Annual Report and Christmas Message from the Chairman

Well I don’t know about you, but here we are with Christmas only a couple of days away and I find myself thinking, “where did 2016 go?” I seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in this very same spot trying to pull together my annual report and Christmas message for 2015. They always say that if you have any spare time without a plan you will just fill it with other things and make them a priority, and this year I have definitely been guilty of that.

2016 has been a strange year. The decision that we took to go to the European Championships in Holland in July, rather than undertaking the monumental journey to the World Championship in Bulgaria in September, threw my normally organised annual calendar, with its planned priorities and targets for each month, into disarray. Despite my best efforts, between my work, business and the Federation, I seem to have been lurching from one priority task to another for most of the year, and talking to many of you it seems that I am not alone!

The SFCA Executive Committee have, as always, been busy delivering on the ambitious targets that we set ourselves in the Annual Business Plan as well representing coarse angling interests in a number of sub committees of the Wild Fisheries Reform. I myself have been heavily involved with the Presidents of the other two Angling SGBs on the formation of Angling Scotland Ltd, the new umbrella structure for the sport of angling in Scotland, engaging with sportscotland to ensure that the new organisation is not only structured but resourced to be able to support and grow our sport. The business has been registered and we are currently working with sportscotland and their lawyers on finalising the detailed articles of association. All three SGBs are committed to ensuring that the new organisation is fit for purpose and that it also protects the independent governance structures of the existing SGBs and their ability to protect their individual disciplines and represent the interests of their members. We have recently presented the ‘One Plan’ for Scottish Angling setting the vision to take the sport forward from 2017 – 2021 to the sportscotland Investment Panel along with an associated investment application. While there are of course no guarantees, our joint presentation of the vision for angling was well received and we expect to get an indication on whether or not our investment application has been accepted in January. Once we receive notification from sportscotland we will be able to make a decision about whether we are in a position to press on with the formation of Angling Scotland Ltd and at that time we will come out to all members and clubs with a consultation paper. All being well, we will be able to put a proposal to the AGM in March to establish Angling Scotland Ltd and to pass certain roles, responsibilities and policy issues to the new organisation, with the Federation adopting a number of core policies, most of which (Corporate Governance, Child Protection, Equality and Diversity, Data Protection, Bribery & Anti-Corruption, Conflict of Interests, HR, Coaching & Development, Coach Licensing etc.) are already the same for all three SGBs. This move alone will significantly reduce the administrative burden on our volunteer Executive Committee members and allow us to spend more time focussing on the more important tasks of protecting and promoting coarse angling in Scotland and growing participation, particularly in competitive coarse angling.

This year the overall trend of increasing participation seems to have continued with the Canal side Ranger, Linton McBurnie, reporting an increase in the number of anglers fishing the canals when compared with the previous two years. Match attendances seem to have also remained relatively stable, although it is slightly concerning that there is a lack of new anglers coming into competitive match fishing. In 2017 we need to focus more effort into encouraging and supporting young anglers to enter competitions. The Executive Committee will clearly not be able to achieve this alone and we will be relying heavily on our volunteer coaches to build links with local clubs and fisheries to increase opportunity for young anglers.

As I sit and write this Christmas message we have 832 individual members which includes 173 Juniors. This is slightly down on this point in 2015 and, the same as last year, we are currently trying to ascertain if the move to the new online Azolve Membership system has had an adverse impact. The system has been much improved and we are now trying to contact all those individuals who have not yet re-joined to encourage them to do so. Slightly worrying is the fact that there are 1032 names of individuals on the system who have chosen not to re-join so more people have not re-joined than have. That said, 200 of these are juniors who have attended our coaching programmes over the past couple of years and many of these will simply have drifted away from the sport for one reason or another. There are also a significant number, over 250, anglers from other European countries who have not re-joined. 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. What I would like to ask however, is that 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. This is especially important in a year when we are, through the formation of Angling Scotland Ltd, moving into a new structure for the whole of angling in Scotland. A large, growing and dynamic membership will ensure that we are able to keep coarse angling and coarse angling interests high on the agenda of both the new organisation and of sportscotland and Scottish Government. As stated last year, we have renewed our commitment to delay any decisions on increasing membership fees until Angling Scotland Ltd is in place and firmly established. The fees for 2017/18 will therefore remain unchanged for the 9th consecutive year and all SFCA individual members will 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 and represents a significant benefit for our members. In a bid to encourage some of the 1032 individuals who didn’t join this year to renew their membership, anyone who joins between now and March 2017 will receive a membership running right through to 31st March 2018. We are also going to run a membership prize draw on 31st January 2017. 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 2017. The name of the lucky winner will be published on 1st February 2017. 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. If you are experiencing any problems with the application process please either email chairman@sfca.co.uk or call me on 07812 241816 and I will help you with the process.

