Marty_JG wrote:So, Mountain Boothies are fine if they're not commercialised, that is - as far as I understand it - basically kept word-of-mouth by nice people in Páramo, but the scores of them are not really a resource for the entire public. Okay, but the MBA should withdraw from charitable status and become a tax-paying private business. I don't think it's reasonable for the MBA to be both a charity, and the tax exceptions that benefit it, whilst also trying to be a private clubhouse.
And it's not like the MBA don't have a location list.
Anyway, I've got a tent and a firepit so it doesn't bother me.
Hi Marty,
With respect, you're slightly missing the point. The argument is
not about the locations being kept secret as the locations are freely available on the MBA website since 2009 as you point out. Many MBA members had/have a problem with this but personally I don't.
The current issue different and very simple: a commercial guidebook - the Bothy Bible - was written by an MBA Maintenance Organiser, Geoff Allan, and the MBA allowed him to place the MBA logo in his book for a 10% cut of the profits from the book's sales. As we speak, an MBA bothy - An Cladach - will be closed as a direct result of problems caused by that book being cited by the bothy owners. To put it another way it is bothy commercialisation, that was, at the very least, given the nod of approval by the MBA which has led (unless something changes) to a closure of an MBA bothy. How is that good for anyone? Of course there is another point in all this in the fact that the MBA is a Scottish Charity, as you have alluded to, that indirectly helped (by allowing him to use their logo) one of their officials in making money directly on the back of MBA bothies - a very sore point for many MBA members/volunteers. I'm not at all saying that that was a deliberate position taken at the time by the MBA - to be totally honest I think it was simply incompetence on the part of MBA trustees - but you have to question whether or not that is a good PR position for a Scottish charity that receives all the benefits that you mention? I would say it is not, and I only hope that the MBA distances itself completely
and publicly from Geoff Allan and gives him his money back, but I'm pretty certain that will not happen.