, and hasn't yet graduated from St Andrew’s university, where she's reading for a Masters degree in International Studies.

Although the student candidate is alleged to have roots on the island, having 'spent many of her childhood holidays on Lewis' with her mother, and 'with most of her extended family living locally', the Aberdeenshire youngster, it seems, has yet to grasp which local issues matter to Lewisians, and which are just the locals making fun with politicians such as she.

Now I don't think of myself as the least bit 'a local', being an 'incomer' having merely lived here for six or seven years, but I know enough to know that landlocked Achmore, at about 1000ft, is the highest point on Lewis, and where the main terrestrial TV transmitter mast is sited,  and is also about as far from the sea as you can get on the island. It seems that it has long been a bit of a local wheeze to ask political candidates about the supposed state of Achmore pier to test their local knowledge, all the while sniggering into one's peat-blackened hand, and most have had the nouse to understand that they're having their leg pulled.

She recently told the local paper, the Stornoway Gazette, "...I would like to think I have a keen awareness of the political issues that really matter to communities across the Isles." But, when a local journalist telephoned her recently about her opinions on what she saw as the main priorities for the Western Isles were, she allegedly proffered that, bizarrely, 'developing the port of Achmore, and building a harbour wall' was top of her agenda.

However, to compound the issue, it seems that she didn't realise her mistake, and continued that fisheries were one of her main priorities, and that she supported the Achmore port redevlopment.

How the journalist kept his composure is testiment to his professionalism.

It was only when Ms Norquay was asked about the locaion of the harbour development that the penny must have dropped, and she 'had to rush off urgently to answer another phone call', and has been unavailable for comment over the phone ever since, although she has promised to answer written questions via email, it is alleged, doubtless giving someone who actually does have 'a keen awareness of the political issues that really matter to communities across the Isles' a chance to vet her answers before she digs herself into the hole any further.

So that's the Tories chances on Lewis scuppered for for yet another General Election, then. But you to have sympathise for the poor wee girl. Not because you share her political views, but because she was so up against it without a hope, and that she's just made a no-win situation worse. And yet, with attitudes towards politicians at an all-time low, following the seemingly endless MP's expenses saga, you have to marvel at her naivete at stepping into the political arena on an island where she hasn't got a 'scooby'. Perhaps she shouldn't have let her credulous ambition get in the way of the cold hard facts of local politics.

Posted via email from Toby's blog