Hi

I've been accused of negativity towards the GAGB and to a certain extent that is true.

So, to balance that a bit, I thought I'd give you guys some suggestions.

One of things that strikes me most about the GAGB is how close it's aims and issues are with two other organisations, the BMC and BCU. Admittedly both these organisations have been around a lot longer than the GAGB. However, the issues for all are very similar. Non canoists will not be aware that you cannot just paddle down a river. In fact there is no right of access to any river and the river is owned by the landowners on either side. Furthermore the access to rivers that you can canoe on needs to be negociated. So here is an organisation used to dealing with many small landowners.

The BMC has similar issues. They negociate access to crags for climbing, they champion walking access, etc. Can you see the similarity here.

I've been a member of both of these orgaisations over the years and there is a big difference in the approaches these organisations take compared to the GAGB. These organisations activily take the fight to the government, to the landowners, (and they have a lot more landowners to deal with if you think of just a single river), and they interact with their members more. They also have various ways of getting non members to join.

At this stage the GAGB couldn't possibly hope to work at the same level as either of these organisations. You don't have the time, the money, or the backing of the majority of cachers. But I'm gessing that'll change over time.

The GAGB can however, do something about attracting more members and interacting better with those it currently has. None of this has to cost great sums of money.

The first rule of any website is that it must have a reason to attract people in and a reason to make them return regularly. Very little has changed on the GAGB website from the very beginning. It is static. Even the forums see little action between the occassional flare up generated by some of us antagonists. Non GAGB folk use their own local forums or just don't use them at all. What need do they have of the GAGB ones? The biggest threads on this site are the word games. I'm not aware of and have never gone looking for a forum on either the BMC or BCU. That isn't what I look for from those organisations.

Some suggestions for you. Competitions, and I don't mean forum based stuff. Run an annual championship based around caching. Reviews of some of the gear we all use. Both techie and outdoor clothing. Information. We all use the outdoors in this game. Where are the countryside code, the cRow information, the does and don'ts of the countryside? where are the regular updates on changes to laws and other info? Hiding everything in a forum just makes it all drift down the pile or end up with a pile of stickys at the top. Proper articles written with care from the more amusing authors on this site can be displayed better. They also don't need a string of comment below them degrading into petty arguements. Leave that for the forums.

Webmasters, if you use a proper CMS tool then individuals can be given access to submit artcles while others publish them. The site becomes far more dynamic and interesting. A free one is joomla. It takes minutes to set up and offers loads of plugins for extending it.

Don't just announce things on your forums and the other forums. You are just repeating the same information to the same folk and once again burying it in the forums. I never read the GAGB thread on GC so stuff would pass me by.

While building a GAGB membership database, add a flag for a newslatter and get the email address. Send out a properly written newslatter regularly. Don't hang yourself with a monthly one, give yourselves time to produce it. Dish the work out to others with the skills and time. Set it out properly, not just a load of email text but perhaps html or pdf so it has some readability to it.

Try and find ways of getting it out to none members, you might suck a few in.

And finally, try to come across more as an organisation that is fighting for cachers causes and providing a wider range of services than a simple agreement database, that few bother to read, and a set of rules. Your rules and guidelines have a place but so does much more.

As you get more members then so your oppotunities for persuading companies into member discounts increase. The kit we use is sold in walking shops. They ALL give discounts to one organisation or another. With a decent membership count behind you, so could you.

Hope this helps. Just a view from a non member. Let's face it, if you can win me over you've cracked it


Kev