D. A.
I am not a knocker of what has been achieved by yourself and others in Scotland.
I do not believe for one minute that we should have a given right to a level playing field, the beer brigade have two arms, two legs and a mouth - exactly the same as me - and anyone else.
ALL NEED is certainly not in my reply. People make choices in life, those choices will determine where they end up on the heap, some people are deflected by circumstances. Others by things that happen that are out of their control.
Other than those set of circumstances that are completely out of your control it is not an excuse to say that because we are born we have a right.
The SLWCN cannot be free if you want to see a return on the fees you pay.
I look at the industry as a whole and it is sadly lacking in advancement. That has not affected my business - if anything it has helped my business because I have been able to set an example and peoples beer brigade attitude can carry on for me.
I spend a lot of time helping individuals to advance themselves, I go into a local school once a year on their industry day and try and input into those coming up to leaving school age by offering an insight into being self empoyed. I will always go out of my way to assist where I can, anyone who is genuinely looking to improve themselves. What I am showing with this is that this is not a completely selfish approach to the way I work.
What I will never do is try and drag the victims of life. You have dedicated what would be perceived as an incredible amount of time to someone elses cause.
If you had utilised all of that effort to a very few like minded people would or could you have achieved more by example.
My background is from the miners strike in 84 - I came out of the army into this decimation of a whole region and men that had stood side by side for a whole year, proud men that had to have soup kitchen hand outs, that were crushed by a government that wanted to introduce economic strategies that had nothing to do with the miners or how much their individual mortgages were costing - Arthur Scargill still took his £50000 a year salary!!!.
I am southern compared to Scotland but I would not call Stoke on Trent the affluent south - this is where I started my business - amongst the beer brigade on a pound a front and £3.00 all round.
I have been in the industry for long enough now to know that I can help more of the right people by example and individual one on one than thinking that a trade association is someones right.
Please understand that I am not attacking what you are doing and nothing is a personal attack. I wish you luck but whilst most on here were looking at the same old threads yesterday I spent the day holed up in my office looking for the icing on the cake businesses to form allegiances and working supply chains and that is the difference between the few and the many.
Rob