The sheer volume to change that the sector is currently undergoing has continued to put considerable demands on members of the Executive Committee this year – in particular myself and Policy Officer Ron Woods - to represent the interests of coarse fish and coarse angling in dialogue with Scottish Government and other key stakeholders. Among other things we have been dealing with:

Wild Fisheries Reform (aka WFR - the programme of changes proposed as a result of the 2014 Wild Fisheries Review):

o Participated fully in the Stakeholder Reference Group set up by Scottish Government to develop proposals for the detail of the WFR programme - http://www.gov.scot/Topics/marine/Salmon-Trout-Coarse/fishreform/refgroup

o Submitted a comprehensive written response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on proposals for new legislation arising from WFR http://www.sfca.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/SFCA-response-to-WFR-consultation-Final.docx

o Participated fully in two of the stakeholder groups set up by Scottish Government to consider specific key issues associated with the implementation of WFR - http://www.gov.scot/Topics/marine/Salmon-Trout-Coarse/fishreform/groups

A great deal of what is being proposed as part of Wild Fisheries Reform has the potential to be beneficial for coarse fish and coarse angling, although progress is painfully slow and the matter of how the programme will be funded is proving controversial and requires constant pressure to ensure that our interests do not slip off the agenda.

Canalside Ranger service - we have continued to work with Marine Scotland and Scottish Canals on implementation and development of the project, and I’m pleased to say that Scottish Government funding for a further two years has been secured:

o The Canalside Ranger Coordinator, Linton McBurnie, remains pivotal to the success of the project and continues to do a great job building relationships with anglers, other canal users and outside stakeholders;

o Examples of organised pot hunting are still unfortunately being identified, but there is evidence that Linton’s activities are having a deterrent effect, especially on some of the more blatant illegal methods that were being used in recent years;

o Although many anglers are understandably shy about publicising their catches, there is good evidence that stocks of most if not all species remain strong in many areas

o Linton’s “intelligence network” of anglers and other users is still growing, and a lot of work has gone into expanding the service by bringing a more active role for other volunteers to support Linton

Loch Lomond - we supported PAC and PAAS in long-running dialogue with the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association over the issue of their right to issue coarse angling permits for fishing the Loch. This has finally reached a mutually favourable conclusion whereby we and the member clubs concerned have been able to endorse the legitimacy of the LLAIA permit scheme, and have been provided with places on their Committee in order to ensure that coarse fishing interests are able to play a part in the management of the fishery.

If you have not read Ron’s reports I would urge you to click the links above and take a few minutes to do so. In the coming year we intend to have a section on the website dedicated to the Environment, WFR and other major work streams.

The competitive side 2016 again saw an exceptionally busy match calendar with the usual problems for the match committee trying to deconflict the national matches with all the commercial fishery and club competitions and leagues. A big vote of thanks must again go to Stuart Dalgleish

and Brian Docherty for taking on the thankless task of pulling together the Match Calendar and keeping the Facebook page up to date with results and the Match Angler of the Year positions. I think it is fair to say that the Committee and the Clubs are still trying to find a balance to meet the aspirations of everyone and the International Team Manager and Match Secretary recently held a Match Committee Meeting to discuss options and the Calendar for 2017. I would urge all clubs, and particularly those who have previously fielded, or those who intend to field teams in competitions in 2017, to engage with them and help to shape the competition structure for the future. We cannot hope to get a structure that meets your needs if you don’t tell us what they are. I would also like to take this opportunity to again congratulate all those who enjoyed success in 2015 and in particular:

James Woodrow for winning the Broom Open and becoming Scottish Match Angler of the Year for the 3rd year running – another incredible performance from Scotland’s most consistent angler.

