marsie Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 2009 Tay Forest Challenge cancelled .Due to grief with forestry commission http://www.devon4x4.com/forum/2009-off-roa...2009-cancelled/ Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boothy Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 How grimm is that, Feel very sorry for all the folks that have put hours and hours fruitlessly organising it only to be outflanked by some lead necked pencil jockey who is on a mission to save the world and his own arse, in his eyes anyway, and he probably carries a hanky. and to all the lads and lasses who have spent days and days and endless amounts of money preparing motors, accomodation, transport, time of work and bribes to better halves (you know love of course I'll paper the hall and stairs first), bad luck. Hopefully common sense will prevail for next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsie Posted July 3, 2009 Author Share Posted July 3, 2009 Apparently one of the main culprits is the local recreation and tourism manager ,Lets hope he can sleep at night knowing that he single handedly cost his local businesses and charities many thousands of pounds .Lets hope his superiors see sense and get shut! Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted July 4, 2009 Share Posted July 4, 2009 Apparently one of the main culprits is the local recreation and tourism manager Well let's hope everyone who was going to be there writes to his bosses explaining just how much he's just cost the area - or perhaps to the local newspaper / evening news and let the locals decide what's in their best interests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_LLAMA4x4 Posted July 4, 2009 Share Posted July 4, 2009 Well let's hope everyone who was going to be there writes to his bosses explaining just how much he's just cost the area - or perhaps to the local newspaper / evening news and let the locals decide what's in their best interests. Agreed, they should be made aware...... but in the grand scheme of things I think we should remember that in the world of tourism anything we could take as a group to Scotland is a tiny weeny little drop that can be outdone by one week's take in a hotel from a salmon fisherman wanting to fish the Tay's famous pools. I think a time has come for 4x4 to be more pro-active in its PR exercises and accept that our current image and event format is unpopular with the outside world: Come and watch the people in Welshpool and their reatctions to different cars. These people ( on the high street at a weekend ) are made up of locals, Polish and a shed load of people from the Midlands and the Northwest who have caravans locally. When a rally car ( £2k Pug or £65k Evo ) goes past on a trailer ( daily occurrencce ) the general reaction is one of no interest at all or an excited 'rally Car' exclamation. When a ( offroad looking ) 4x4 goes past it is a no interest or ' carving up the scenery' type reaction. We have a poor public image and the magazines that appear on the same shelves as the mainstream public buy their magazines from feature vehicles and show pictures of everything the mass public dislike about us! We need a cleaner, more publicly accepted image or such problems with land etc. will never go away. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderzander Posted July 4, 2009 Share Posted July 4, 2009 what a good post that is! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsie Posted July 4, 2009 Author Share Posted July 4, 2009 I agree,maybe Andy and the rest of the TFC organisers(and other events) should make more noise about the charities that benefit.I wonder how many people outside the 4x4 fratenity know about the donations to charity that come from the Scotia landrover club??? Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
will_warne Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 Agreed, they should be made aware...... but in the grand scheme of things I think we should remember that in the world of tourism anything we could take as a group to Scotland is a tiny weeny little drop that can be outdone by one week's take in a hotel from a salmon fisherman wanting to fish the Tay's famous pools. I think a time has come for 4x4 to be more pro-active in its PR exercises and accept that our current image and event format is unpopular with the outside world: Come and watch the people in Welshpool and their reatctions to different cars. These people ( on the high street at a weekend ) are made up of locals, Polish and a shed load of people from the Midlands and the Northwest who have caravans locally. When a rally car ( £2k Pug or £65k Evo ) goes past on a trailer ( daily occurrencce ) the general reaction is one of no interest at all or an excited 'rally Car' exclamation. When a ( offroad looking ) 4x4 goes past it is a no interest or ' carving up the scenery' type reaction. We have a poor public image and the magazines that appear on the same shelves as the mainstream public buy their magazines from feature vehicles and show pictures of everything the mass public dislike about us! We need a cleaner, more publicly accepted image or such problems with land etc. will never go away. David David, I think you are totally correct. It will be hard work to change most people's perception of the sport but I think it is essential that we do. Personally I think Neil has done a superb job with the AWDC Challenge / Howling Wolf series as it has dramatically improved the quality of the vehicles competing which is the first step - well presented vehicles are good for the sport. The next thing is publicity. If the sport becomes more widely followed and is perceived as well run and sustainable then it will open doors to all sorts of land. We have to be open about the short term damage our sport can cause to some sites but show how, by managing the use of sites, we allow for ground to recover and actually show that is does recover. This is probably the biggest challenge we face but, if we are seen to be responsible, we should be able to overcome this. I think possibly having a proportion of the entry fee going towards carbon offset and / or forestry and wildlife protection schemes might be a good move..... Anyway, this is very sad for the sport. Let's just hope that something can be sorted for next year as I was looking forward to entering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy-T Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 Hi, Well we have made the BBC website and as usual the Forestry Commission are being economical with the truth!! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/taysid...ral/8144141.stm Andy Thomlinson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 I think that's an amazingly straight article for the BBC, usually they'd print a load of b*ll*cks from the greenies and drop your 2p's worth in the bin. I do wonder exactly what business it is of the forestry comission how you run your event - isn't that a bit like Silverstone telling everyone how to drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boothy Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 I suppose like or not, that the foresty comission are the caretakers of the forest and must have the ultimate say on how you use their premesis or the likes, The forest ultimately belongs to the people and the country but the comission are presently the guardians, sh*te I know but true. I still think its a load of pencil pushers and bean counters trying to cover their arses and not leave any risk whatsoever to themselves if anyone gets hurt. Sadly its the road we're going down, the risk assessment route, its part of my job to write method statements and risk assess, You'd never make yourself a cup of tea if you had to risk assess the potential to harm yourself, total b*****ks but thats the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 The other angle is that if they tell you how to run your event they then become liable if there's an accident. If they just hand you the keys to the gate they haven't had any involvement in the running and so are actually better off from a legal point of view. Of course they're also worried about all this eco-b*ll*cks, which is daft considering the state the forestry comission leave places in when they do a bit of logging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobbymogs Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 Of course they're also worried about all this eco-b*ll*cks, which is daft considering the state the forestry comission leave places in when they do a bit of logging. now theres a point which does pi$$ me right off...... where i used to live there was a great big forestry commission plot, it was part of the Network Q / Rally of Wales land and as it was so local it would be rude not to use the land for a bit of testing shall we say BUT have you seen how much oil and stuff these big logging machines loose? there was one machine which i remember dnt ask me the name of it but it looked like it held the tree while it was cut and then placed it on a pile, any way this thing had such a oil leak that it had drums of oil strapped to the back of it to save it coming back all the time and you could literally follow the machine not by the tracks it left but by the oil slick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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