BSPL AGM

[*JJ]

23 hours ago, Mimmo said:

Nothing to do with this topic, but is anybody else getting adverts popping up between postings.  

No, but I use Firefox with an adblocker: works like a charm!

[steve roberts]

3 minutes ago, *JJ said:

No, but I use Firefox with an adblocker: works like a charm!

I use Firefox...where do I access the adblocker please as they're driving me mad!

[ONTWOMINUTES]

British speedway needs to concrete on itself instead of being dictated to by other countries , It's never going to complete financially with poland etc . Like is being said it's a good opportunity to reset and make everything run at less cost , which would then enable lower admission prices . I'm sure clubs could attract bigger crowds and recoup finances steadily. Any rider out pricing themselves would like any business have to be sensible or be left without employment. 

[mikebv]

46 minutes ago, ONTWOMINUTES said:

British speedway needs to concrete on itself instead of being dictated to by other countries , It's never going to complete financially with poland etc . Like is being said it's a good opportunity to reset and make everything run at less cost , which would then enable lower admission prices . I'm sure clubs could attract bigger crowds and recoup finances steadily. Any rider out pricing themselves would like any business have to be sensible or be left without employment. 

Well said..

Basic Business Practice..

An example I can give where the UK's business plan was incredibly flawed was when the Aces had Matej Zagar..

The Slovenian Championships were ran over several Finals so Matej would miss several Aces meetings to attend..

(Coincidentally they seemed to always be meetings away from home, and usually on tracks he didnt like so they could bring a track specialist guest in!! Who mentioned credibility?) Anyway I digress....

If my shop sold Slovenian goods and I paid "top dollar" for them, but they were my best selling products, I would be pleased to carry on selling them as "it worked for me"..

However, if my Slovenian suppliers told me that for several weeks of the year they were concentrating on other markets, and couldn't supply me, thus meaning I couldn't open my shop, thus pissing my customers off who subsequently went elsewhere, I would eventually have to face the facts that they had a far too unhealthy impact on my business, and source suppliers who could guarantee supply every single week..

Now, these products may be of inferior quality, but would still be 'pretty decent', and would be cheaper to purchase for me and therefore my customers. And may even be deemed better value for money overall with a better margin for me..

With obviously the biggest positive being that my customers could attend regularly due to being confident that (a) I was actually open and (b) that they could get what they wanted each time..

A Speedway meeting full of lads from the UK is as exciting as any other Speedway meeting using "international" riders..

The No1 aim of the BSPL, way, way above any other aims, has to be to make GB the best Speedway team in the World, as that is the one guaranteed way to increase the public profile of the Sport through wider media coverage..

Domestic Speedway can then subsequently feed off this awareness and reflect in its global success..

However to do this means UK riders getting scores of meetings to improve their capabilities, and the chances to earn the money needed to compete at the very top level..

Therefore, let's just create that opportunity for them...

Edited January 14, 2021 by mikebv

[Humphrey Appleby]

2 minutes ago, mikebv said:

However, if my Slovenian suppliers told me that for several weeks of the year they were concentrating on other markets, and couldn't supply me, thus meaning I couldn't open my shop, thus pissing my customers off who subsequently went elsewhere, I would eventually have to face the facts that they had a far too unhealthy impact on my business, and source suppliers who could guarantee supply every single week..

Now, these products may be of inferior quality, but would still be 'pretty decent', and would be cheaper to purchase for me and therefore my customers. And may even be deemed better value for money overall with a better margin for me..

It only works up to a point.

If you're Fortnum and Mason and your customers expect a certain quality for the prices you charge, moving to cheaper and likely lower quality products will eventually turn you into Aldi. Nothing wrong with that if your clientele is prepared to accept that, or if you develop a different clientele. But still charging Fortnum and Mason prices for Aldi products would be surefire way of going out of business. 

[Fromafar]

14 hours ago, phillwhitewasmad said:

Thing is regardless of our team affiliation we all know the sport is in disarray, so why not use the pandemic , brexit and rider availability as the once in a lifetime chance to press the reset button. Surely it is the opportunity the sport so badly needs for a period of time they have to put personal differences aside and vote for the good of the sport and not what's good personally 

What reset button.None on their keyboard I’m afraid.Everything’s fine.

[Tinker]

There seems to be alot of criticism on here as regards the people running Speedway in this country. At this moment in time I think we have to be thankful that there are these individuals who are prepared to put the time and effort in for little reward and a great deal of slagging off! If they weren't doing it I'd really like to know who would be prepared to take on their job. I certainly wouldn't want to be at the "top end" with all the decision making to do in these very uncertain times where things seem to change on a daily basis. So good luck to them!

[Fromafar]

27 minutes ago, Humphrey Appleby said:

It only works up to a point.

If you're Fortnum and Mason and your customers expect a certain quality for the prices you charge, moving to cheaper and likely lower quality products will eventually turn you into Aldi. Nothing wrong with that if your clientele is prepared to accept that, or if you develop a different clientele. But still charging Fortnum and Mason prices for Aldi products would be surefire way of going out of business. 

You have a good point.It has also been proved the Aldi andLidl attract the clientele because their price is right.Speedway needs to take note.

[Humphrey Appleby]

13 hours ago, martinmauger said:

Comsidering what may be an obvious question; bearing in mind my interest in football is zip, the only grounds I've visited are Shielfield Park, The Shay, Owlerton (think they staged football for a time?) (original) Wembley and Hull's KCOM Stadium (only as part of a university course).  So: how does it work for the football divisions / leagues with presumably the F.A. creating, enforcing and if necessary altering the rules of the game for the clubs which are (presumably) all separate businesses ? 

It's not exactly comparable.