David Corcoran for winning the Federation Cup

George Glen for an awesome comeback performance to win the All of Scotland Rab Crossan Memorial

Annie Burns for ending Zoe Brooks’ reign and becoming Scottish Ladies Champion

Scott McAuley for becoming Scottish U19 Champion

Lewis Cameron for becoming Scottish U14 Junior Champion

Gary Black and John Callaghan for becoming Scottish Pairs Champions

Steve Johns for becoming Scottish Veteran’s Champion

Mark Gleaves for winning the Orchill Open.

Colin Hart for becoming Scottish National Champion

Stephen McCaveney for becoming the Scottish Feeder Champion

David McAuley for winning the Broom League

Darren Peel for winning the 2 day Broom Final

David McAuley and Ian Whitson for winning the Broom Autumn Pairs

Pete Wilson for winning the Broomhill Bonanza final

On the International front we fielded teams in all of the usual senior competitions and achieved a first for the Federation and Scottish Coarse angling by fielding a Scottish Carp Team in the inaugural Carp Celtic Cup. Disappointingly however we were unable to field an U23 team in the World Championships this year or a junior team in the Celtic Cup. This is a real concern and we must focus more effort in attracting juniors into the competitive side of the sport if we are to secure the long term future and sustainability of the senior squad. 

In March we participated in the annual Sensas Challenge which this year returned to the Gloucester Canal. The event was again a disappointment for many teams, including ours, as the venue fished extremely poorly. While there weren’t as many dry nets as there were on the River Soar in 2015, it was extremely peggy and if you didn’t draw on an area where the fish were you had to scratch around for bites fighting for positions in the bottom half of the section.

July saw the Senior Scotland squad travel to Almere in the Netherlands for the European Championships. For the first time that I can remember we were going back to a venue that we had fished before, having been there for the World Championships in 2009. Back in 2009 we had achieved a great result ending in 15th place with Jamie Masson taking 7th in the individual rankings. While there was no Jamie Masson or Brian Clark this time round, Davie Corcoran and James Woodrow had been part of that team and George Glen, who also fished in 2009, had kindly agreed to come out and help Chris Paton and I for the week. That meant that there were 5 of us in the squad who had at least seen the venue before. You will have probably read the report on the website/Facebook so I will not go back over everything again save to say that ending up in 4th place and missing out on a Bronze medal by just 3 points over the two days was both one of our best performances ever and one of the most disappointing. Make no mistakes, with many teams deciding to fish this event rather than the World Championships in Bulgaria, this was one of the biggest and strongest fields for a European Championships for many years. The other highlight was having new senior cap, James Dornom, out doing Jamie Masson’s 2009 performance by coming 6th in the individual rankings – an outstanding achievement.

In July, the SFCA fielded the first ever Scottish Carp Fishing Team on the International stage. The Team travelled down to Barston Lakes near Birmingham to represent Scotland in the Celtic Cup, their first ever competitive fixture. Despite coming third by a narrow margin the team had some very good individual results, worked well as a team and learned a huge amount to take forward into 2017. Since returning from the competition they have called for nominations from other interested anglers and have run several trial/practice matches. The squad is now preparing for the Celtic Cup in 2017 as well as friendly Home Internationals which will help to prepare them for a future World Championships.

