SAA Member?

Like joining the ACA (8000 members) supporting the SAA seems to be lip service for the vast majority, yet only too pleased to be defended by them.

Are you a member?

No but, what are it's intentions or ideals?

SAA - Specimen Anglers Assoc. presumably, try putting it in google and you get lots of things including 'Sex Addicts Anonymous' but nowt to do with fishing - and no I'm not a member but then again I'm not a specimen angler am I.

"Are you a member?"

Well, no Mark, I am not.

I am still waiting to see what F.A.C.T. are going to come up with in regards to individual membership, although pretty much getting tired of waiting to tell the truth.

Other than a few visits to their web site I don't have much information about them, and to my mind individual membership of any of these organisation (other than the ACA) is pretty much meaningless, to the individual that is.

Sorry to be so negative.

There are so many similar organisations these days on the fishing front that its hard to single out one as being more worthwhile than the other (with the exception of the ACA).

Admitadly all of them are 15 quid here 10 quid there and technically all of them are affordable to join but the angler sees very little physical benefit back in comparison to putting these costs towards a ticket in a new club or water. I see the reasoning behind such organisations but can't help think that there are so many organisations trying to do the same thing that we're simply diluting the market!

Why not support the ACA and be done with it.

Maybe The Monk should answer these points. He was one of the best workers the old NASG ever had.

As I was in a very small way responsible for the roots of what has now become the SAA, I will get him to contribute to this thread.

"all of them are affordable to join"

Not if your only income is a retirement pension or incapacity benefit

Graham, it's called the Specialist Anglers Alliance.

The biggest problem with most of these organisations is they're not too good with PR. I've lost count of the number of times I've told them FM's pages are open to them, but apart from odd press releases they don't use us at all.

You'd be surprised at the offers I've made for them to take advantage of FM (for free I might add) and the number of anglers we could introduce them to. But nothing comes of it.

So is it really any wonder that even in this short thread so far we have anglers who don't even know who they are?

The best angling organisations in the UK Graham were the old NASG (National Association of Specimen Groups) which became the NASA (National Association of Specialist Anglers).

I remember one of their last conferences down in Loughborough. It was a marvellous get together. So many old faces to meet. An excellent tackle show and superb lectures and demonstrations from the like of Tony Miles, Tref West and others I can name.

But what always put the kybosh on these conferences were the calls to order to get in the the blinkin' AGM and then the political arguments.

And the hours wasted listening to minutes of the last meeting and the usual committee procedures.

I always thought that when anglers travel long distances to such functions, they want to be free of the sorts of things that they have to face in their day to day activities at work!

I may be wrong, but the NASA eventually became a rather austere political animal, rather than a brotherhood of those of the angle!

Come on Monk, get involved with this thread!!

Why don?t more anglers support SAA?

To answer this fully we have to look back into the history of the organisation and how it has evolved and adapted to the changing scene of so named specialist-angling needs. To many of us slightly older anglers SAA is affectionately known as the Mother Organisations, because from her all other specialist groups (with the exception of the National Anguilla, 1962) where founded. My good friend Ron Clay probably started the catalyst when in 1962 we put an advert out asking for any interesting parties care to form a local specimen group and thus the Northern Specimen Hunters group was formed. As the NSHG gained momentum and took on new members, my old friend Eric Hodson joined the organisation and became the group?s secretary. On 24th April 1965 Eric pulled together, through the NHSG, a new body of specimen hunter groups and so was born the National Association of Specimen Groups, a body of like minded specialist anglers who belonged to local groups with three main aims, the application of scientific advancement within the discipline, the encouragement of social activity among like minded anglers and finally a political awareness and activist section.

NASG had been a very successful organisation, which experience phenomenal growth within the late 60s and early 70s. Towards the end of the 70s however and despite any problems the NASG had experienced within its leadership, a new input put the group back on track with an adoption of the body into the specialist needs of the time. The group was renamed The National Association of Specialist Anglers to reflect both the change in anglers fishing as individuals and the old Specimen tag changing to the more user friendly specialist term which it was felt reflected this branch of angling more suitably. Like all groups NASA rose and declined and towards the end of the eighties the national Conferences were beginning to lose support, this was due mainly to the rise of other single specie group growth, like the Carp Society and the PAC, each who now had their own National Conferences and with only so many specialist anglers around financial choices had to be make, membership of NASA began to drop away and many were saying NASA was not doing enough politically for specialist angling, although NASAs social side was still well represented (although on a decline, i.e. the two day conferences went down to one day as the National single specie group conferences gained momentum).

