The critics offer nothing then criticism

Cessnock offers a Solution in the very very short term for little capital investment. Medium term moderate capital investment.

A well managed very short and medium term will self fund the long term .

If participants want a short - medium term option they should vote yes because the critics have no alternative other then massive capital investment which is not going to be forthcoming

Kevin,
You didnt mine racing on a swamp on a tight track ! Its chalk n cheese. You were NCA, near the end of their demise, what really happened at TG ? I really wanted you as an independent to operate TG, but it didnt happen. I believe that Gary Brown proved TG could make money.

Also, your contribution to the gymkana was noted but not grand. I believe there was an issue with one of the prizes.

The greyhound fraternity control Cessnock unlike Maitland where the Ag Society does and one has to be careful where one parks otherwise your car can be removed.

One of the facts of life is that todays greyhound racing is not viable on the basis of a sole user operating one day a week. Even twice is a problem. Pre-1990 (ie pre-SKY) it was just workable because large crowds and lots of bookies created activity. Neither is now present.

Overlapping that thought is the question of Showground use and the implied multi-user concept. These did not appear by accident but because (a) they were there and under-utilised, (b) greyhound racing needed to share the cost burden with others, and (c) it was seen as helpful that other users and the public would be exposed to greyhound racing and support it.

The ingredients have now changed. Showgrounds are gradually disappearing or fading as an essential part of community life. SKY/clubs/pubs took the customers. A frequent partner, the trots, started falling behind and rationalising tracks.

More often than not, local Councils failed to adjust their sights, hence many showgrounds fell into disrepair and dis-use. Similarly, greyhound clubs and the state authority failed utterly to update and upgrade their structure and operations to suit the changing world, largely because they forgot about customers, concentrated only on trainer needs and adopted a cargo cult mentality to income (ie remote Tab turnover).

Boil it all down and the codes primary need is to run in partnership with one or more other users so as to make the facility more efficient. This is not optional, it is mandatory. The alternative is to go broke.

To one degree or another, forgetting The Gardens for a moment, all the Hunters clubs have run under that same system, barring Beaumont Park which was sustained for 90 years by the NJC and betting on horses on Broadmeadows off-weeks. They have always been fragile ie dependent on others so when Harold Park, Beaumont Park and Wyong closed (for different reasons at different times) the shocks reverberated throughout the region. Aggregate regional income suffered badly.

Overall cost pressures later led to the delicensing of Cessnock and, for similar but different reasons, to Queanbeyan, Griffith, Penrith, Moss Vale, Singleton, Border Park and Orange ending their run. More will probably follow. However, Dubbo has been added for strategic reasons. Fair enough

As for racing surfaces, the attention to current problems is misleading. This is a vital but routine maintenance question. It happens everywhere. Etihad Stadium and Lang Park both had similar problems. Drop-in wickets are posing difficulties. Tennis Australia has twice changed the surfacing of Melbourne Park courts. Shepparton dogs synthetic surface was a disaster. Thoroughbreds are still experimenting with partial or wholly synthetic tracks. It takes time but all will settle down.

Currently, Cessnock is adopting a multi-purpose, but not multi-user, approach to its showground. Thats all good as far as it goes. But history and the facts tell us that a resumption of racing is pie in the sky. The hopes of a few trainers, or a lot of trainers, cannot alter that. Its business.

Again, speculative as it is generally inaccurate. Your comments always warrant a response because the reader needs to know your opinion contains inaccuracies on fact. Its really pathetic.

A few others get abusive on this thread but it is disappointing to see you heading there too. I am amazed at the number of times people simply make up stories when they know nothing about me or my circumstances, let alone think about what I have said. I often wonder how the moderators put up with it.

Where, for example, did you ferret out my alleged GBOTA association.
That is not only an outrageous lie, but an insulting one, and potentially libel, particularly as I have regularly criticised them here and elsewhere. Just recently I suggested they were part of the problem not part of the solution.

Anyway, you and others are barking up the wrong tree. While I did mention minor issues with the track (back straight visibility, holes) that's really not the nub of the matter.

What I have been stressing is that the concept, the package, the idea of re-licensing Cessnock is simply got a goer for practical reasons. Whether the track is good, bad, indifferent, grass or loam is not the point. A stream of people on this thread - nearly all trainers - have all said we need the Cessnock track back. None of those trainers has bothered to address the key industry factors I have brought up. They have not a clue about how Cessnock might fit in to the existing cash-poor industry? One which has had to rationalise Cessnock and several other tracks and will probably have to do more.

This is a major reason why I have often suggested that putting trainers in charge of anything, including clubs or GRNSW, is a recipe for disaster. It is a major reason why the industry is still living in the 1950s and in now paying the cost of that policy. If you have a broken leg you don't want a plumber.

