Annual Report and Christmas Message from the ChairmanAs I sat down this morning to begin penning this Christmas message I found myself wondering where on earth the year has gone. 2018 has been one of those years where I seem to have been constantly working flat out; with very little to show by way of tangible achievements. It has also been a very challenging and frustrating year for a number of reasons.

In the first half of the year our focus was very much on continuing to try to secure legislative change to provide better protection of pike. Many or you will have been following Ron Woods’ regular reports on progress with this issue which is still ongoing. I personally have found myself diverted away from SFCA business due to the need to focus on my role on the Board of Angling Scotland, and on developing and publishing all of the core policies for Scottish Angling. I am sure that most of you will be well aware of what Angling Scotland is and why it was formed. For those new to this subject, Angling Scotland is the umbrella organisations for Scottish Angling, comprising the three Scottish Governing Bodies (SGBs) (the SFCA for coarse angling, SANA for game angling and the SFSA for sea angling) and is the body that sportscotland invests in to provide governance for the sport of angling in Scotland. You can find out more about Angling Scotland by visiting the website at About Us – Angling Scotland. I will talk more about progress with Angling Scotland later.

This is my twelfth Annual Report and Christmas Message as Chairman of the SFCA but sadly it will be my last – at least for the next couple of years. My tenure as a Director of Angling Scotland is due to come to an in 2019 and, as the post of Chairman of the SFCA is tied to the Directors role on the Board of Angling Scotland, my tenure in this role must also come to an end. Twelve years is, if I’m honest, probably too long for one individual to remain at the head of a Scottish Governing Body. I am also sure that a fresh perspective and approach will, in many members’ minds, have been long overdue. I will therefore be formally stepping down at the AGM on 21st March. We will be advertising the post of Chairman over the next couple of weeks and I would be most grateful if you could all circulate the advertisement to everyone you know who might be interested. I can assure any prospective new incumbent that I will not be leaving the Federation, and will almost certainly be looking to take another position on the Executive Committee. I will therefore still be around to provide any support, advice and guidance should the new incumbent request it.

As a Federation, we continue to engage with key stakeholders at all levels and in every forum where we can have an influence and to drive the agenda, shape the future direction of the wider sport of angling in Scotland and protect and promote our sport. Regular readers of this Christmas message and our Annual Business Plan will be well aware of my commitment to always set ambitious targets in order to challenge myself and the Executive Committee to deliver more on your behalf.

This year, just like in 2017, events outside our control have conspired make achieving those targets even more challenging than normal. The impact of continuing pressure on public finances and reduction of National Lottery income experienced last year have, rather than abating, if anything worsened. This has seen sportscotland have to tighten its belt again this year, and look carefully at where it invests prioritising those sports with the greatest impact. After the drastic cuts

to the Investment into Scottish Angling in 2017, which saw the loss of the ADBoS Regional Development Officer and SFSA Administrator posts, we had hoped that we had seen the worst. Unfortunately, 2018 saw the axe fall again and investment into Scottish Angling was reduced to a total of £20k of Effective Organisation investment to cover the cost of a part time Administrator post for Angling Scotland and some office costs. This has presented some significant additional challenges. With no external development investment, the three SGBs have had to significantly cut back on programme delivery, resulting in a reduction in the number of youngsters introduced to the sport and thus to a reduction in membership. Then, at the end October the Angling Scotland Administrator retired. Unfortunately, due to our inability to fill certain key Board positions, we have been unable to get the investment for the second half of the year released from sportscotland and therefore cannot currently recruit a new administrator. While this all seems like doom and gloom, we are still making progress. Despite the office being closed, the Board members have managed to spread the workload, cover incoming correspondence and process licence and membership applications (although there have been some slight delays). We now have a full raft of common core Policies and Plans which the three SGBs are in the process of adopting and we are currently in the process of externally advertising for a number of key Board positions. Please keep your eye out for these adverts and, if you feel that you have the skill set required and would like to come on board and help us to drive the sport forward for the future, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Similarly, if you know someone else who you think would be ideally suited to one of these roles please encourage them to apply.

In addition to financial woes, continuing uncertainty over BREXIT has seen the Wild Fisheries Reform process stagnate as the focus of Scottish Government is firmly on other issues. This has been particularly frustrating as it has also seen our efforts to gain protection for pike in Scotland unfortunately stall.

