Features and Benefits
The concept of a united body to represent anglers is not new, but with your support it could become a reality. We are working hard to create a single, professional, modern organisation which brings together the best attributes and achievements of the parent organisations and will represent ALL anglers in the UK. The new body will fight the many threats to our sport, including: pollution, over abstraction, fish disease, poaching, commercial overfishing, predation and competition from others’ interests. It will offer an attractive membership package to individual anglers and provide the best services to its member clubs, fisheries and riparian owners. Some of the things the new organisation will do for you are listed below. We’d like to hear what you think about these ideas and any other things you would like to see included on the list.
Strength in Numbers
- More Influence – A single unified body representing and catering for the requirements of all anglers will make it seriously difficult for Government, the Environment Agency, Sea Fisheries Committees and other national and regional public bodies to ignore our needs and aspirations.
- Countering Negative Publicity – This body will be best placed to counter and quickly respond to any criticisms and anti-angling propaganda.
- Eliminating Uncertainty – At present, the sheer number of separate organisations, each aiming to provide a range of services to their sector, gives rise to confusion and uncertainty both within and outwith their remit as to who does what, and which organisation is the best one to support. Unification would eliminate those uncertainties by providing a one-stop-shop for representation of all angling interests.
- Eliminating Duplication – Again, with several organisations all competing with each other to satisfy the anglers in their particular branch of the sport, it is inevitable that there is a costly duplication of effort. . A unified body will eliminate this and so provide anglers with better value for their money.
- Sustainability and Growth – The proposed new organisation is best placed to demand better funding from government and ensure proper governance. Funds must be channelled to the ’sharp end’ and not lost in spurious, non productive ventures. Angling contributes at least £3 billion to the economy and sustains thousands of jobs: we need a professional PR operation to ensure that government and others understand just how important angling is to the economy, and what they must do to ensure growth and sustainability.
- Local Representation and Involvement - The unified body will be able to bring together the many individuals and organisations which work for angling at a local level into regional structures which will help anglers overcome some of the specific local problems they face, while at the same time providing an efficient mechanism to flag up regional issues at a national level.
Environmental Protection
- Guarding our Fisheries – Despite all the environmental legislation and government promises*, our nation’s fisheries continue to be threatened by pollution, over-abstraction, land drainage, fish disease, excessive commercial exploitation and competition from many quarters. Our absolute objective is that a natural environment supporting healthy fish stocks is also the central objective for the Government and its agencies, and that they can expect the strongest opposition should they shirk these duties.
- Anglers – The Key Stakeholders. Anglers have long been recognised as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the water environment and yet they have never had an effective, single national voice. Angling and the fisheries on which it depends have been marginalised in determining policies on abstraction, access, conservation, the Water Framework Directive and water recreational strategies. A unified body will clearly communicate anglers’ views and will stop the government using ‘divide and rule’ tactics.
*e.g. Where is our Fisheries Legislation?
Membership Services
- Legal Services – Sooner or later it is inevitable that an individual, club(s) or fisheries will run into problems for which there will be a need for affordable, professional help or advice. This could range from simple disagreements between an individual and his/her club, disputes over tenancy arrangements or access, to catastrophic pollution events. Consolidation of the separate legal services currently available through the different angling bodies, will create a one-stop-shop staffed by qualified professionals. They will respond quickly and positively to all your calls for help or advice and the service will be free to all members.
- Insurance – Currently, there is a diverse range of insurance schemes offered by several insurance brokers to anglers, clubs and fisheries, through the current plethora of angling groups. The centralised body would be able to negotiate top rates of discount for its members. It would also be possible to tailor policies to individual requirements.
- Member benefits – The new body will have much greater buying power and the ability to negotiate discounts for a wide range of other products and services which will give better value for members’ subscriptions.
- Information – With one organisation we will be able to support a professional marketing and PR department that maintains an up-to-the-minute website and keeps you up to date with regular magazines and e-mail updates on a wide range of topics and issues relevant to the sport.
Sports Development
Despite its superior numbers, over the past 30 years angling has lost its dominant mass-market appeal. Angling clubs are struggling to maintain membership numbers and many long-established clubs have ceased to exist because their income was insufficient to pay the rents for the fisheries that they leased for many years. Yet, over this same period, other sports have grown and flourished. The progress already made by the Angling Development Board in re-connecting angling to the sporting networks has shown the way forward in this respect. Unification would enable us to embrace and support the ADB to ensure that advice and assistance is available to clubs, branches and fisheries at a regional level in a way that enhances their efforts to put angling back at the centre of their local communities.