SACS. What do they support in England?, Can't find any association with vermin control

[Foxgun Tom 75]

Below is a reply Ian Clark the Director of the Scottish Association for Countrysports posted in another forum from I think a BASC member The thread topic was: SACS. What do they support in England?, Can't find any association with vermin control

 

Tom

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Maybe I can help a little here.

 

The Scottish Association for Country Sports was founded in 1994 by a group of sportsmen who were heavily involved in country sports in Scotland. Many of them were, or had been, part of the BASC Advisory Committee in Scotland, and at that time I was doing voluntary work for BASC as an Education Officer.

 

All of us were genuinely and seriously concerned about what we saw as the inability or unwillingness shown by BASC to accept and reflect the differences between between Scottish law and English law, and regional differences in country sports cultures.

 

We were very conscious of the 'divide and conquer' issue, and tried to avoid this by dealing with these issues within BASC, but this was simply not possible - the BASC hierarchy was completely unwilling to address our concerns.

 

SACS was formed as a direct result of this situation, and as has been stated in this thread, our original remit and purpose was to deal with Scottish issues, as it sets out on our website.

 

However, there is nothing in our constitution which prevents us from helping country sportsmen in other parts of the UK, and as time passed, we found that the services we provide for our membership became so popular that we began to attract members from all areas of the UK. Currently, we have a substantial membership in all four of the UK countries, and all are growing strongly.

 

One of the reasons for this appears to be that sportsmen strongly dislike the way BASC subscriptions rise regularly, and the levels they have reached. Our subscription rate, at £30 for an individual membership, is around half that of BASC, and I hear the comparison made regularly.

 

I do not intend to criticise BASC or the insurance it provides - it has its followers as we do, and no doubt fulfils its purpose as it sees it.

 

What I can say is that our public liability insurance of £5 million covers all country sports, not only shooting, and since most people who shoot also fish, work dogs, fly hawks or do one of the other sports as well, we think this is a sensible service for our members.

 

Perhaps the biggest difference between our insurance and that supplied by BASC is that we include £100,000 legal fees insurance for all of our members as an extra benefit. This covers appeals against the revocation or refusal to renew (or vary) firearms and shotgun certificates (which currently cost up to £10,000 to finance privately). So far we have been successful in EVERY case throughout GB covered by our insurance.

 

This extra insurance also covers charges brought under any of the legislation which affects our sports. Over the years, our insurers have paid for top legal experts to defend our members against various charges - allegations of inappropriate discharge of firearms, coursing hares, unlawful acts against raptors - and we have again been successful in every case so far.

 

NO OTHER ORGANISATION PROVIDES THIS LEGAL INSURANCE COVER FOR ALL OF ITS MEMBERS

 

I hope that helps to answer the points raised - we WILL and DO help any member, anywhere in the UK, whether it be a posh driven pheasant shooter from the Home Counties or an 'ordinary' man who can only afford to shoot the odd pigeon or rabbit.

 

If anyone would like to discuss any of these points, I am happy to do so here, or by email on sacs@netherholm.sol.co.uk

 

Ian Clark

Director, SACS

[john hubery 9]

Both my son and myself joined SACS at Selby last year, after taking the weekend to go through the ins and outs of membership, when you look at the legal cover and there sucsses rate they have its a must in todays no win no fee world you never know when the insurance cover will come in handy, most folk will never need it in there lives but for the price of membership it worth having, also it goes a long way towards getting permision nower days