With BREXIT bringing financial uncertainty and no signs that the public are going to suddenly rush out and start buying significantly more National Lottery tickets, the pressures on sportscotland and its ability to invest in sports will undoubtedly continue. Angling Scotland and the three SGBs cannot therefore remain reliant on this income stream and over the next couple of years we need to find ways to ensure that Scottish Angling in self sustainable. The Angling Scotland Board are in the process of reviewing the ‘Angling Scotland Strategic Plan 2017-21’, and re-prioritising the targets within it in preparation for the sportscotland Investment Panel meeting which will take place early in the New Year. Once we receive notification from sportscotland of our indicative investment we will be able to make a decision about how best to proceed and what we can and can’t deliver. The Angling Scotland Board will then publish its Annual Business Plan, hopefully in February. Clearly many of the Targets in the SFCA Annual Business Plan will be determined by the targets set within the Angling Scotland Annual Plan and its publication is therefore likely to also be delayed. I am however still hopeful that we will be in a position to get the draft SFCA Annual Business Plan published on the website for consultation by the middle of February in order to give Clubs and members a chance to comment before it is put to the AGM on 21st March 2019.

One of the major pieces of work for the Angling Scotland Board over the next few months will be to increase the size of the Board and bring in additional Directors with specialist knowledge or skills. Some of you will have noticed that we have recently advertised the position of Independent Chairperson and we are about to advertise for an Executive Director of Finance and an Executive Director of Marketing, Branding and Communications. If you feel that you have the experience and qualifications to fill any of these roles and can commit a bit of your own time to helping us develop and drive the sport forward, we would love to hear from you. Similarly, please help us to publicise these vacancies to any potential candidates you might know. This year we have begun to process of forming sub committees within Angling Scotland to deal with areas where we have common

interests and share common policies; ‘Child Protection, Welfare & Safeguarding’ and ‘Equality, Diversity & Inclusion’ are two such examples. These sub committees have brought together the lead officers from each of the three SGBs to work together to deliver on behalf of the whole of Scottish Angling, streamlining processes and procedures, providing a better service to members and reducing the administrative and time burden on individual officers.

One of the most disappointing outcomes for me this year was the loss of the Scottish Government funding for the post of Canal side Ranger. In his time in the role Linton McBurnie had a huge impact. His presence on the bank, the relationships he built with local police and the networks he established not only finally provided us with evidence of the scale of illegal fish removals but also provided us better data about how many people were fishing the canals and where. Over the past couple of years Linton removed numerous set lines and traps and challenged illegal fishing wherever he found it. His presence and his willingness to talk to anyone and everyone along the canal network significantly increased awareness of the SFCA, the need to have a permit and correspondingly helped to increase membership. He also helped to significantly improve the relationship and reduce conflict between anglers and boaters in key areas. While I have continued to receive a few reports of illegal set lines, traps and even netting being carried out on the canals, without a Linton on the bank I fear that we may now only be seeing the tip of the iceberg. In the current financial climate, I suspect the chances of getting the funding for the post reinstated are extremely low. It therefore falls to us as anglers, particularly those who fish the canals or use the towpaths regularly, to try to fill the gap of raising awareness and reporting illegal fishing or fish removals. If you do see or find anything, do not put yourself at risk or approach perpetrators yourself. Instead, please report it to the local police on 101 and let us know by emailing details to info@sfca.co.uk.

As I sit here this morning writing this Christmas message, we have 893 individual members which includes 91 Juniors. Sadly this is 112 down on the same point last year although the majority of this shortfall is made up of a lack of Junior members, probably a consequence of the reduction in development programme that we have been able to deliver this year. Sadly, there are again a huge number of individuals who joined in 2017 and who have decided, for one reason or another, not to renew their membership. As of today, there are 763 individuals on the system who joined in 2017 who have not re-joined in 2018 and a further 1000+ who haven’t joined for the past two years. As I have said in previous years, there are undoubtedly a large number of reasons for this. A significant percentage will be juniors who attended our development programs in recent years and for one reason or another have simply drifted away from the sport. Another significant percentage are Eastern European members. This may be due to the fact that many migrant workers move addresses as their work changes and, if their email addresses have changed we may simply have lost contact. But even taking these cohorts out of the equation, we are left with a large number of anglers who have not seen the value in re-joining the SFCA and this is a concern. As an organisation, over the next couple of months we will be looking to contact all of these individuals to try to ascertain if there is a common theme underpinning their decision not to re-join. If you are one of these individuals I would really encourage you to let us know if you feel that there is something that we are doing, not doing, or if there is something that we are not providing which has contributed to your decision not to re-join. Only by knowing what is wrong can we hope to address it. It is of course possible that other factors are behind this trend. The move to the Go Membership system should have made joining easier but, I am acutely aware that not everyone finds modern IT systems easy to navigate, and not everyone trusts new on line payment systems. While we have retained all of our old methods of joining it may well be that we have not communicated this effectively, and again if you feel that this is the case we need to hear from you. Please email us with feedback, good or bad, to info@sfca.co.uk

