Oh what tangled webs we weave ...

[Robbo]

Reb, I'm afraid the picture you paint re my position in all this is a little naive mate. You are a smart guy and I respect you and your opinion but life ain't as black and white as you make out.
You are right, I do have a legitimate gripe with barnett for breaking his word and taking the pi$s outa me and if it was just left at that, this thread would not exist.
I would have banned him and got on with more important things in my life, but .... for you to suggest that I ignore all the representations that were made to me on the basis I didn't go check the facts is an absurd observation.
How do I get to those facts Reb?
In situations like this, facts are inaccessible sometimes and does in a lot of cases come down to he said, she said but bottom line Reb is this.
barnett can present the facts by showing people the relevant paperwork .. that's how 'he said' can change suspicion into facts ... if he's got them, he answers his doubters, if he ain't, he's in trouble .. end of !
Life ain't black and white Reb ... I have many friends in our sport, and this list of friends includes a lot of the industry.
I have a personal duty to support my friends but if you think that support means I believe everything they say and support them blindly, then you are undoubtedly mistaken.
A lot of people when situations like this erupt find it easy to focus on one person, in this case, myself, when attacking or defending their own position.
I have repeatedly said, and I'm getting tired in repeating myself, the concerns I raised over and above my initial problem with barnett were all generated from within our industry .... you are well aware Reb of reductionist approaches and this distils down to the following ... questions are being asked by people within our industry that relate to an amount of money donated to a 'fund' ... now. instead of focussing upon anything over here, the right and proper action should be to find out as much as you can relating to the question's being raised.
People do not raise these type issues for the fun of it Reb .. these are extremely serious people here, they are not trouble-makers or agenda-ridden idiots .. they are professional people ... and so, instead of knocking on my door telling me I should 'find out the facts' before posting anything, you should look elsewhere for clarity.
I haven't taken a damn penny off of anyone, I haven't 'created' a fund to donate monies into ... I am asking questions not accusing .. if barnett thinks I am accusing him then I don't give a sh!t, if he's innocent, then publicise the relevant paperwork ..it's stunningly simple !

 

[Gadget]

Boy, this thread has got more conspiracy theories associated with it than 9/11!

As an unbiased 3rd party, I've tried to dig through as much of the rubbish being spouted as possible and summarise all of the various allegations/insinuation in one place (ignoring the Robbo/Tim Barnett advertising on p8ntballer issue, as that's between them and also the Cessle incident on Facebook, as that's one person being an idiot which has been universally condemned and it's up to Robbo how he chooses to address it).

1. Super6 D10 Paint issue

This cropped up as an accusation from an unnamed source (who?), relayed by Robbo, that there was more to the short-notice ban on certain brands than met the eye. Coming so soon after the announcement of a Shoreline/Sterling sponsorship promotion seemed to add fuel to the fire. This was addressed by both Simon Cole and Tim Barnett on Facebook.

Hi everyone, its the morning after the "day" and very , very tired!
However I hope all those who made it to the SUPER SIX had a great time. I also would like to make an apology to all those players who were relying on being able to shoot the paint of their choice and were not able to. MAXS GmbH and BZ PAINTBALL SUPPLIES along with LIPS and MANIC had ensured that a plentiful supply of specialist winter formula paintballs were on site for their customers and all players at the event. However, as most of you know, the field owner, at two hours notice stated that FROSTBITE and the GI MILSIM winter ball could not be shot on his field, one might have thought that with the many years experience in the industry the owner might have formed his opinion earlier, giving the Sponsors and Paint suppliers time to arrange alternatives, however, no amount of discussion could change his mind and therefore options were limited. He is entited to his opinion, it is his field, so it ends there. However some teams and players chose to ignore this ban, and in all honesty I cannot blame them, they had bought the paint in good faith on the Saturday for Sunday's game, and its only right they should be able to use it. It is important at this point to make you aware that this decision was made without the organisers of the SUPER SIX's agreement, and indeed, they were as schocked and dissapointed as we were. Lessons learned, we will in future, as much as possible, ensure that a full and varied choice of product will be made available to all players at these and other events. I thank you for you patience and understanding, and look forward to seeing you all very soon. My thanks to Tim and all the SUPER SIX staff, to BZ Paintball for their constant support, and to my boy Ethan, who just wants to play paintball with his Dad!

regards to all, Simon Cole. UK Sales Manager MAXS PAINTBALL/DXS.

