Great to see so many (130) come out to this important meeting. As in earlier posts, I have been calling for our local area 14 sfab board to hold ALL meetings in the evenings or on the weekends to allow the rec anglers collective voice to be heard. The chair of the area 14 sfab seems to think having them during the week at 9:30 in the morning is the way to go. Don't know about you guys, but most people I know work for a living and are unable to participate. Recently a sfab meeting was held in the evening for the very first time (7:00 pm)and low and behold sixty people showed up....guides, rec anglers, fathers and sons, youth anglers, a woman, DFO reps, two commercial etc etc...when pressed at the end of this meeting to move in this direction, the chair , instead of realizing the obvious benefits of this move, decided to stand pat and ignore the overwhelming support for for this request. If anything is going to get accomplished here, we need to have our voices heard. The suggestion by the vice or co chair that " we now have an email list that people can use to get in touch with the committee. If anyone wants a topic or idea brought-up, email it in. It will be addressed" is a joke. Having face to face open meetings with other rec anglers, DFO or whomever is the way the sfab was set up to work. Simply e-mailing issues to a select group on a committee without direct participation is not the open forum concept that allows rec anglers to voice their opinions, criticize, comment on, ask questions of DFO staff, submit letters to, etc etc...How would anyone in the Victoria area feel if they could not attend their local meetings....
