typefish
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Posts posted by typefish
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4 hours ago, Pseudotectonic said:
Both are precisely the sort of threats we think about when we say airsoft needs protection. If something very similar were to happen in the UK, say some sort of bill being proposed affecting airsoft in some way, do we as a community have the resources for ad hoc organisation? In fact, isn't UKARA already doing all the behind-the-scene stuff? Heck, UKARA itself appears to be a very product of past lobbying that became quasi-official regulatory body if there is one.
Both UKARA and UKAPU do the behind the scenes stuff.
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1 hour ago, Pseudotectonic said:
Then the question becomes, should it rather be a business who get sponsorships from sporting or tactical clothing companies or things of that nature and produce entertainment content about airsoft, like famous guntubers like Matt from Evike? (That was a joke)
I wouldn't joke about that, as when shit has hit the fan, it's the brand ambassadors and content creators (which does include journalists) with actual reach that can help throw something important into the public eye that on the face of it, most people would not care about, even if to those in the know it is scary.
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2 hours ago, TacticalWaifu said:
I've done some research into this previously
Since the topic has migrated over to national governing bodies, I feel that I can safely return to this thread!
As someone who has spent a lot of time looking into this over the past seven years, I feel confident in saying that the main issue to do with national governing bodies, as I'm sure you may be aware, is money.
There is a rather disappointing reason why bodies such as the NABV, an organisation that was set up by a team of skirmishers and sites at the insistence of the Dutch Government, are needing to charge approximately £62 a year in order to allow skirmishers to be considered to play airsoft, and that reason is liability.
But first, the numbers: whilst we don't have any up to date numbers on how many active skirmishers that there are in the UK, the number that we've been officially floating has been about 60,000. If that number represents actual skirmishers, that would suggest that £5 would bring in £300k per annum and £50 (if we normalised the numbers a bit) would bring in just shy of £2 million per annum.
I don't believe that anywhere near that amount of money would be brought in, nor do I believe that sites in the UK would, excepting some massive disastrous push from a future Government where airsoft skirmishers were restricted to allowing those that were fully paid up, formal members of some sort of registered organisation (which I hope organisations such as UKAPU would aggressively campaign against)
Now, to the concept of liability: anything that a governing body issues as advice, is issued in the name of the body and as such it is the body carries the liability.
I had no problem with helping those with import issues with their queries, because if we as an organisation ended up offering duff advice, then an organisation such as UKAPU (or more accurately, it's executive committee as was correctly pointed out upthread) would not have much in terms of exposure. On the scale of a purchasing a replacement RIF I would suggest, but we've never had to do that thankfully.
However, when questions are raised like health and safety (read: eye protection) or how to deal with errand players deliberately and seriously injuring other players during game play, you may end up in the realm of some quite rather expensive personal injury claims being pointed in the direction of the body who issued those guidances.
Not just through sites working to best practices of a particular governing body, but manufacturers wishing to understand which specification they need to build their personal protection equipment towards, retailers understanding what goods they can sell without encountering liability etc.
At present, liability falls almost solely on site owners, backed by their public liability insurance. Waivers, as much as people wish they waive all liability, still leave the site owners with a fair amount of exposure.
Now, how do we get around the issue of liability, one asks? An organisation could issue guidance with a waiver of liability however the outcome of obtaining legal advice was that not only would that be seen as unprofessional from an organisation issuing such guidances, but any waiver of liability would be... not worth much in a court.
So, the realistic answer is to purchase insurance. I'm not in the position to discuss exactly how much I personally was quoted per annum however I hope you can tell how disappointed I was when I found it out that it was a five figure sum. It could have been purchased, but it was not the best use of money.
There's also the elephant in the room that is "I won't do what you tell me" which... is a topic for another day!Note 1: what is being posted below is my personal opinion. It is not the opinion of UKAPU and therefore should not be interpreted as such.
Note 2: the linked High Court case is referring to a case where one rugby player had been involved with a dangerous tackle and caused paralysis to a second rugby player. Whilst it was found that the defendant (the rugby player who initiated the dangerous tackle) was liable, it was ultimately brought to determine whether or not the insurance policy that covered the defendant (arranged by the NGB) had to pay out.
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8 hours ago, hunter511 said:
The cynical part of me suspects that this is a "the people that have been giving us money actually want us to do something" kinda meeting.
But then again 23yrs as an engineer have left me with an overwhelmingly cynical and pessimistic world view.
It would be timely if it was, however please be assured that it was purely coincidental. Standing down has been something that has been on my mind for the past year or so, I just never decided to actually do it up until about 4 weeks ago. I wish I had done it sooner, judging by some of the interesting comments in this thread!
1 hour ago, Colin Allen said:Did the UKAPU meeting take place? Are members going to be notified of the outcome at any point?
The minutes are for me to type up they'll be ready by tomorrow I think - never fun doing a committee meeting followed up by a day's skirmishing.
