Forum Future?

[Bogmonster]

This is a members page and should be voted on at the agm.

[PiesAreGood]

I'm an infrequent poster but regular reader. Losing the history of race, big round information will be a sad thing. I'll also miss reading Mr Brightside's comeback, Trav's racing exploits and being humbled by Mike T's epic mileage...

[mr brightside]

Ive just seen the post on the fellrunner page.I'm appalled at this decision. For me this is part of the history of fellrunning. Its as much a part of its history as its members. I'm disgusted and will be resigning as a member if this happens.
What right do they have to remove our history on a whim. At the very least it should all be made availble to thr members.

I've emailed the FRA chair, i urge you to do the same.

The way i see it nothing is guaranteed. We were told the forum would continue to be supported if it was without troublesome posts and moderators came forward, which they did, and this decision has been reneged on. I think there may be a hidden legal agenda here, in which the FRA is responsible for sentiment expressed on here, and the legal risk level has been advised to somebody as being unacceptable. Runners World have also recently closed their forum, so i think there may be some kind of legal/risk threshold lowering going on and all forums everywhere are viewed as a liability.

I'm confident this forum can continue, but it will need commercial sponsorship and adverts to offset the running and setup costs, and there is already a commitment from members to be moderators. It can undoubtedly continue, but the FRA are not now supporting it for some reason. 'Betrayed' is the word i used in my email to the Chair.

[mr brightside]

This is a members page and should be voted on at the agm.

The members need to make a motion for it somehow.

[ritsonvaljos]

Is the main problem why it's being considered for closing down that a small number of contributions are upsetting others? If so, there are ways and means to stop that. On the whole, it seems a positive thing.

[Witton Park]

Thank you Graham and it was largely due to many of your forum posts defending the FRA following the Brian Belfield inquest which prompted me to attend the 2015 AGM to offer my support. Of course I came away as Membership Secretary and next year will be my 10th and final year as a member of the Executive Committee. It amuses me how a small number of folk who are not even members of the FRA think it is clever to be spiteful to those who have invested a great deal of time and energy into the administration and management of the sport. The vast majority are hugely grateful as am I - thank you.

With regard to the future of this Forum, I have just completed an analysis of the posts during the last six months of which there have been 1810 of which 1229 were non-fell running and Down the Pub, leaving 581 in the fell running section. 145 of those or 8% of the total were in the Races category and regular posters are Llani, Travs, Anthony Kay and Matt Po who seem to be the most active remaining members of the Forum. Of course this is a tiny number of the 9000+ members of the FRA and it is now over two years since we published the fightback article in the Fellrunner and engaged a number of Forumites to try to promote use of the Forum.

At the end of the day it will not be my decision but I suspect that the current Chairman will not be investing any money into what is clearly a declining resource. I would support efforts to retain valuable information regarding races which is still of value to active fell runners.

If this Forum is closed to future posts then maybe we will see the creation of an English Hill Runners Forum in its place :-)

You didn't seem to want to expand, but as you quoted my comment I will while I still have a forum to do so.

"those who have invested a great deal of time and energy into the administration and management of the sport"

I want to focus on this part, because as someone who has been involved in several disciplines of "the sport" which is athletics, this displays to me (and anyone correct me if you like) a sort of parochial snobbery within some parts of the fell running community, which sees fell running as "the sport" separate from everything else.

It isn't. Not any more at least because it has attached itself to the national governing body of athletics and operates under UKA/IAAF rules and insurance.
UKA delegate the management of fell running to the FRA.

And volunteering for the FRA Committee is not the only way to "invest a great deal of time and energy into the administration and management of the sport" and I'm an example of that. There's plenty of us.


I've never been on the FRA Committee but just in terms of fell running I've been Lancashire AA Fell Secretary, hosted the Inter Counties Fell, supported two junior co-ordinators; Lecky and Duncan, hosted junior champs races with Jamie at the Dashers.
I've been the England representative for juniors on the UKA Mountain Running Advisory Group and hosted the UK Mountain Running Champs at the request of Sarah Rowell.
I've hosted approximately 15 fell race events, including some relays and I've also advised/supported other fell race organisers.

I've been an endurance coach for 15 years, promoted fell running within my group and club and brought through a number of junior national champions and winners of national vests at both England and GB level.

I've been on club committee, County AA Committee, 2 cross country leagues, Race Organiser of over 30 Cross Country races including Northern and English School Champs and I've also been involved with top road races, including an England 5K Championship and a I've been a track official and team manager for may teams in all disciplines.

I've also been a very ordinary runner who's declined to be at best now a potential sweeper

I've squeezed a lot in over the last 20 odd years, and I know there are others out there who have done more and for longer.

So take care when you do a job somewhere. Doing a much-needed job on a committee such as the FRA is commendable, the sport needs more who will do that, but it doesn't give one the right to sneer at others who you may know little about.

[mapper]

I used to post on here frequently and also obtain information about races / routes / results etc. However, with FB being the 'go to' medium in today's society I have hardly visited the forum in the last 3 or 4 years. So it's hardly surprising that it's soon going to be closed down, sad that it may be.
However, there is so much info on here which is categorised and easily retrieved (unlike FB) so it would be a shame to lose all that information. Let's hope the 'powers that be' will allow it to be saved somewhere for us to access.
So, as time moves on it is with some sadness that I say my last 'goodbye' to the forum.
Goodbye all - see you on FB!
Mapper
(Mark Nutter - Clayton-le-moors Harriers - for those who didn't know!)

[Mike T]

I've emailed the FRA chair, i urge you to do the same.

The way i see it nothing is guaranteed. We were told the forum would continue to be supported if it was without troublesome posts and moderators came forward, which they did, and this decision has been reneged on. I think there may be a hidden legal agenda here, in which the FRA is responsible for sentiment expressed on here, and the legal risk level has been advised to somebody as being unacceptable. Runners World have also recently closed their forum, so i think there may be some kind of legal/risk threshold lowering going on and all forums everywhere are viewed as a liability.

I'm confident this forum can continue, but it will need commercial sponsorship and adverts to offset the running and setup costs, and there is already a commitment from members to be moderators. It can undoubtedly continue, but the FRA are not now supporting it for some reason. 'Betrayed' is the word i used in my email to the Chair.

Email sent.

[Mike T]

Email sent.

Reply received.

It would seem it is a fait accompli, and that the only decision to be made is which bits to keep and which bits to throw away.

All rather sad. I have had some good times on here, and learnt a lot, even from people with whom I disagreed on various issues.

[Stanley]

It is a shame that all decent info on the Forum will potentially be lost but let’s face it why would the FRA want to continue support of this forum, I’ve been around here for quite a while, (I was Daletownrunner before I lost my original log in) a few years ago people did actually respond to ‘others’ who posted, I’ve noticed recently that most posts are ignored unless they’re posted by the ‘select few’ (not all posts, thanks Travs and Charmian 🙂) add to this some genuinely hideous divisive posts it’s clear that the FRA wouldn’t want to support this, this forum could be the first place a potential new fellrunner visits, some recent posts don’t make this a welcoming place 😒