Another British Horse Society c**k-up

ester

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Given that a lot of the issue with the BHS was the secrecy with which they were conducting themselves and that you want all info to be open to all it then seems pretty ironic that you then opt to keep people secret. Nope not for me thanks.

Patricia's statement addresses very few of queries specifically directed to 'Eve equine' and if you can't be bothered to acknowledge people's concerns or answer them I'll pass on the whole situation thanks.
 

Violettears

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Red-1 - you make some good points. to answer some of them - not using 'quote' as that can get confusing.(To me, at least, lol.)
The reason we went with 'private' was to ensure that only people who have a real interest and share our concerns would have easy access to any planning. And yes - we knew the risks of a 'mole'. There have been several attempts to 'dig in' by staff/friends of the CEO. Member requests were accepted or declined based on several factos other than answer to questions. A check with a staff/Board list (none of those who tried answered the questions, of course.) We filtered for 'friends in Group' and 'mutual friends'. And a bit of gut instinct too. It was interesting that very few of those who didn't answer questions had friends in the Group. SOme had some friends in Group AND mutual friends - they got a reminder about questions. After all, without the questions we would have had at LEAST 3 times more members - and at least some of them would be totally disinterested or addictive joiners of groups.

I agree you with the whipping up of numbers - that was one thing I tried to stop. The member of the Admin team who did it is now a puppetmaster for Eve Equine.
I mentioned earlier that there was some axe grinding, personal agendas and sour grapes, looks like you have all turned on yourselves. Proves my point...More loss of credibility.
 

JanetGeorge

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I mentioned earlier that there was some axe grinding, personal agendas and sour grapes, looks like you have all turned on yourselves. Proves my point...More loss of credibility.

You joined HHO after the FB Group was formed - as a result of this thread. You joined to 'share' your opinions here - 4 months after this thread was started. You have never posted on HHO - at least as Violettears - except in this thread. So no-one here 'knows' you. All your posts have been very negative - one has to wonder why you've bothered. What IS your agenda, Violettears?
 

Rosiejazzandpia

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I'm completely lost and put off by all this nonsense. I joined the original group to try and make sense of what was going on and what other BHS members were thinking. Now I've received a friend request from eve equine, who I have not accepted and have reported as a fake name on Facebook. Surely members need to stick together and not have silly profiles as a side group. If anyone would like to enlighten me on what's actually happening it will be gladly received, if not then tomorrow I'll leave the Facebook group and forget all about this silliness
 

JanetGeorge

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I'm completely lost and put off by all this nonsense. I joined the original group to try and make sense of what was going on and what other BHS members were thinking. Now I've received a friend request from eve equine, who I have not accepted and have reported as a fake name on Facebook. Surely members need to stick together and not have silly profiles as a side group. If anyone would like to enlighten me on what's actually happening it will be gladly received, if not then tomorrow I'll leave the Facebook group and forget all about this silliness

Please don't leave - we are trying to get it sorted and move forward. Those of you who contributed months ago with concerns made it come together and a couple have worked incredibly hard for results. Getting people and proxies to the 5th January meeting was the first big achievement - and it was achieved primarily by HHO Members, many of whom used their own FB profiles to spread the word further. The FB Group brought more into action and gave us a voice. The passion felt for the issues DID lead to some disagreement and some independent action that made 'the voice' a bit croaky. That hopefully CAN be fixed so we can move on to utilize our next 'success' . But it all started here - and thankfully - H&H have allowed free speech despite a lot of pressure from HO to gag us and have this thread removed.

So I'm sure we all would join together in saying Thank YOU to HHO!
 

JanetGeorge

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No, I'm not either. Anonymous admin deciding when a topic has run its course, or just that they want to close it, massively cheeses me off. If this is what you wanted to do, you should have set it out earlier. Redirect the conversations with your own posts by all means but policing people like this isn't a good choice.

Surbie - it was a decision taken with some regret (and I was one of those anonymous admins who decided) we should try. The main reason was that it was making it impossible for most to keep up with NEW posts - or even catch up - because while they were reading a thread and composing an answer someone else had said the same thing on that thread that they were going to say. And a couple of people were posting exactly the same thing, often irrelevant to the thread in question, purely to bump that thread. And people were asking questions that had been answered several times because posts were up and down the page like a yo-yo.
 

Goldenstar

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Well this a fine mess is t it .
In my view how dare a group of member say they speak for me ?
They can only speak for themselves .
However I take from this that the BHS is in a right royal mess.
What’s going on with the volunteers ? There’s always a tension there but long ago the BHS existed to facilitate volunteers to but into the equine community skills for free in the areas they where interested in .
It ,through it’s county committees developed volunteers who did so much great work and gained much from it themselves

It worked to give excellent training and when you see what’s happened now that has been diluted you can clearly see that it was .
I simply don’t understand this lack of clarity in the messaging perhaps they need to sell the truck and employ a director of communications who knows their job
And a word of warning the BHS has always had people who want to hijack the society for their own ends working out the good guys from the bad guys was never easy it clearly remains that why .
I was a volunteer for the BHS for years and years I was a county chairman and I don’t receive emails from them .
Perhaps head office should reflect that they need to fix this fast , I was a serious member of the BHS I require more than a pretty facile magazine to keep me interested .
 