I would also like to ask all members of the SFCA continue to help us to promote membership of the SFCA by encouraging all of the anglers they know to join the Federation. A large, growing and dynamic membership is vital in ensuring that we are able to keep coarse angling and coarse angling interests high on the agenda of Angling Scotland, sportscotland and Scottish Government. In addition to FREE fishing across the Lowland Canal network, all SFCA individual members again receive free ‘Public Liability’ insurance cover for all of their fishing activities whether engaged in SFCA events or fishing on their own anywhere in the world. This on its own is worth more than six times the cost of the £5.00 annual membership fee making membership outstanding value for money.

In a bid to encourage some of the 1700 individuals who didn’t join this year to renew their membership, anyone who joins between now and 31st March 2019 will receive a membership running right through to 31st March 2020. We are also going to run another membership prize draw on 31st January 2019. Full details will be published early in the New Year. The draw will be open to all individuals who are paid up Individual Members on 31st January 2019. The name of the lucky winner will be published on 1st February 2019. Remember, you have to be an Individual Member to be included in the draw so if you have not yet joined get your application done today.

As promised in the Annual Business Plan, we have consulted on the topic of membership fees and yet again the majority of those who have replied have said that they wouldn’t have any objection to an increase in fees. Last year we announced that we would delay any increase in membership fees until Angling Scotland Ltd was fully established. As this is now the case, the Executive Committee will be discussing to topic of membership fees at the next meeting in January 2019. In light of the challenge in getting existing members to re-join, I am going to propose that the fees for 2019/20 remain unchanged for the 11th consecutive year but that a proposal be put to the AGM to increase them from 1st April 2020.

Again, if you are experiencing any problems with the new membership system, please either email chairman@sfca.co.uk or call me on 07812 241816 and I will guide you through it.

As I mentioned earlier, this has been a frustrating year in many ways - none more so than in relation to the Wild Fisheries Reform programme where 2018 has proved almost as frustrating as 2017. The Stakeholder Reference Group – Marine Scotland’s forum for collective dialogue with interested parties – has not met at all, and WFR work seems to have ground to a halt apart from a few salmon-related items. However, after continued pressure from SFCA and the predator clubs, the Scottish Government issued a formal consultation in June (see https://consult.gov.scot/marine-scotland/pike-conservation/ ) on proposals aimed at protecting pike from indiscriminate pot hunting. These comprised a maximum size limit of 60cm, a bag limit of one pike per angler per day and a ban on the sale of rod-caught pike.

The consultation closed on 31st August with over 900 replies received, a high response for this kind of exercise. You can read most of them here - https://consult.gov.scot/marine-scotland/pike-conservation/consultation/published_select_respondent . The great majority either favoured the proposals or urged the Scottish Government to go further and make Catch and Release a mandatory requirement. Equally there was opposition from a few diehard pot hunters and pike haters. More worrying, however, were the challenges from some influential game angling interests. They raised legitimate concerns about how this legislation might be policed, but in many cases, went on to claim that giving protection to pike could jeopardise valuable fisheries for native salmonids. Some organisations also wanted to limit protection to “designated” pike fisheries, allegedly to avoid encouraging illegal introductions elsewhere.

We’ve been in touch with Marine Scotland to offer counter-arguments in relation to these objections, and that dialogue continues. At the moment, it’s not clear how things will progress from here, though it seems likely that some wider discussion with other stakeholders will take place in

2019. For now, I’d like to thank the large number of SFCA members and other coarse anglers who responded to the encouragement we gave to reply positively to the consultation. In particular, I would like to thank Ron Woods for continuing to try to drive this work forward when many would have thrown their hands up and walked away. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for a good result in the end!