...
Clearly the situation regarding paint was a last minute curve ball and caused a lot of problems. The venue is one of the most immaculate paintball sites in the UK and the owner works hard to make it that way. An issue had been raised that one brand of paint used a fill that was very thick that the site owner felt caused lasting damage to his site. On the Saturday, the brand in question was tested and the site owner was happy that it could be used. However, on Sunday morning the site owner identified another brand that he felt was damaging the site and took the decision that both brands could not be used. At this point I will say that sites generally lose money when they host scenario games as they would generally earn much more money by having rental customers onsite so as an organiser and as a community we need site owners who are happy to take a financial hit to let us use their facilities. Without them, we have no game. The site owner at Nottingham runs an immaculate site and ultimately what he says goes. It is his decision how his site is used.

That this caused significant problems is an understatement. Clearly, it restricted the choice of paint that some teams had on offer, it also caused revenue issues for the two traders involved who could now not sell their main brands of paint and clearly left two of the major sponsors of the series left being unable to sell their product.

During meetings to resolve the problem, Shoreline, BZ, LIPS, GI Milsim and DXS all worked together to come up with solutions to resolve the problem. Some of the solutions suggested including the pooling of paint resources and it was clear that there was a real spirit of cooperation between the traders, manufacturers and organiser to come up with a workable solution.....which is exactly what happened.

I've already seen rumours suggesting that this situation was some kind of stitch up by one paint manufacturer or trader to ensure maximum paint sales at the event over the others. This I can confirm is total nonsense and just part of the usual hysteria that often sweeps through those in paintball who love to see conspiracy theories where none exist or who just love a drama. On the Super6 Facebook group you will find a statement from Simon Cole of DXS and I'm sure LIPS and BZ will post their own comments in due course regarding the situation.

There was a cap of 350 players for the event and about another 20 guys were booked in over that. However, the snow stopped a lot of those people coming so actual numbers on the day were 241. Blues slightly outnumbered Reds on the Sunday.

The game itself seemed very fast flowing and the feedback on UK Scenario, Talkpaintball, the Shoreline Facebook group and Super6 Facebook group has been excellent. The Hyperball missions worked really well with some great dust ups between the Planet Eclipse team the Sandbaggers and the Shoreline Rangers and also the match between SLR and Bad Moji was also very very close.

As ever, the electronic flags and live updating maps worked well and it is hard to imagine a decent scenario game now without them. The Castle Finale at the end was typically Shoreline. Hundreds of players in a brutal gunfight with loads of smoke and pyro thrown in for good measure.

The Saturday night was great and we all had so much fun with the drunken massive snowball fight up and down the streets of Worksop.

So, all in all a solid start with great feedback from the players. The technical and other problems behind the scenes were largely not visible to the players and the issue regarding the paint aside it was a decent event and all the players seem to have had a great time.

For us, today work started on Super6/2: Back To The Future which will take place at Holmbush next month. We look forward to seeing many of you there.

Regards
Tim
Shoreline

Shoreline have subsequently announced that their Battle of Britain event will exclusively use DXS/GI Sportz paint (http://ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28649) which seems to further undermine any conspiracy theories.

Again, independently verified by biscuit: http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/threads/oh-what-tangled-webs-we-weave.144303/page-3#post-1284301

Personally I think this one has been knocked on the head.


2. Support 4 Soldiers

The accusation regarding S4S was that people who questioned the status of the project were then banned from UKS, which might imply that something dodgy was going on. Also there was an accusation that S4S was misrepresented as a charity and questions over what has happened with the money.