In October the senior team travelled down to Shrewsbury for the Home International on the River Severn. It was England’s turn to host the event and I must admit to having been slightly surprised that they had picked Shrewsbury for the match. After all, most of the Welsh team are regulars on the venue and very successful on what is a very competitive open match scene. The event was established to provide an opportunity for all four home nations to fish competitively under CIPS rules and identify and develop talent for the future. England really showed the strength in depth that they have and the huge amount of young talent coming through and won the event by a country mile dropping just one point on each day. The Welsh however did not have it all their own way and we tied on points with them on both days narrowly missing out on second place to them on weight. Considering that both I and Chris Paton had to fish due to individuals having to withdraw due to family bereavements, we were very happy with the result. David McAuley also came into the squad for the match, making a huge contribution and putting in a very strong performance, instantly confirming what we all knew in that he should have been fishing at this level for a long time.

Despite the disappointment of not being able to field any junior teams, overall 2016 was a good year in which we have identified and established some new anglers into the Senior squad and enjoyed some of our best results for a number of years. The immediate challenge however is how we go about providing the opportunity and encouraging more juniors to get into competitive angling and re-establish the junior teams. 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 2017. 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.

Our Coaches, under Coaching Officer John Rae and Development Officer Martin McLaren, have continued to deliver a very full programme of activity including taster sessions at commercial fisheries and on the canals, Club Angling Programmes with community groups and schools and the National Progression Award in High Schools. This effort is being bolstered by the efforts of Equity Officer, Heather Lauriston, who has through her role as GHoF Coordinator for Scotland continued to deliver additional programme, all of which helps to increase participation in coarse angling in Scotland and raise the profile of our sport. If you would like to see some coaching activity delivered in your area, at your fishery, or in support of your club I would love to hear from you. On the development side we have continued to deliver the National Progression Award (NPA) in a number of High Schools across Scotland in conjunction with our partners at SRUC and within ADBoS. The number of schools wishing to take up the qualification continues to grow, and I am hopeful that the formation of the new Fishery Management Organisations (FMOs) under the Wild Fisheries Reform will increase opportunities to broaden the delivery of the qualification to all regions of Scotland. This will of course require us to train more coaches if we are to meet the increasing demand and provide opportunity for children to undertake the award. As I have said on a number of occasions, the NPA provides a unique link between angling and education and while its delivery continues to represent a significant commitment on behalf of the three angling SGBs and ADBoS, the long term benefits of being able to engage with future generations of anglers in their formative years, and teach them to become environmentally responsible anglers far out way this commitment. From a course angling perspective, this target to increase the number of UKCC coaches and broaden the NPA delivery to cover the whole of Scotland represents an additional challenge. This is especially true when looking at areas with limited coarse angling opportunities such as the South East and the Highlands, as there is a far smaller pool of potential coaches to draw from. But in these areas it is probably even more important that we do have Coarse Angling Coaches as having individuals engaged with the FMOs will help to raise the profile of coarse angling and ultimately help us to protect and promote coarse fish and fishing in those areas.

As we move into the last quarter of the financial year we have again made good progress towards achieving most of the major targets and Priorities for Action set in our Annual Business Plan. There are still however a number of key issues that we continue to work on and some coaching activity that we still need to complete before the end of the year. We continue to endeavour to keep the SFCA website and Facebook pages up to date as it remains the best way to communicate with the Scottish Angling public. Unfortunately however, we have still not been able to fill the Media and Marketing Officers post and this has meant that we have again struggled in this area. The various Facebook pages continue to be very well used and followed, but as always we do need clubs and individual members to send us more media and newsworthy items to keep the pages vibrant. The demand for information about coarse angling continues to grow and I personally receive requests every week for information about where to fish, what bait and methods to use etc, and we must find a way to service this demand and support the enthusiasm of new anglers if we are to attract them into and retain them in the sport. We also need to do better in explaining what we as a Federation do for you as members and in fact all coarse anglers in Scotland.