The actual rules of playing the sport are determined by IFAB, which is in effect FIFA these days despite the Home Nations representation. Unlike the BSPA, the FA generally doesn't get involved in tinkering with the playing rules, beyond stuff like determining the number of substitutes within those rules. The BSPA has a much broader scope to tinker with heat formats, team make-ups, and racing rules. 

The actual running of the leagues is largely determined by the league memberships and their boards/committees, although the FA (or County FAs for lower levels) does I think have to review and approve the constitutions and you can appeal decisions to them. The FA (and County FAs) also handles in-competition disciplinary issues, such as player and manager conduct. 

Of course, the FA isn't a complete ivory tower - even if it behaves like one sometimes. It's owned by a couple of hundred of the most senior clubs along with the County FAs, with the professional clubs (who obviously directly and indirectly generate most of the FA's income) having significant influence.

However, the important point is that the competition structures and operational rules and regulations are generally decided by the clubs only once-per-year at most, with the day-to-day operational issues delegated to league CEOs (who are usually employees) and judicial issues handled by various parts of the FA. There will be some exceptions in that leagues in the National League System have limitations with respect to their formats and memberships, and also agree to apply common regulations with respect to ground standards for example. These are defined by the FA through various consultative processes.

In general though, the English and to a large extent Scottish football structures are well established (although Scotland has recently been going through a big shake-up in non-league football) and don't change much from year-to-year. When I was on a league board, I think we were basically still using the same rulebook from 1960s, and I don't think the County FA was much different. There wasn't actually much for us to decide on a week-to-week basis during the season. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Humphrey Appleby

[mikebv]

32 minutes ago, Humphrey Appleby said:

It only works up to a point.

If you're Fortnum and Mason and your customers expect a certain quality for the prices you charge, moving to cheaper and likely lower quality products will eventually turn you into Aldi. Nothing wrong with that if your clientele is prepared to accept that, or if you develop a different clientele. But still charging Fortnum and Mason prices for Aldi products would be surefire way of going out of business. 

I think our Fortnum and Mason range left these shores a long time ago..

Get what you say 100%, but if ever there was a unique time to make 'real change', it is now..

Speedway followers will never have so much understanding and goodwill towards the promoters, and will accept a fair amount of radical change I would think given the difficulties we all know they face..

Going back to the examples re running a business model,  the bottom line is that if your product availability, or your employee availabilty,  means you have inconsistent, customer confusing openng times, or even worse cant even open at all when your customers want you to, then you have serious issues to overcome if you want to be successful.. 

No point therefore self inflicting these problems....

Especially now..

[uk_martin]

1 hour ago, Fromafar said:

You have a good point.It has also been proved the Aldi andLidl attract the clientele because their price is right.Speedway needs to take note.

Aldi and Lidl provide quality products at affordable prices. That's why they succeed. That's the real lesson to be learned. It has to be good value, just being cheap isn't good enough.

[uk_martin]

13 hours ago, cinderfella said:

A good management/admin team would be capable of bringing sponsorship money into the sport and their salaries could be paid from that.

We can't get rid of the clowns running the sport as it is but anyone brought in would have a proven track (no pun intended) record. There have been various names of folk who have improved other sports bandied about in the past.

Perhaps if you should get real if you think British Speedway is being managed properly. British Speedway was where every rider once wanted to ride but even the top British riders don't want to ride in their own national leagues these days and our sport is being dictated to by another country.

None of that answers any of the specific questions that I asked.

No-one is pretending that the situation is anything other than pathetic. I'm one of the BSPZzzz's biggest critics. But the old chestnut about an independent authority isn't the answer to the problem. And deep down you know it isn't too, else you'd have the answers to some of the basic problems that I outlined to that idea. Let's not confuse "doing something" with "making the situation better".

[therefused]

Have they decided what 4 helmet colours to use this season yet?

[greyhoundp]

Whatever the AGM decides its still in the hands of Covid, yes maybe the season can start in May or maynot, but the fact remains that so long as we have the various tiers of Covid how can any League run ? one week you may be in tier 2 so okay to ride, then there may be an outbreak and your moved into tier 3 and not able to ride, then think of the riders that are none British can they afford to commit to all their expense without knowing they are going to have a regular income ?, the British riders have the same issue but without the airfares, they all have mouths to feed and bills to pay.

Whilst i like the idea of one big League what are the prospects of it being completed ?, maybe it would be better under the current circumstances to go the opposite way and have mini leagues, then Covid permitting the league winners could have play offs, i really dont know im just thinking out loud, but would riders be able to remain competitive with minimal meetings ie maintain machinery versus food on the table ?.

I think 2021 needs to be treated as a one off.

Edited January 14, 2021 by greyhoundp

[The Cheese]

4 hours ago, steve roberts said:

I use Firefox...where do I access the adblocker please as they're driving me mad!

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

That's what I used on Firefox, never had a problem with adverts

[steve roberts]

44 minutes ago, The Cheese said:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

That's what I used on Firefox, never had a problem with adverts

Thanks! Works a treat!

Edited January 14, 2021 by steve roberts

[Gambo]

55 minutes ago, The Cheese said:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

That's what I used on Firefox, never had a problem with adverts

Thanks from me too.

Might just make Firefox my default browser. 

[Gambo]

Just added it to Microsoft Edge too.

[screm]

3 hours ago, therefused said:

Have they decided what 4 helmet colours to use this season yet?

My source tells they spent most of the morning debating whether it was plain digestives or the chocolate ones for morning coffee.

[steve roberts]

5 minutes ago, screm said:

My source tells they spent most of the morning debating whether it was plain digestives or the chocolate ones for morning coffee.

I'd heard this story also...