Opinion Piece – Your Club Needs You!

Where Have All The Young Men Gone?

Anyone remember that song? Marlene Dietrich sang it originally I believe and it was sung by most other folk singers (Joan Baez, etc) in the 60s. The point being that if you remember it, you could just be a club secretary or chairman, treasurer or fishery officer.

Your Club Needs You!

Why? Because most of the people in those positions are old enough to remember that song and who Marlene Dietrich was. Young people who maybe won’t remember her are sadly missing from the organising teams of fishing clubs. I’m not saying in every case, but in the vast majority of cases.

We had a meeting the other night of our association, the representatives of 9 clubs being present and the average age must have been over 60 if it was a day, I felt quite young by comparison to some. Yet, open a newspaper and look through the situations vacant adverts and all you see is “Wanted, a young enterprising professional administration manager for forward thinking progressive blue chip company selling double glazing…” In other words, all the old codgers that spend a lot of their spare time looking after the interests of the younger anglers by managing their fishing venues needn’t apply as you don’t have the qualities they’re looking for.

What a shambolic state of affairs fishing is in? Even when I have been to the TFCC seminars, a quick glance around the 150 in the room tells you instantly that many of the delegates are probably drawing their pensions or about to (with the exception of Mike Heylin who is one of the youngest – he adds quickly). I make no secret of the fact that I was 60 this year, mind as sharp as a razor and I can remember lots of things, except what I had for dinner and where I left the car sometimes.

Yet, people like us in our age group are left to manage these ‘mini-businesses’ that together must be worth millions of pounds because the younger elements amongst you can’t be bothered to. So what happens when this generation snuff it, kick the bucket, turn their toes up? Will the next generation take over and be as competent (or incompetent?) or will one angling club after the other fold because no-one can be bothered to look after it?

I’ll give you an example, but without naming names if you don’t mind. One of our clubs enjoys fishing on a very private lake, part of a country club in beautiful grounds. The lake is about 3 acres and carp, tench, bream and pike galore provide the fishing enjoyment. They have 70 or so members, but many on the committee are now into their 70s and want to put their feet up a bit more. However, not one of the 70 will come forward and take over the running of the club.

It’s not a matter of “how is this allowed to happen” because if younger anglers are just not interested in the management of their clubs then there seems little you can do. Is it selfishness – “I just want to fish, not waste time serving on a stupid committee.”? Problems raising a family maybe and not having the time? Come on, I did the job several times whilst my kids were growing up. Maybe not having the confidence or education to be able to correspond with landowners and other institutions that will be necessary for the club to continue it’s business is your problem?

If the latter is the reason where then are these “young enterprising professional administration managers” that the recruitment people have no trouble finding? It can’t be that money is an issue can it, and that people won’t put themselves out now unless there’s a pay cheque involved? Surely the love of your sport and the satisfaction of running a good tightly knit club is sufficient reward in itself? Or it might be that it’s a thankless task performed for unappreciative members that couldn’t give a toss for ‘your’ club since there’ll be another one to join somewhere and if not then there’ll be a whole host of commercial waters they can fish.

Isn’t it a sad thought, that we body of men so proud of our heritage and our right to fish can’t be bothered to step forward into the shoes of previous officers of the club? In a golf club or even in the local rowing club, people are fighting at AGMs to stand for the presidency, the chairmanship, being the ‘Hon. Secretary’, Yet here we are in coarse angling, 11/2 million of us (estimated in England and Wales) and we can’t even scratch together a few willing people to organise our clubs.

So what is the answer? I’ve argued for a long time that there are too many small clubs and that the people running the better, more efficient and most profitable ones, would be better employed running clubs of ten times the size. The extra members and additional waters would only mean a little extra work and for that I believe the main people, secretary, treasurer, fisheries officer, should be paid. It’s the only way of making it work and maybe then, some young guns will then want to get involved.

An alternative is to have larger associations and allow them to manage and negotiate most waters. Member clubs would pay a bulk subscription to it based on the number of members in the club. This is the way we work in the TVAA, membership of a club is £ 10 irrespective of size (covers postages, etc) and then £ 3 (yes – that’s not a misprint) per member as a subscription. For that each club can offer 5 additional venues to their members, but what we don’t do is take waters from the member clubs, they keep their own as well.

It’s a part answer that means all clubs benefit from the extra waters at minimal cost and now, we’ve even negotiated an insurance to give public liability for all members in all member clubs on every water whether the associations or their own. We are also looking at including personal injury insurance too and if this goes ahead, some of the clubs will save on their own insurance premiums and it saves another administrative task. It sounding like an advertisement now, but you see what I mean if I say there’s power in numbers!

Whatever, we cannot continue as we have, our existing volunteers are getting older and won’t go on forever. I know of one chap, a lively wire if I may say so, who is president of his club and acting also as it’s secretary – and he is 76! He is NOT an old buffer as some might think and he has a vast amount of experience running clubs and managing fisheries, but at 76 he would much prefer to sit on the sidelines in his president’s capacity and watch others do the hard work.

So what about you? All you 20, 30 and 40 years olds, are you going to get involved? The most frightening step is volunteering, after that it’s a doddle and there will always be someone there to help out. There’s some notes from my previous articles and if you need any other advice from time to time feel free to contact me, but whatever you do don’t allow our clubs to simply disappear and then complain that fishing is all about commercials and profit these days. Because you let it happen!