Anyhow an update will be provided by a member of the team in this very thread along with other media streams in due course (as in, very shortly!) - I can't say too much about that now as I'm no longer the chairman! 🙂
25 minutes ago, TacticalWaifu said:By his own admission (and words) "wholly unprofessional" in his response
No, the wholly unprofessional response reference was due to me highlighting the fact that the resignation was brought on with regards to personal health reasons, partly brought on by the whole airsoft thing shutting down thing during the pandemic. If you chose to interpret that in a different manner, then that is understandable.
This will be the last time I reply to this topic as personally I'm baffled as to why there's such discontent about what is strictly an internal meeting, discussing things that are internal and sensitive in nature. It is something that the committee is entitled to do, and in some instances, is required to do.
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1 hour ago, TacticalWaifu said:
Unsure if they pay the "professional individual" who handles "programming" (read: site admin), or the admin representative -- but they don't make any money from the Association existing.
Both the admin assistant and the website developer are, as I understand it are paid for their time from shared UKARA funds, which are directly contributed from the fee that retailers pay for access to the UKARA system.
I don't believe that money is abstracted from the running of UKARA for anything other than operating expenses and it ultimately is pooled, which is understandable considering how expensive it is to engage in legal proceedings or to provide scientific evidence that can be used when discussing and countering legislation.
1 hour ago, SBoardley said:In my experience, voluntary work always wanes off, as the realisation of the work involved becomes apparent.
Whilst harsh, it's definitely true. The nature of volunteering is that it's done in one's spare time, or referring back to some of our past hijinks, pulling all nighters.
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50 minutes ago, TacticalWaifu said:
Appreciate the update -- for those not in the know, you're David W., right?
Yes, that is correct.
50 minutes ago, TacticalWaifu said:How are you differentiating between an "emergency management meeting" and an EGM or (minimum biannual) management meeting -- the latter of which "members are encouraged to attend" (§ 6.1.5)?
I want to hand over the reins in an orderly manner, and the best way to do that is to gather members of our committee and elect a new chairperson ASAP.
From that point we would proceed onwards to regularising whatever the committee and wider membership decide to vote for at the AGM.
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On 14/06/2023 at 13:58, Tommikka said:
The 6 & 12 ft lbs covers low powered air weapons in the firearms act, but still treats them within the firearms definition
Even though airsoft fires at a much lower power it previously still qualified as a low powered air weapon / firearm
But legislation change exempted compliant airsoft guns from being firearms
This could arguably mean that airsoft is legal to fire within 50’ of a highway
But the best position to be in is to never test that out.
In agree with that last sentence, however if I were a betting person, I would say that it would have been the intention of parliament to say that the word "firearm" within the Highways Act is something that is to be interpreted as described within the Firearms Acts.
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Hello.
Just thought I'd post in this topic just to clear up a couple of comments here.
The meeting that has been previously announced here that is being held on the 22nd of this month is not an AGM, it is an emergency management meeting, which is being held to replace myself as chairman, as I'm resigning.
Once that emergency meeting has occurred, and a new chairperson elected, we will begin the process of organising, and notifying our members about an upcoming AGM.
I won't go into details in full as to why I'm resigning on here (as I'll leave that to a press release to be done at a later date) but essentially dealing with the absolute mess that was the Coronavirus regulations pretty much made me want to pack airsoft in all together (and I want to enjoy airsoft once again)
I thank you for your interest in UKAPU and I hope to possibly see you at the AGM, whenever that may be!
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On 15/03/2022 at 11:06, Johndaniel4863 said:
Everyone has a right of appeal even when they are blatantly breaking the rules and it progresses to what is called a condemnation hearing at a magistrates court where a magistrate decides on the balance of probability if the seizure was right.
If Borderforce are ruled as being wrong then the goods (or value) are returned or the goods are condemned and the importer pays legal costs.
To add to this, I haven't heard of any legitimate importation of RIFs going as far as needing discussion at a magistrates court, normally when someone with a bit of knowledge within BF confirms the defence (either UKARA or a skirmisher's diary) it's released.
If anyone knows of anything that has gone that far however, I'd be interested in hearing more about it!
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6 hours ago, Rogerborg said:
Great to hear common sense being applied at the border, although it looks like you really were just lucky on the TaiwanGun package.
From what I've been hearing back from people who have personally imported their RIFs into the UK (or in a shipping container), generally it's a trouble free experience.
Generally the issue is only when it's sent as a parcel.
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14 minutes ago, lukeB said:
Why do we need a governing body, just because we can’t pew for an extra two weeks during lockdown?
I can’t see why any site would want to sign up to a body that tells them how to run their business, never going to happen.
The problem isn't about people not being able to wait two weeks to play again. Honestly, I'm baffled about today's absolutely bizarre outpouring of emotion.