The non-charity status of S4S has been made clear on a public forum a number of times: http://ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27042 and http://ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21328&p=264484&hilit=support soldiers#p264484


To get the info from the horse's mouth I spoke to Tim Barnett on the phone yesterday and he gave me exactly the same info that Echowitch has already recounted - the S4S funding is with a local councillor, acting as an independent 3rd party who is working with the Royal British Legion to allocate funds. Echowitch has confirmed this independently with the councillor. http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/threads/oh-what-tangled-webs-we-weave.144303/page-9#post-1285259

Tim has said that detailed accounts will be released when all funding has been allocated.

My gut tells me this is all above board, however I think we do need to await the release of the accounts to be fully satisfied.


3. Threats of violence

Now the only evidence I've seen for this is from David Jack and to be frank, given his fantasy post here: http://pitsnpots.co.uk/news/2010/01/david-jack-resigns-ppc-stoke-trent-north-and-chair-local-lib-dems#comment-23226 - I don't consider him a particuarly reliable witness, sorry.

Any other evidence of this? If not, I think it's a fabrication.


4. People being banned from forums for questioning the status quo

Ok, so on this thread we've got both David Jack and Leachy saying they were banned for innocent queries.

niallist has subsequently confirmed that David Jack was not banned for asking questions regarding S4S: http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/threads/oh-what-tangled-webs-we-weave.144303/page-5#post-1284583

One of the threads in question: http://www.ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26202&p=329415#p329415

Ok so he got treated fairly harshly with ban for being a bit annoying, but that happens on all forums, including this one and wasn't specifically to do with S4S.

Leachy did get treated a bit poorly with a sarky reply by Timboy http://www.ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22199&start=90#p282968 , however that was in June and he was still posting in August, so that wasn't why he was banned.

http://www.ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22199&p=304424#p304424


Famine/Jamie wasn't (to my knowledge) banned from the forums and his questions were answered politely: http://ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=26843&hilit=support soldiers

The entire Apocalypse team were however banned (rightly or wrongly, I don't know the facts) from future Shoreline events due to an incident alleged to have happened at Mall Assault:

Incident - http://ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26936&start=75#p339554
Ban - http://ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26993


5. TC2012 not having permission to use MOD land


When I spoke to Tim yesterday he mentioned that an unnamed individual from within the industry had 'helpfully' raised this exact issue with Tippmann (presumably with the best intentions of the players at heart....ahem), however a contract does exist and has satisfied Tippmann.


It does seem to me that most of the issues have either been raised by unnamed people (keeping their heads down as biscuit pointed out) or from people who are industry competitors or those with pre-existing grudges against either Tim, Shoreline or mods on UKS.


My personal take on this is that a number of people with ulterior motives have tried to generate a lot of negative publicity for one company and individual from a non-issue and that has dragged other people with an axe to grind out of the woodwork.

Again, I've no direct involvement and spoke to Tim for the first time ever yesterday simply to cut through some layers of rumour.

 

[RobbieG1966]

A question that has been raised several times on this thread already remains outstanding. You have been presented with the contact details for the councillor. Have you contacted them yet Robbo?

That will surely go some way towards answering some of your concerns. It may raise further questions, it may leave some questions outstanding, but until you speak to the said councillor Robbo, you won't know this.

What's the worst that can happen? Some relevant facts emerge. That would surely be a good thing for everyone concerned and hopefully start to draw this whole affair to a close.

 

[FAMINE]

Reb - My initial enquiry was very innocent and in fact was trying to help and clear up some confusion.
http://www.ukscenario.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=26843

It was only after I received threatining emails and PMs that I actually started asking further questions and received my ban. It was after we as Apocalypse informed Shoreline that we would not be attending their events that we received a public ban and lots of allegations were made trying to discredit myself and the team.
The incident regarding the flashbang was not a member of Apocalypse, but a team we know. Al even quotes the team name involved before the forum trolls started getting involved and disregarding the facts! In fact there were only 3 members of Apoc at the Mall event and they were no where near the hotel a the time. This was pointed out to Tim, but he chose to ignore the facts and continue to lay accusations and lies about us.

So in fact we were slated, lied about and accusations regarding our integrity all down to an incident that Tim was aware that we had no part in (other than reporting it) So by this theory the BBC must be committing mass murder etc as they report them all the time!
The point being that he didnt like the fact that I replied to his allegations on this forum. And I only started asking questions AFTER he started these claims. Basically his actions made me suspicious. I seemed to me that his passive aggressive actions were being used to re direct the attention away from him.
I offered very early on to call Tim or have him call me at a time to suit both parties and have a proper chat about it all.

