BS Magazine: Anyone else racked off with the total shallowness of its' content?

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Doncella

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As stated, every BS Magazine is shallower than its' predecessor in MHO. Just what am I paying for here? I live in Area 36 which is possibly the poorest in the country and we get very little for our membership commitment.
My nearest indoor venue is 70 miles away over the Preseli mountains, not only that it is pants. Everything is just awful, it's like living in another era, the arena is/was sand, the whole place is run down unless it has had a major overhaul.
From BS Magazine page 28 we don't even have a BS trainer in the area.
No wonder Showjumping is no longer a high profile televised sport, it has lost contact with its core membership. The real members, the bread and butter members have nothing to aim for because we don't have the money especially in West Wales.
Why am I a BS(JA) member? Frankly I have no idea.
Someone back me up on this one.
BS Magazine Jessies Journal what's all that about ?????????
 
I have just joined BS and was surprised at the content; most of it seemed to be aimed at teenagers. However i joined to compete so am not really bothered TBH.
 
I agree, I tried to read the feeding article as it is relevant to my business, but the typeface is awful, really small & all crammed in & I struggled to read it & gave up. I'm in Hampshire, not sure what area number that is, the area website is never updated, the shows page was still from August recently, we don't seem to have any training days. Surrey, next door seem to have loads of stuff on, & my friend who isn't even a member gets all these emails inviting her to things, to be a guinea pig etc etc, whats that all about then? Oh, & I agree about Jessies Journal, at least BE get Daisy Berkeley writing a decent & interesting article, why can't we have a pro writing something for BS?
 
Reading oh's copy last night, it really is rather lame and shallow! Some of the (high!) cost of affiliating must be spent on this. I would rather they didn't bother and cut the fees, or used the fees and actually published something worth reading.
 
It has always been poor, they should do what the BE mag does,
say:

every month have a visit to a top riders home/yard
have a focus on a venue (would encourage venues to upgrade) (maybe venue of the month)
Have articles focusing on training given to a grassroots rider monthly
Decent area write ups and pictures - maybe even area points league info - at least something from every area - scotland hardly has any mention in it!
etc etc

Maybe we should all put ideas on here then send the link to the BS editor!

At the moment, mine is flicked through and recycled
 
Hey! I have a positive! The calendar at the back of the magazine is the only bit I read through...at least we finally get a calendar in print to provisionaly put things in the diary with.

It would be fab to have a rider featured each mag, say one pro and even one amatuer who is doing well -or how H+H does the working rider features.

they did have a few overviews of each region each mag but that stopped 2 issues ago i think:confused::confused:
 
Couldn't agree more with you - it's a load of boring rubbish. I work for a glossy monthly magazine and everytime I get the BS mag it bugs me that it is so expensively produced on our membership fees with the dullest content. God knows with a bit of imagination they have access to so many members pros and amateurs they could do some great features but never do. Plus all the stuff on the big shows that they do is so out of date by the time that the mag comes out that its all old news anyway.
Mine gets a five minute (if that skiff through) and then its for the bin. Total waste of BS members money I reckon* phew getting a bit hot under the collar there!
 
Will add as well, that personally I think they should give us all a few quid off our membership and make the magazine an online one - that would mean
a) The content can be bang up to date with chat from members as well
b) The cost of printing is saved and can be passed back to us members or used for something more interesting
c) we save some trees as I don't know anyone that actually keeps and reads the thing - total waste of paper and money
Rant over
 
tantallon said:
Will add as well, that personally I think they should give us all a few quid off our membership and make the magazine an online one - that would mean
a) The content can be bang up to date with chat from members as well
b) The cost of printing is saved and can be passed back to us members or used for something more interesting
c) we save some trees as I don't know anyone that actually keeps and reads the thing - total waste of paper and money
Rant over
Click to expand...

Agree completely
 
I agree. I never find the BS Magazine very interesting TBH and just tend to flick through it. Whereas the BE one I will actually read.

I also wonder what I pay for with BSJA. There's now only one venue near me that does BSJA (which is a nice venue and thankfully only 30 mins drive) but the next nearest venue is hours away. At one point we used to have 3 or 4 venues regularily holding BSJA but not anymore :( We're very very limited up here which doesn't encourage new members. The BSJA have messed up my record so many times, I hate the website and I dislike the magazine. They never listen to their members though so not much point in complaining.
 
I was off sick on Friday with Flu, laying on the sofa watching a bit of Jezza Kyle when my BS mag arrived. I thought at the time what perfect timing, I have to say I started to read it and got pretty bored just flicking through and its only my second mag, October's I think I left on my BA flight to Chicago prefering the inflight magazine it was that dull.

I really like reading about pro's and their horses and the big shows but as the majoring of BS riders are keen amateurs should they not feature more?

Also H&H feature the big shows so by the time the magazine rocks round if BS havent got anything unique and different to H&H to say about the show then its not really thaat interesting. H&H features like the upgrading from nc to fox should be the sort of things that feature in the mag.
 
MagicMelon said:
I agree. I never find the BS Magazine very interesting TBH and just tend to flick through it. Whereas the BE one I will actually read.

I also wonder what I pay for with BSJA. There's now only one venue near me that does BSJA (which is a nice venue and thankfully only 30 mins drive) but the next nearest venue is hours away. At one point we used to have 3 or 4 venues regularily holding BSJA but not anymore :( We're very very limited up here which doesn't encourage new members. The BSJA have messed up my record so many times, I hate the website and I dislike the magazine. They never listen to their members though so not much point in complaining.
Click to expand...

I think I have commiserated with you before on the lack of venues at the extremities of the UK.
 
I used to get it a few years ago and it was complete drivel, out of date, dull, even the adverts were from the same old people and the articles were really nothing more than the Whitaker family diary, where they'd been, who they were riding, what their results were etc etc. I see it hasn't changed much.

It should be considered a marketing tool to attract and retain members with lots of enlightened, refreshing articles about a variety of people not just those at the top of the leader board.

If a more polished magazine is beyond them they should save their money IMO.
 
i must say i love jessie journal but only probably because i know everyone mentioned in it - love the bit about Nicole Pavitt this week everyone at Addington was talking about it !!
 
see now theres a key point, Tinks you are effectively 'on the circuit' so know those in the know etc. The vast majority of BS members are not and don't. Those in the know will know the majority of the content already so therefore it should be aimed at the majority of the membership who arn't, unfortunately it seems the other way round.

I admittedly haven't seen a copy in 3 or 4 years now since I was last a member but even when then I was 'semi' in the know I never read it!
 
It doesn't do any harm but personally I would prefer to see the entire magazine scratched - don't bother with an email version either.....just use the website to post any relevant content..... - and give us a lower membership cost!!!

Or....even better.....bring BE, BS & BD into ONE body with ONE annual sub that covers the entire lot!! There have to be economies of scale, surely..............or????
 
Maybe then if they will insist on carrying on with the magazine could they acknowledge Scotland !! No Scottish shows are ever featured even though we have major outdoor and indoor shows!!
Q
 
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