The actual problem is more that pre-Covid, universities were struggling to set up their student unions due to airsoft, that is for all intents and purposes a sport - is not seen as a sport due to a lack of a governing body.
In one instance, someone thought some random retailer was the governing body, based on the name "airsoft" followed by the initials for "governing body"
Edit: and it doesn't even need to be recognised. It just needs to be a thing
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2 hours ago, Zarrin said:I assume you don't snipe or do much DMR stuff - it would diminish the effectiveness and enjoyability of those roles considerably.
Following on from this, there is very little difference between 1J and 1.13J - an estimate of a couple of metres or so, give or take some fairy dust being liberally sprinkled around the hop unit.
However not too long ago we as a community spent a considerable amount of time and effort (and the case of the retailers, their money) in proving to the Government (and others) that what we hold to be common practice is indeed safe.
And it makes no sense to throw that away 🤷♂️
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If anyone has any further information about this, like links to a group and such, please message me directly on here, or give me a shout via the UKAPU Facebook page or e-mail
Thank you
- Crazy_Crystal, sonofsammo, Paladin and 6 others
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It's that time of the year again, more English legislation - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1374/made
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Latest Scotland regulations come into force on Monday, as far as I can tell, areas that are allocated to levels levels 0/1/2 are able to hold indoor skirmish events and areas that are allocated to areas 0/1/2/3/4 (so that's all) can hold outdoor skirmish events.
Good news for those in Scotland!
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1 minute ago, Impulse said:
Maybe they mean the "2nd" month of 2021?
plz bojo no
That's how I read that too.
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37 minutes ago, MiK said:
Not 100% sure about up north but in England T3 is as follows pertaining to us (from my understanding)
At a minimum, this means:
> you must not socialise with anybody you do not live with or have formed a support bubble with, in any indoor setting or in any private garden or at most outdoor hospitality venues and ticketed events
> you must not socialise in a group of more than 6 in an outdoor public space such as a park or beach, the countryside, a public garden or a sports venue
> you should try to avoid travelling outside the very high alert level area you are in or entering a very high alert level area, other than for things like work, education or youth services, to meet caring responsibilities or if you are travelling through as part of a longer journey
> you should avoid staying overnight in another part of the UK if you are resident in a very high alert level area, or avoid staying overnight in a very high alert level area if you are resident elsewhere
So it means for me that I can’t go to any site that’s in a zone that it’s T3 if I don’t live within it and if I do live within the zone it’s 6 persons max.
Which means I wouldn’t be allowed to head to say anything within Nottinghamshire or stay over as I don’t live within Nottinghamshire - that’s before I even think about playing at a site......
No, you can currently go to any site in England and Scotland (and probably NI too), although I've recommended that people who are resident in an area covered by the English Tier 3 shouldn't skirmish - but if they do, to keep local.
Although travelling a fair distance to play is also something I'd recommend against
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On 25/10/2020 at 08:12, Rogerborg said:
Well, that's most of Scotland by population going straight into tier 3, which means no indoor adults sports.
Judging by what I've read on the Scotsman, tier 3 is no outdoor sports at all?
Edit: I lie, finally managed to find the "draft" of this on the Scottish government website
outdoor – all except adult (18+) contact sports (professional permitted)
should be all good then for all tiers?
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Wales will be cutting down metaphorical trees in an attempt to quell the spread of Coronavirus
Essentially they've reverted to their previous position of not allowing anyone outside of the house unless a reasonable excuse applies. Boo.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/wsi/2020/1149/pdfs/wsi_20201149_en.pdf
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On 17/10/2020 at 11:16, rocketdogbert said:
It’s all bollocks.
Tier3 in Liverpool, no gyms allowed to open
Tier3 in Lancashire, all gyms allowed to open
When I first heard about that, I didn't think it would end up like this. It's a spit in the face for clarity.
Even more hilariously, I thought that someone would have corrected the typo where it accidentally suggests that those taking part in outdoor shoots are disabled and/or otherwise impaired by now. 🤫
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3 hours ago, Rogerborg said:
Usually I advocate looking to the legislation for clarity and certainty, but at this point it barely seems worth it.
Agreed, it's fucked. I spent 4 hours going through it last night and left me in a mess trying to unpick it all 😆
I am legitimately surprised that sport can still be played in Tier 3 though, for example - all this talk about banning people from places and stopping people from gathering outside yet people can still take part in a sporting/fitness activity en mass such as airsoft and football (but not spectate oddly enough, a thing unique to Tier 3)
Could be worse. Norn Iron has a complete ban on any form of sport.
Also, why Tier 3? Tier 1 is Medium, will there be a Tier 0 for low risk, Tier -1 (or Tier 4294967295) for no risk?
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Posted · Edited by typefish
The only place where we get the e-mails from is from the UKAPU site. You therefore have an account with us.
Send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll be more than happy to pass across to you details as to when you had registered with us.