A new political arm of the group came into being towards the end of the 80s being, this being initially called the New Political Group. NASA Political Group which soon became the Specialist Anglers Conservation Group (SACG), SACG ran along side of NASA for a number of years, indeed many of us served on both committees, until eventually the inevitable happened and the groups amalgamated, the struggling NASA was mixed with the SACG to metamorphoses into the new body Specialist Anglers Alliance (SAA), a continuation of NASG, the Mother).

So what changed?

Well nothing and everything, what the SAA is, is basically the political activist wing of the old (1965) NASG, but with the tried and tested experience and commitment to deal with an ever-changing specialist and coarse fishing political environment. With the demise of the NASA, we lost the social side of the old NASG, and with modern tackle development the scientific side of the organisation was no longer required of course, big business saw to that. Basically the organisation SAA (the Mother) has swung politically because a great need exists for political activation in this day and age, The roots were put down by NASG and SAA carries on with this necessary and essential work, the most amazing thing I?ve always found with the Mother, is that it always manages to attract professional activists who fight for the benefit of others behind closed doors, many unsung heroes have got the organisation to where it is today and much progress has been made.

So why are more anglers not members.

Simple really, not many people are interested in the political side of the sport, the social side of the Mother has ameliorated into the growth factor of the national single specie groups and SAA have a much grater need to advertise and market the group now, more so than at any time in the past, they/we need to get out there, but without the bodies to do that, anglings political fight will have to take a back seat for a while longer. The lads who sit with SAA at present really have their work cut out, they don?t ask much, only that we pay subs, obviously if we can offer practical support, angling can move forward a peg or two. It really is up to us, all of us, we are SAA, use it or lose it. What do you thing will happen if angling suddenly gets banned, do you think the cavalry will come charging over the hill and save us? Help us to help you, united we stand and all that!

Why not support the ACA and be done with it.

The ACA should be supported however it is a group which defends clean rivers and waters systems by taking offenders to court, but it will NOT politcally pull specilaist branch anglers together like the SAA, its an entirely different type of body, you need to understand the difference between these organisation types

I'm not a member but then again I'm not a specimen angler am I.

It doesnt matter, SAA supports all branches of angling but because of its roots was founded among specialist descipline anglers, who have been the most politically orientated division among Coarse anglers

There are so many similar organisations these days on the fishing front that its hard to single out one as being more worthwhile than the other (with the exception of the ACA).


Again a lack of understanding here, what other organisation is even slightly similar to SAA, I certainly know of none?

What you have to understand is SAA is an umbrella organisation for one branch of the sport, game anglers, and sea anglers are also represented with their own body all working towards the unification of all anglers regardless of discipline, basically angling needs one voice, and that voice is make up by representative groups who talk to the descision makers.

Ask not what SAA can do for you,
Ask what you can do for them!


SAA needs you

Angling needs you

Please don`t leave it to others, if you are not politically orientated, fine, most anglers are not, a few quid a year, how much do you value your angling!

www.saauk.org

?10 a year. join online.

Thanks for that mate. I think it is important to explain where the SAA came from.

But where to now?

For my part, I have never been able to get my own head around the idea of single species groups. Certainly I have never been a single species angler and I don't think the majority of anglers in the world are either.

I don't think I could ever envisage myself fishing for only one species of fish for the rest of my life. It would bore me to death after a while. Yet many anglers today do this and I could name a lot of them.

Without doubt it is the single species groups that have led to the partial demise of the old NASG/NASA.

Your case is well put Mr Monk, but under the banner of 'Specialist Anglers Alliance' (thankyou Ron) it ain't liable to pull a lot of ordinary anglers now is it?

I, like a lot of anglers just go fishing, sometimes with the hope of catching a particular species but generally just for the joy of fishing and, for my sins, I have a match fishing background. Put titles like specialist, specimen or barbel society in front of me and though I will show an interest in their methods I would never dream of joining one of them. Maybe its got the wrong title Eh!

You need to have an interest to join a club of like minded people and I believe that the majority of anglers are just that, anglers, not specialist, do you see what I mean?