On the competitive side, 2018 has again seen an extremely packed and competitive match calendar. This has again presented the match committee, and particularly Match Secretary Brian Docherty, with the annual headache of de-conflicting the national matches with all of the other fixtures to afford as many anglers as possible the opportunity to participate. Brian, and everyone who contributed to the match committee or helped to run the various matches again deserve a massive vote of thanks for all of their hard work. Special thanks also go to James Jones for maintaining the Match Angler of the Year table. The Committee and the Clubs recently held an on-line Match Committee Meeting to discuss the Calendar for 2019 which is now available on the SFCA Match Fishing Facebook pages and will shortly be published on the website. I would also like to take this opportunity to again congratulate all those who enjoyed success in 2018 and in particular:

Brian Docherty for winning the Broom Open.

Steve Royle for winning the Federation Cup

James Woodrow for winning the All of Scotland Rab Crossan Memorial

Scott McGhee and Grant Clark for becoming Scottish Pairs Champions

Heather Lauriston for becoming Scottish Ladies Champion

Jonathan McCafferty for becoming Scottish U19 Champion

Carly Brady for retaining her Scottish U14 Junior Champion title

Chris Scott for defending his title and winning the Harvey Maule Memorial

Douglas Campbell for becoming Scottish Veteran’s Champion

Colin McKerrell for becoming Scottish National Champion

Graeme Dawes for becoming the Scottish Feeder Champion

James Woodrow for winning the League of Champions final.

And finally, Scott McGhee for becoming Scottish Match Angler of the Year.

For our Match Squad this has been a very disappointing year on the International front. Due to costs and non-availability of anglers, we were forced to withdraw from the World Championship in Portugal and therefore didn’t field a team in either the European or World Championships. For someone who has been involved with the team in one capacity or another since 2006, this was extremely disappointing on a personal level, especially as we have again been unable to make any progress in re-establishing a junior team. This continues to be one of my major concerns as the lack of juniors coming into the competitive side of match fishing poses a real question over the future or our International Teams. The lack of sportscotland Investment this year, and in particular receiving no development funding, has had a major impact and left us unable to deliver the programme that we had planned to try to address this decline. In 2019 we will make junior

participation and the performance pathway a Priority for Action and hopefully we will receive some investment to help to deliver this critical target.

In March, we did however participate in the annual Sensas Challenge on the Gloucester Canal. The event was, as usual, well attended and attracted some of the top UK and French teams as well and Scotland, Ireland and Wales. With lots of localised and upstream flooding, the venue was highly coloured over the majority of the sections that made up the match length and fished very hard over the two days. As in 2016 and 2017, if you didn’t draw on an area where the fish were you had to scratch around for bites and were fighting for positions in the bottom half of the section. The event does however continue to provide a great opportunity to introduce new blood to the International Team, gaining experience of fishing under CIPS rules but in a slightly more relaxed and friendly match. This year Derek Brady earned his second cap at the event with Allan Pellow also being selected after a 20+ year break from International competition. They joined myself, Colin McKerrel and Stuart Dalgleish to make up the 5-man squad. Despite mixed results from a difficult draw (my drawing arm failed us again) we all learned a lot and I managed to sneak into the top 10 individually.

With no World or European Championships, and Wales and England unable to commit to the Home International, October saw the Senior Scotland squad travel to Northern Ireland to fish a friendly Home International against Ireland on the River Bann at Port Glenone, the venue for the 2020 European Championships. The 8-man squad saw the return of Ewan Weed, bringing local knowledge and a wealth of experience to the squad, with Barry Young making his International debut. The team pushed Ireland extremely close over the two days ending in 2nd place just one point behind them. More importantly however, we got a good look at the venue which will hopeful stand us in good stead at the European Championships next June.

