Bowling News
It seems inevitable to me that the BCGBA levy on clubs of an extra £1 per bowler will get approved at the 18 January 2025 Rules Revision meeting. The money is to fund the implementation of their National Development Strategy with a Year 1 cost of £110,000 to be raised to kick start the project.
It is also anticipated that the BCGBA National Database will be used to assemble all the data which will inform the bill-makers of how much extra each club has to pay each year for the next three years at least. It is a 5-Year strategy although the proposed rule change only covers the first three years.
Yorkshire has previously vividly opposed BCGBA attempts to introduce a levy based on club numbers. I feel that this opposition will now evaporate and, in the light of no alternative funding mechanism being proposed, Yorkshire will support the vote to introduce the £1 levy per bowling club member.
Each County organisation has been charged by the BCGBA with implementing the JustGo system with their clubs. I believe that training sessions have been held on the East Coast and in the Harrogate area. I am not aware of any training sessions being held in Huddersfield although I am aware of some clubs being given access to the system accompanied by some emailed operating instructions. For a sport that was slow to introduce computerised results reporting using the Bowlsnet system that was a doddle compared with the JustGo system.
For those of you that have never seen the system this is the front page of my access to the system.
Mike Pointon of Huddersfield Recreation Club may be classed as a typical club official who is trying his level best to understand and work with the system with no formal training and no access to training materials and no support team in place. Mike told me about his experience of using the JustGo system.
Jeff - I have just read your article relating to the BCGBA rules revision and your thoughts on the Just Go website. I, on behalf of Huddersfield Recreation Club have provided Steve Cochrane (Yorkshire CEO) with the names and BCGBA registration numbers for all our men and lady bowlers. Initially it was an arduous task ascertaining who were still "alive" or had passed away or no longer bowled competitively. Steve replied that all were on the system and he provided details on how to sign into Just Go and view the schedule of our bowlers. After signing on to Just Go i found it difficult to locate the lists.
Eventually found them and checked the names with the names I had forwarded to Steve.
Many names were missing so e-mails were exchanged and eventually Steve replied and ensured me that all the names I had provided were on the system and I could access a "secret" list which will show all our bowlers names. He told me how to access this list but to this day I can't find it.
Personally I find this very frustrating as the only "training" I have received was from the initial e-mails from Steve. I still try and update / review our current bowlers etc. but for an 80 plus guy trying to keep our club up to date on Just Go is becoming more and more confusing, especially as the system doesn't seem to be 100% accurate. The Just Go system also asks for details of our insurance which is another story I won't bore you with.
To be honest Jeff, it seems to me and our club members that it is a waste of time and effort trying to conform with what is required and what benefits are to be gained. If the £1 per bowler rule is passed then it will create even more work checking our bowler lists.
Sorry to have been a pain but I thought I would respond to your request re Just Go training etc. etc.
Mike Pointon, Huddersfield Recreation Club
I have worked in and headed computer services in a number of large acute hospitals for over 30 years and am well aware of the dangers of implementing new systems to hundreds of personnel (nurses) who are not that keen to use them, have no incentive to use them and are not properly trained and supported. This implementation seems to have captured all the problems I have experienced in those 30 years into one project. The introduction of JustGo is not a well thought through approach and I am unclear within the BCGBA who has taken prime responsibility for this implementation.
However the quality of the data on the National Database has to be questioned. For a start I suspect that most Huddersfield clubs are not familiar with the JustGo system which drives the National Database. Over 10 days ago I asked Yorkshire CCGBA about the rollout programme for the system. I have not had any response or even an acknowledgement of that request. Those of us who have access to the system and have looked at the membership data on it and tried to update it will recoil in horror at the proposed use of this data to recharge clubs.
Under the Data Protection Act (now the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)) the BCGBA is responsible for the accuracy of the personal data kept on the system. That appears to me to be a responsibility they are not taking very seriously. It is not acceptable for the BCGBA to turn around and say that it is the responsibility of clubs to keep those records up to date without the appropriate tools and support to do that. We are clearly going to learn a lot more about all this over the coming weeks and I envisage a very rocky ride ahead for clubs , counties and the BCGBA.
If you or your club has had a JustGo experience I would be pleased to hear your views on the system. Either leave a Comment at the foot of this posting or send your view to me by our Contact Us form.
So in conclusion it is clear that JustGo doesn't go at all and is some way off, at least in Huddersfield, of being the tool to determine annual fees to clubs amounting to thousands of pounds in additional fees. This system may be an adequate means of collecting the data required but it is it's implementation which is badly flawed leaving it open to mistakes, misuse, misunderstanding and the wrong recharging to many clubs. Merry Christmas!
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