Other nonsensical comments here claim I should stop making speeches and instead get my facts right. Yet I have done nothing but put forward a long string of facts, or factual situations. Not a single critic has said what my errors are - none. It's nothing but arrant abuse with often poor spelling which gets nowhere.

As for preferring grass surfaces - Bob, get real. That's ancient history, long since debunked across Australia because the industry cannot afford the cancellations and disruptions. I was brought up on grass tracks, mate, so I am well aware of what a terrible waste of time they could be. To justify turning back the clock on Cessnock on the ground that other tracks have had maintenance problems is absolute nonsense. Rank stupidity. If you car breaks down, are you going to throw it away and buy another one or will you get a mechanic to fix it?

These current attempts to engage local MPs and SFF to push a Cessnock barrow will not succeed but will divert political attention from much more important items - such as getting fair treatment of taxes and TAB commissions, thereby improving your wages in the end.

Who is BOB ???

Also, Dribble I wont dignify responses to your dribble anymore except the blanket one given previously, because many times youve failed to acknowledge mine and others. Youd rather post opinion that has inaccuracies. So, Reader Beware !

How many actual greyhound meetings have you attended within the last ten (10) years?

Not sure of the relevance of the question. What are you trying to say?

Anyway - meetings - no idea, could not possibly count.

Tracks visited - Qld 3, NSW 11, ACT 1, Victoria 10, Tasmania 1. Numbers would be higher if we went back beyond 10 years.

Screen visits - the lot. Actually, this is a far more efficient and effective method of studying tracks than going there personally, mainly due to more info at hand, convenient replays and stewards reports.

Data analysed - all Australian tracks.

Videos checked - all the above plus NZ and occasional UK and USA.

For any new (to me) track my practice is to go out early and get the manager's permission to walk around it.

How about you?

Thank you Bruce well done

I wanted to give you the opportunity to give your side of the rumour, that you haven't been to a race meeting in 10 years.

Thank you I will pay more attention to what you write in the future.

Myself approx. 132 race meetings 2016-2017, 15 Save our Industry Meetings, 1 GBOTA Branch Meeting Presentation Night, Cardiff Greyhound Club Presentation Night, plus approx. 20 trial days at Cardiff (Redhead)
approx. 50 2015-2016 race meetings
approx. 50 2014-2015 race meetings
approx. 50 2013-2014 race meetings
approx. 80 2012-2013 race meetings Albion Park, Townsville, Rockhampton and Mt Isa
approx. 80 2011-2012 race meetings as above
approx. 80 2010-2011 race meetings as above and Hobart
approx. 80 2009-2010 race Meetings as above and Mudgee
approx. 80 2008 2009 race Meetings all the above plus Wenty, I covered four states

This year, 1, 5 weeks ago, Cessnock last Monday for a look and Gosford slipping track 4-5 times per week and 3 trials at Cardiff (Redhead)

It's about time we defined the problem and the cause at Gosford (which is 15 mins walk from me). I cant remember the exact dates but the process was ....

1. Council approved speedway racing inside the dog track for a multi-week season of trialling and racing - later repeated.]

2. The speedway people paid to build it.

3. Whenever the bikes cornered they spewed out the dirt and metal all over the dog track.

4. Much time and effort was put in sweeping up and picking out the metal and demanding a fix from Council.

5. The speedway people eventually installed large boards around their track to supposedly stop the damage to the dog track. It helped but never quite did the job.

6. Meantime, routine harrowing etc would have resulted in some metal disappearing below the surface, only to reappear later.

7. The guilty party is the Council but you would have to check out the precise terms of the lease to establish their actual liability.

8. History and the current evidence tells us that there is only one reliable solution - get the bulldozer out and remove the entire surface, including the sub strata, and build a fresh track. (While at that, re-design the first turn and shift the 400m boxes).

9. Much as I don't like what GBOTA does, the club was the victim in this case, not the offender.

10. This and The Gardens shows us that, with the best will in the world, no club can be relied on to design or maintain tracks without close control from the central authority where genuine expertise must be made available - not people who think "she'll be right". Bill Wilson is qualified to look after surfaces but not other aspects. I would not give two bob for anyone else, including the so-called "expert" engineers who did the actual designs. Neither one had any dog track experience (which is admittedly hard to get).

11. The principle is simple. To win money dog trainers have to achieve a degree of excellence. The same applies to designing and maintaining tracks. The same applies to supervising the industry. The latter two are not meeting that standard.

12. If you need further evidence, consider that since 2001, the authority has fiddled with tracks at Wenty, Dapto, Bulli, Richmond, Goulbourn, Maitland, Bathurst, Gardens, Gosford and Casino in major ways - individual costs ranging from $50k to $0.7 million except for Gardens which cost squillions. Not a single one of those jobs has improved racing. At best they just repeated earlier mistakes. The only successful job was for the home turn at Nowra where the club and Council paid for it themselves.

Despite all that, Cessnock still makes no sense. Two wrongs do not make a right.