Red-1

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Surbie - it was a decision taken with some regret (and I was one of those anonymous admins who decided) we should try. The main reason was that it was making it impossible for most to keep up with NEW posts - or even catch up - because while they were reading a thread and composing an answer someone else had said the same thing on that thread that they were going to say. And a couple of people were posting exactly the same thing, often irrelevant to the thread in question, purely to bump that thread. And people were asking questions that had been answered several times because posts were up and down the page like a yo-yo.

But this is what happens in a group open to discussion to the public.
Rather like on here when a thread is derailed.
The forum would poorer for it if a thread was closed/deleted every time an OP took against what was said.

IMO it is wrong to say the group is for 'discussion' and then shut down every thread whenever an admin decides they don't approve of what is said.

Censorship is dangerous.

If you prefer to have a page where you are in control then why not have a page that is view only. Then you can pose questions and ask for replies by PM.

I think it is incongruous with the aim of finding out people's views if you shut down the threads.

Obviously something is not working currently, as the FB group has more posts about how the group is run than about the actual issue at hand.
 

ester

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Turning off comments gives a message of we don’t want you to carry on speaking and discussing stuff and removes the opportunity for people to respond directly to things that have been said.

To me it is completely unacceptable, even more so given the reasons this started.

To suggest that it’s because people couldn’t keep up is frankly ridiculous and somewhat insulting. If I can keep up with multiple threads on here a few threads on Facebook is pretty easy!
 

Goldenstar

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Turning off comments gives a message of we don’t want you to carry on speaking and discussing stuff and removes the opportunity for people to respond directly to things that have been said.

To me it is completely unacceptable, even more so given the reasons this started.

To suggest that it’s because people couldn’t keep up is frankly ridiculous and somewhat insulting. If I can keep up with multiple threads on here a few threads on Facebook is pretty easy!

I agree it makes you question the agenda .
And you are right just remember one of the first complaints on this thread was about the BHS attitude to unhelpful views .
Also surely it’s a good thing if those involved at head quarters look at things like the Facebook page and threads like this one they need to see what people think .
Thinking it’s ok to shut them off from doing that is ridiculous given the nature of people’s fears about what’s going on .
Makes it’s very easy for them to dismiss al this as being just a few malcontents with an agenda of their own .
 

Surbie

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'Once a topic has been answered and run for further opinions it will be turned off when constructive debate has finished. '

This is the one I disagree with. It's in the post from one of the moderators, posted at 1am when lots of the other threads were closed, I assume by them.

I don't support personal attacks, repeat posts or bad behaviour, but this is an over-reaction. It's standard form for the poster to be able to request or turn off comments on their posts, not for admin to do so whenever they decide.
 

Violettears

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You joined HHO after the FB Group was formed - as a result of this thread. You joined to 'share' your opinions here - 4 months after this thread was started. You have never posted on HHO - at least as Violettears - except in this thread. So no-one here 'knows' you. All your posts have been very negative - one has to wonder why you've bothered. What IS your agenda, Violettears?
There you have it... I rest my case. You don’t like another’s view, and you shut off anyone who is complimentary about the BHS, albeit there may be some things that need attention. My agenda is quite simple, to allow all views, without aggression or shutting off. IMO with your last comment, your credibility continues to go down rather quickly!
 

D66

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Im on the verge of resigning from the BHS. I can see they don't want to engage with their membership and they don't properly support volunteering. IMO there seems to be a lot of things that need attention and they can sort it out without my financial contribution.
 

JanetGeorge

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'Once a topic has been answered and run for further opinions it will be turned off when constructive debate has finished. '

This is the one I disagree with. It's in the post from one of the moderators, posted at 1am when lots of the other threads were closed, I assume by them.

I don't support personal attacks, repeat posts or bad behaviour, but this is an over-reaction. It's standard form for the poster to be able to request or turn off comments on their posts, not for admin to do so whenever they decide.

Actually, Surbie - it is standard Admin control on a number of FB Groups where I am NOT Admin - and 9 times out of 10, as an ordinary member of that group, I welcome it. It is far easier to keep up with a thread on a forum like HHO than it is with contentious subjects on FB. Having a poll on each thread the Admin THINKS needs closing to keep newer relevant posts near the top would be impossible.
 

ester

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whereas I am only on one fb group that sometimes does it (TE), and that bugs me too. I'm on a lot of groups and it's more often that they have the opposite in that comments aren't to be switched off.
 

Surbie

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I didn't suggest a poll. None of the 15 or so FB groups I am in close threads without the OP asking for it or closing it themselves as far as I can see, and some of them have a lot of whittering.

I still think it's a heavy-handed approach and it does give the wrong message. Am not going to reply again, as it appears pointless, we don't agree.
 

JanetGeorge

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whereas I am only on one fb group that sometimes does it (TE), and that bugs me too. I'm on a lot of groups and it's more often that they have the opposite in that comments aren't to be switched off.

