Well big man heres my response to your quote above.
Do you ever read anything before you open your big mouth and post on here, at least Bob does but not you big man, not you.
Lets start with what you have said, shall we;
Cannot disagree with the numbers of Masters Seniors but each year they are going up, to me both these Scottish Championships should be double the entry fee as well, as each tour is the same.
Next its not the mens singles mate, its the Scottish Open, for all players who play pool in Scotland and again that makes up the numbers.
We did get a sponsor last year and we did add to the entries taken in for the prize fund, to make it bigger prize fund than an IM.
Lastly, I'm not trying to fleece any player, in fact if you look at and read my post, I have pointed out that the Scottish Open, is in fact just that, a non seeded event right from the very start all through the event and nothing against our Scottish Champion but he had not won anything like this in his life and in my opinion the players entering the Scottish Open have a much better chance of winning a good bit of the prize fund there than in any other SPA seeded event.
I believe that the Scottish Open should be the biggest event of the year and that starts with the prize fund, its not easy getting sponsors for any event son, do try and when it does come off then you can be sure that a big part of that will be added to the prize fund, the Scottish Open in years gone by has lost tons of money but never has one penny of the entry fee not been paid out to the players.
This is 2017 and if you don't believe that a £10 entry fee for our biggest singles event of the year is right, you have the same right to say it along with everyone else on here but I would hope that the reps would back my proposal to have it increased based on the facts that I have said in my posts to Bob and now you.
In my opinion I don't think £10 is too much for the main event of the season.
Allowing the players to vote on everything means nothing ever progresses - most of the pool fraternity couldn't agree on the colour of NO SWEARING!!.
I think major changes to the structure (example from 128 to 256 at IM Finals) should go to all players for a vote but in my opinion the cost to enter a tournament etc.. should be decided with the SPA Officials.
Just my 2-bobs worth.
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I'd have no issue with the entry fee going up to £10.
With regards to voting - people always vote for what is best for themselves, it's human nature. However the SPA also has a responsibility to make sure that events etc are fair to everyone, which is why majority votes aren't always the best way. You'll always have differences between grass-root players and elite players, between players residing in central Scotland and elsewhere etc etc. It should be up to the SPA to make sure they get a balance between what the majority want and what is fair to everyone else
The Reps make most of the decisions at the SPA meetings and you are correct when you say people always vote for what is best for themselves?
That is why we have at present an IM series which use 3 clubs on a Saturday and have 256 there but the Reps are not voting for themselves, they are voting on what they believe is best for their members and that is the reason when Bob asked me who should make the decision to change the entry fee and I said Myself.
Going back a good few years now but I remember when I asked for the entry fee o £1 to be increased to £2, then to £5, what an uproar this caused, did the entries go down, sure they did, they went from almost 2500 right down to 1000 but in truth we also changed the way we did the Scottish, no longer getting pro rata without names and allowing leagues to do their own draws.
Names had to come in with the entry fees and I believe this more than the increase in entry fee was the difference.
No longer could leagues just submit a number and pay it just as one and do their own draws.
Everything is done right now and perhaps Bob may be right and a good few decide not to enter because of the increase but we will not know that until we do it or are we going to keep it at £5 forever?