2018 has seen the Scottish Carp Squad go from strength to strength. Having won the Silver Medal at last year’s Home International the team were keen top that achievement in 2018. They began the year with another series of very successful trials with the result that the squad increase to 11 members. In June they entered a friendly match against Wales and the Royal Navy which they won, providing an excellent platform from with to build towards what they hoped would be their first World Championships in Serbia in October. Unfortunately, for various reasons, that goal had to be postponed. After a restructure of the management team which saws the appointment of Kev Gourlay as Assistant Manager, the squad regrouped and began to focus on South Africa in 2019. In November Wales hosted the Home Nations at New Celtic Lakes. The Scotland team pushed a very talented England team right to the wire with only one fish (7lb) separating the teams at the end. The final results were; 1st England 7 pts, 2nd Scotland 8 pts and 3rd Wales 13 pts. Despite being disappointed to have not won Gold, 2 silvers in two years from an inexperienced and developing squad is an outstanding result. The team can also take credit in the fact that they were the only nation to catch in every section. Scotland will host the event in 2019 (venue/date tbc) and have high hopes of securing their first Gold medal. As we move into December the squad have started trials again with 5 potential new Internationalists in the pipeline. As the squad develops and grows it is now competing on three different levels; Friendlies, Home Internationals and Full Internationals which is an amazing achievement in just three years. In February 2019, the squad will travel to South Africa to participate in the World Carp Championships which are part of the World Fishing Games. This will be the first time Scotland has fielded a team at World Championship level and there is no bigger event than a World Fishing Games to make your debut. As with all of our International Teams, their entry is totally self-funded and as you can imagine getting a team to South Africa with all of it gear and bait is not going to be cheap. The Management Team have managed to secure sponsorship/support in kind from a number of companies and the team will be conducting fundraising activities over the coming weeks to try to reduce the personal cost of those selected - so please help out if you can.

At the risk of highlighting a failure to achieve one of our (my) targets for 2018, I am determined that in 2019 we will be running our fist Competitive Lure Angling Matches and making the first steps towards creating a Scottish Lure Fishing team. In May this year we helped to co-host the 3rd Lure Fishing Championship on St Mary’s Loch and Loch of the Lowes with the Polish Fishermann Angling Club. This was a great event and something that we aspire to do more of in 2019. In October, I personally visited the World Lure Fishing Championships at Rutland Water and had some very positive discussions with both the Angling Trust and members of the England squad. They are very keen to try to arrange a friendly Home International against a Scottish Team in 2019 and we will be looking at options to get something up and running early in the New Year. Please keep your eye on the SFCA website and Facebook pages for more information.

As a Federation, we need to support the aspirations of all of our members who have a goal of representing Scotland on the International stage and ensure that we are delivering opportunity for all. In 2019 I will be looking to get the International Team Managers, key Senior Internationalist and a selection of coaches together to review our coaching and performance pathways. The aim will be to ensure that our structures are fit for purpose and provide future generations with the opportunities to develop the technical skills required to become eligible for selection and prepare them to compete at World level.

Our main focus for 2019 will continue to be identifying ways to provide opportunity and encourage more juniors to get into competitive angling and re-establish the junior teams. At the risk of sounding like an old record, to do this we need more coaches and again we need to turn to you, our clubs and members, to ask you to identify and encourage suitable individuals to step forward to be trained as UKCC L1 and L2 coaches. There are Bursaries available from sportscotland to offset the training costs and courses are run by ADBoS several times of the year. In the next few weeks we will be publishing dates for UKCC L1 courses that will run in February and March 2019. If you are interested in becoming trained as a coach, or know someone who might be, and would like more information please email me at chairman@sfca.co.uk or call me on 07812 241816 and I will be happy to speak to you.

Despite the lack of any external Development investment, this year our Coaches, under Coaching and Development Officer John Rae, have continued to deliver a programme of activity including taster sessions at commercial fisheries and Club Angling Programmes with community groups and schools. Having to resource our development activity without the benefit of sportscotland investment has been a stark reminder of how reliant we still are on this funding. It has also brought into clear focus the need to begin to look at other sources of income, and to develop a more commercially aligned relationship with the schools, local authorities and organisations that we work with if we are to be able to continue to meet demand for our services. It has also highlighted the need to invest more in terms of time and resources to encouraging more High Schools to take up and offer the National Progression Award (NPA) as from our perspective it is self-funding. In 2019 we will be looking at new and innovative ways to fund programme delivery in order that we can provide sufficient opportunity for our coaches to work, to develop their skills, gain experience and complete CPD activity. This work will of course be planned with the focus being on our core goals of increasing participation, increasing memberships and attracting more youngsters into the competitive side of our sport. There will likely be requirement for the SFCA to invest some of it reserves to drive this piece of work forward but I see it as essential to building the foundations for the future. If you would like to see some coaching activity delivered in your area, at your fishery, or in support of your club please contact us. Similarly, if you think that a local High School might be interested in discussing options for offering the NPA then please let us know.