The Executive Committee are now beginning the process of working on the draft SFCA Business Plan and Risk Register for 2017/18. This, as you know, is usually be published on the website by the end of January for consultation, with the final plan will being ratified and issued at the AGM in March. In 2017 the timeline will unfortunately be slightly compressed as we will not be able to finalise our Annual Plan until we receive confirmation from the sportscotland Investment Panel that

the Angling Scotland Ltd ‘One Plan’ for Angling has been accepted and funded and to what level. I will provide regular updates during January 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. Almost every year the Executive Committee hear rumblings about what we should or shouldn’t be doing. If you are thinking something should be done, or don’t understand why we are doing one thing and not another, then believe me you won’t be alone. This is your Annual opportunity to tell us what you want and voice any concerns – use it and help us develop a Plan that delivers what the sport needs.

At this point, as always, I would like to take the opportunity on behalf of all of the membership to thank the members of the Executive Committee, our coaches and the other volunteers, for the huge amount of personal time, effort and money that they have put in to support Scottish coarse angling over the past 12 months. Without their commitment and determination we could not hope to protect, promote and grow the sport of coarse angling in Scotland. I firmly believe that as a Federation we are continuing to move in the right direction and in many areas we have continued to set the agenda and drive the future direction of the wider sport of angling in Scotland. In 2017 we have been heavily engaged with Scottish Government on the various WFR Working Groups but have also continue to engaged with other key stakeholders (SEPA, SNH, sportscotland, SANA, SFSA, SQA, SRUC and the Angling Trust) to increase our influence and ability to protect and promote our sport. This has continued to require certain Executive Committee members taking on a greater volume of more complex work, to invariably tight timelines, whist dealing with Government departments and well-staffed and resourced organisations. This has required a huge commitment and burden falling on one or two individuals and I would like to particularly pick out the contribution that Policy Officer, Ron Woods, continues to make, year on year, to ensure that our voices are heard. As I said last year, the challenge going forward is to ensure that this new effort is not to the detriment of essential routine business and support to our members. There is still much to be done if we are to get to a point where the future of coarse angling in Scotland can truly be considered to be secure for future generations.

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 barrier or issue is I can try to address it.

2016 has been a hectic year when the focus of myself and other key members of the Executive Committee has been diverted by major changes to the Structure of Scottish Angling, particularly those that have the potential to impact our discipline of the sport. In 2017 we must work hard to ensure that these structural changes deliver for coarse angling in Scotland and, that we as a Federation ensure that our member clubs and individuals are able to benefit from them. I have no doubt that there will be many challenges ahead, and that I and the Executive Committee will continue to be busier than ever in 2017. We are still moving in the right direction and the Federation continues adapt as our sport in Scotland continues to evolve. Less than 20% of our current members are match anglers and, as has been seen with the formation of the Scottish Carp Team, there are specimen anglers out there who want to fish competitively and represent their country just as match anglers do. In 2017 there is already an aspiration to field a Scottish Lure

Fishing team as we have some of the best wild lure fishing in the UK as well as some of the UKs top lure anglers. As a Federation we need to support these aspirations and ensure that we are delivering opportunity for all. This doesn’t just mean letting individuals get together and field representative teams. It means looking at coaching and performance pathways to allow future generations to develop the technical skills required to become eligible for selection, and putting in place the competitive structures to develop and test them. We must also identify, train and develop coaches to guide these individuals through the developmental pathway and support their aspirations. We must also work harder to identify and develop the next generation of match anglers; looking at how we can remove barriers to participation, how we retain them in the sport and ultimately how we feed the International Match Teams of the future. As I have previously mentioned, to support all of this activity we will need to continue to grow the coaching workforce and in 2017 we need to do better in identify individuals and persuading them to train to become UKCC L1 and L2 coaches.

When our draft Annual Business Plan is published for consultation in January, we will again be setting ourselves some challenging and aspirational targets. As I say every year, if you feel that you would like to become more involved and have the skills set and time to help the Executive Committee to deliver our targets I 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.

I am sure, like me, you will all be looking forward to this weekend’s Christmas festivities and some excellent fishing in the New Year ahead, and I know that you will all join me in wishing all of our teams every success on the international stage in the coming year. In closing I would like to wish all of our members, and indeed all coarse anglers in Scotland, a very Merry Christmas and Tight Lines for 2017!

Gus BrindleChairman