A 'Stoney' Silence!

There is a phrase i recall from my secondary school science days 'nature abhors a vacuum'. Aye you and me both pal!

Well over a month ago I signed up for COSCA's web cast conference event to be held on Friday afternoon at the Stone Mountain games in Atlanta. All interested parties would be able to tune into this important conference and hear what the clan leaders would be able to tell us about plans so far for clan events in Scotland in 2014.

So it was with a little 'gathering' excitement that I headed back down to the office on Friday evening and fired up the laptop ready to tune in. By the time I had negotiated WebEx's very unfriendly interface having to log in multiple times and install extra software etc I finally made it into the event all be it slightly late.

A waited for the audio feed to kick in, but no sound. And it wasn't just me, from the comments being typed by other online delegates no one was hearing anything, we were assured that the feed would be up soon and there were a few slight technical issues, half an hour went past, then an hour. Still nothing. People began to get frustrated and leave the online event and eventually equally frustrated so did I. And so for all of those not in Atlanta there would be no information on plans for 2014.

Give COSCA their due though they were very quick to issue an apology to all who had registered for the event and promised us that a transcript and live audio recording would be available ASAP.

I can hear the air escaping from the cabin!

Sure enough we found ourselves in another information vacuum and like a fart in a space suit Scotland on Sunday filled the space with something unpleasant! From the bare bones of an interview I gave them on Friday afternoon that mostly revolved around Stirling Council's well documented decision to scratch the 11th-13th July event from the calendar in favour of a new event at Bannockburn on the 700 weekend, they had created a story where the writer had somehow teleported to Atlanta and had witnessed the clan leaders tell a crest fallen posse of chiefs that the party was over! No tents, no parade nothing to see here folks just move along!

Except according to the people who were there this didn't actually happen!

COSCA have released a hurried statement. to deny that anything was cancelled on Friday but until we find out what WAS ACTUALLY discussed then we are still in the cold and dark. Not only that but just when we were getting a little clarity last week suddenly something rather unwelcome comes to the fore, talk of a 2015 event! This is confusion with a side order of confusion and a nice bowl of confusion to follow!

What the future of this event needs is pretty clear; firstly someone needs to pick up the ball! everyone seems to be expecting someone else to be in charge and like a lower league midfield they are all trying to avoid that ball being passed to them. Say what you like about 2009 but that event had a leader, someone who was prepared to take the punches and roll with them. Who is taking charge here? COSCA? The Standing Council? Stirling? Event Scotland? The NTS? anyone.......?

I have spoken to people who attended 2009 and brimmed with pride on that weekend. I spoke to a man who was barely able to walk but somehow managed to follow his clan leader up the high street that evening in Edinburgh. The people behind 2014 owe it to him and thousands others to ensure that Scotland delivers. 2009 was a life changing event for many lets not make it a 'once in a lifetime event' too.

Also all of the organisations above need to use EVERY CHANNEL at their disposal to get the message out. Why have websites not been updated? why has COSCAS much publicised partnership with social media site KILTR to date provided no information? and lets not forget the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs; this was a screenshot of the page that I got when trying to log into their site this morning:



Looks like someone forgot to pay the web hosting bill!

In space no one can hear you scream, fortunately in Scotland sound travels a bit further.