As we move into the last quarter of the financial year we still have a lot to do if we are to achieve the major targets and Priorities for Action we set ourselves in our Annual Business Plan. While this includes some routine targets that naturally fall into the final quarter, there are still some large pieces of work that have not been started due to lack of time, or in many cases financial resources. While these can of course be rolled forward into the next financial year, I am determined to at least get them started before I step down or to at least prepare the ground.

The Executive Committee are now beginning to work on the draft SFCA Business Plan and Risk Register for 2019/20. This will hopefully be published on the website by mid-February for consultation, with the final plan will being ratified and issued at the AGM in March. As previously stated, the timeline will unfortunately again be compressed in 2019 as we will not be able to finalise our Annual Plan until we receive confirmation of the indicative Investment from sportscotland against the Angling Scotland Plan. I will provide regular updates during January/February and we will ensure that clubs and individual members have at least 4 weeks to respond to the consultation on the SFCA Annual Business Plan prior to the AGM. As usual, I encourage you all to read it once it is published and provide feedback and comments through your clubs or direct to me at chairman@sfca.co.uk. While the Executive Committee are your representatives, we do not have the monopoly on good ideas. It is your sport and we are your governing body, you need to tell us what is important to you. Every year I and other members of the Executive Committee hear rumblings about what we should or shouldn’t be doing, but rarely if ever does anyone actually bring these concerns to our attention or afford us to opportunity to explain why we have chosen a specific course of action. This is your Annual opportunity to tell us what you want and voice any concerns – use it, and help us to develop a Plan that delivers what the sport needs.

I will not apologise for this part being a direct lift from last year’s Christmas Message, or in fact the previous year’s, as it remains as true now as it did then. Our future as a SGB continues to depend on increasing membership, both club and individual, and until we can convince sportscotland that there are better ways to measure growth and success, we need to continue to persuade more people to join. This is where we need the help of all of our existing members. We need everyone to encourage all of the anglers they know to join the SFCA and, where they know someone who has decided not to renew their membership, to try to get them to contact me and let me know why. If I know what the barriers or issues are I can try to address them. I am more than happy to come and speak to clubs or to groups at fisheries at your convenience, you just need to ask.

I have no doubt that there will be many new challenges to overcome in 2019, and that the new Chairman and the Executive Committee will continue to be busier than ever. Going forward we need to find solutions to the problems around attracting and retaining youngsters in our sport. The aging demographic in match angling is a particular concern, as is the lack of clubs willing and able to take and develop junior anglers. To overcome this, we must create a simple structure and encourage and assist clubs, and fisheries, to play their part in supporting and developing youngsters through the participant pathway. We also need to identify and find ways to remove barriers to participation, both real and perceived, and identify and address those issues the adversely impact on our ability to retain them. As I mention every year, to support all of this activity we will need to continue to grow the coaching workforce, and in 2019 we need to do better in identifying individuals and persuading them to train to become UKCC L1 and L2 coaches.

I would, as always, like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Executive Committee, our coaches and the other volunteers, on your behalf for the huge amount they have put in to support Scottish coarse angling over the past 12 months. Without their commitment, determination and willingness to go that extra mile, at their own personal cost, we could not hope to protect, promote and grow the sport of coarse angling in Scotland.

When our draft Annual Business Plan is published for consultation in February, we will again be setting ourselves some challenging and aspirational targets. As I say every year, if you feel that you have a skill set that could benefit the SFCA and can spare some time, however little, we would love to hear from you. In the meantime, I would urge you all to continue to play your part by simply promoting coarse angling as a totally accessible and ideal sport to engage and capture the imagination of young Scots, and by encouraging everyone you meet to join the SFCA.

After the year we have had I am sure that we are all looking forward to next week’s Christmas festivities. Irrespective of what happens with BREXIT in 2019, there are still plenty of positives to take. Come the New Year there will still be waters to fish and fish to be caught, matches to be won and personal bests to be toppled. And me? I’m focussing on those positives and looking forward to a more successful year than this one, with as much fishing as I can cram in.

In closing, I know that you will all join me in wishing all of our teams every success on the international stage in 2019. I would like to wish all of our members, and indeed all coarse anglers in Scotland, a very Merry Christmas and Tight Lines for 2019!

Gus BrindleChairman