I'll bet they're not contentious Groups though, ester. Some Groups I pop into have few members who actually post - and have no need. As in one OP, maybe 1 reply 5 days ago. So the OP post again to boost it to the top - when it was only 3rd to start with. But the BHS Members Group was having a huge number of new posts and loads of replies very fast - and a lot of those replies were from the same 1 or 2 people that said NOTHING new. Some members in bad satellite areas were crashing repeatedly. (I certainly was.)
 

ycbm

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I'll bet they're not contentious Groups though, ester. Some Groups I pop into have few members who actually post - and have no need. As in one OP, maybe 1 reply 5 days ago. So the OP post again to boost it to the top - when it was only 3rd to start with. But the BHS Members Group was having a huge number of new posts and loads of replies very fast - and a lot of those replies were from the same 1 or 2 people that said NOTHING new. Some members in bad satellite areas were crashing repeatedly. (I certainly was.)


The traffic on a Facebook page has nothing to do with your satellite service failing. We're all on a very few satellites, getting the same service, and the atmospheric conditions affect them badly because of the dish. I haven't been on your site, and mine has been iffy.

There is no way that the traffic on your BHS Facebook page is causing a Facebook server to crash, either. This is extremely unlikely to be related to demand, which in the whole scheme of Facebook is miniscule.

The answer to your problem on the site is to let the discussion run until people are out of steam, then summarise the key points.

Suppressing debate, as you are finding, does nothing but make you look just like the people you are criticising.
 

ester

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Some of them certainly are. What you are describing was only happening yesterday which was a rather extraordinary for the group, no need to threaten people with closing future posts. I’ll just read stuff on here where people are free to post as they like.

And even though it was different yesterday it really wasn’t that fast compared to other groups, I have no issue with posts moving around in order and I cant be the only one. I don’t possess any particularly special skills.
 

Lovethebeach

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As far as I can see, the topics that were closed for comments HAD run their course and the same people were making their comment over and over again to different people, therefore notification coming in for me only to read the same old comment !. I for one was losing the will to live with all the notifications pinging up and did complain of it and was very glad when Janet turned them off and they ceased. I can't see that any relevant on going debates were closed ? The whole thing is meant to be about what we want from the BHS, NOT who agrees with whom. I am a member of several groups where your post has to be approved by admin before it even appears, doesn't bother me, if I don't broadly agree with the aims of that group why on earth would I be in it or follow in the first place. Just don't have time for all this bickering lol !!!!!!!!!
 

gunnergundog

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It would appear that the original Eve Equine page was pulled by facebook on 2nd. They now have another page that as of this morning boasts 34 members. In my view, they represent those 34 members and those 34 members alone. They do not represent those who are/were part of the original group as they are no longer communicating with them. If they go ahead with a private meeting with the BHS it will be a complete and utter farce.

My suggestion to the original group is that a communication should be sent to both the BHS and Eve Equine stating that Eve is no longer representing the 900 plus members of the original group (assuming this is what everyone wants!), thereby immediately pulling the rug from under their feet.
 

JanetGeorge

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It would appear that the original Eve Equine page was pulled by facebook on 2nd. They now have another page that as of this morning boasts 34 members. In my view, they represent those 34 members and those 34 members alone. They do not represent those who are/were part of the original group as they are no longer communicating with them. If they go ahead with a private meeting with the BHS it will be a complete and utter farce.

My suggestion to the original group is that a communication should be sent to both the BHS and Eve Equine stating that Eve is no longer representing the 900 plus members of the original group (assuming this is what everyone wants!), thereby immediately pulling the rug from under their feet.


Thank you gunnergundog (great name!) Unfortunately, this immediate problem has happened because of a breakdown in communication and agreement about the way forward (and just think what happens if that happens with a dog - or a horse. (Especially with an aggressive, randy terrier - or a horse that has suffered pain associated with being ridden. The result - if there IS that breakdown and poor communication - tends to be fight or flight. When it happens between people who share a passion for a cause - it's far harder to get communication back - and then get agreement. At present, there's a lot of shouting and not a lot of listening from a small number of the original members.
 

Leo Walker

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I'll bet they're not contentious Groups though, ester. Some Groups I pop into have few members who actually post - and have no need. As in one OP, maybe 1 reply 5 days ago. So the OP post again to boost it to the top - when it was only 3rd to start with. But the BHS Members Group was having a huge number of new posts and loads of replies very fast - and a lot of those replies were from the same 1 or 2 people that said NOTHING new. Some members in bad satellite areas were crashing repeatedly. (I certainly was.)

What does your poor internet connection have to do with the group? It sounds really annoying but its not really relevant as theres a team of admin so if you cant get on then I'm sure they can cope. The group really wasnt having a huge number of posts. Some groups have multiple posts a minute, and no one turns off commenting. You say the original members arent listening, but neither are the current admin team.

Its all a mess. No one is representing themselves well and people are walking away rather than be drawn into the drama. If you cant sort this out between yourselves what hope do you have of doing anything else?
 
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