I was happy enough waiting for the information that we had been promised. Yes its taking a LONG time but as long as we get the answers then thats all that matters and to be fair all we can actually do. It was only after Tim brought my name up yet again with more accusations that I had to reply on this thread!!!


As I have stated many times, I have no bad motives, no alliances (in fact as a team we refuse all sponsorship so we have no ties or loyalties.), in fact my biggest gripe is that after asking such an innocent question I have wasted far to much time dealing with accusations laid against us. Smoke, Mirrors and diversions may work sometimes. But as Robbo points out, it does seem odd that so many people raise the same problems, issues and questions.
Is it really all some great conspiracy????

 

[leachy]

Deleted. I give up

 

[Robbo]

Reb, I only found out about this councillor thing today but bear in mind Reb, all barnett had to do was to present some relevant gumpf on what was being asked .... if he'd posted accounts, balance sheets, statements, etc etc etc, there would be no need for me to call anyone .... Reb, but let me tell you one thing here and it probably is the MOST important thing to consider here as far as I am concerned ... I have had dealings with people like sables and barnett many times in my life.
A trademark character trait is the almost pathological behaviour of lying; this obviously causes problems for everyone concerned ... I have written lord knows how many words on the subject of this thread and if you can find one lie, you can have my site ... in fact, if you trawl through over 11,000 posts I can make the exactly the same statement ... I'm not saying I have never lied in my life but I can say, I have never lied on here ... it's just too easy to be found out and ridiculed afterwards.
I have had many occasions when I've been called all number of things from a bald-headed thug to an overbearing bully-boy and but never a liar .... people might not like me for a multitude of reasons but lying ain't one of them.

I cannot same the same for the two people I have my sights on now .....the problem you guys on the outside have is trying to discern who's telling the truth, but know this, I don't give a sh!t if people crawl out of barnett's arse in childish acts of ingratiation describing me as a c##t and wishing I die of cancer, I know what I know and I can hold my head high in all of this .....

 

[Robbo]

Gadget .... I have something that's troubling me at the moment, if what you suggest is true re this councillor fellow having been sent the accounts; if this is the case, why wasn't this mentioned 3 months ago when the questions were first asked?

And if the accounts were made up by Suzie and subsequently sent to this 'councillor' then you ain't gonna be telling me those accounts weren't digitsed are you?
It seems ludicrous to me if they weren't done on a PC and if so, why wasn't a copy of the accounts posted?
If you try and tell me the accounts amassed to only one hard copy and this was sent to the councillor, I am gonna lose a bit of respect for ya ... in fact, quite a lot of respect ... but hey, the barnett mob caould well have posted them somewhere or maybe even made mention of them 3 months ago .. if so where and when ?

 

[Robbo]

As for the suggestion that certain individuals could have wound me up and pointed me in the direction of barnett hoping that my questions would create trouble for barnett and co, and in such a case, the individual would then benefit from that?

Of course that's possible .. I'm not naive enough to think otherwise but you are forgetting something here, if this individual was winding me up, then why did all the other people jump on board with him?
barnett has already gone on record in saying he knows full well he's pis$ed off far too many people in our industry and he seems to have written this situation off due to his somewhat unconventional way of doing things ... possible I suppose.

Back to the point, I cannot believe an individual is seriously suggesting a group of industry individuals have all conspired together to fool me into attacking barnett are you?
I have some close friends, and friends involved in all this and they would know me well enough to also know, I wouldn't be too pleased if I was lied to for their own nefarious ends and ended up looking like a real plum ... I know these people, there may be an 'edge' in some of their accounts but I have accounted for that but I do know their central core position is trustworthy.
If I am proven wrong [and of course all the other industry people and individuals] then I will admit I have been duped and make the necessary apologies but don't hold yer breath.
However, even though all this is possible, I have two remaining little problems to sort out ..... barnett fukk'd me over and cesspit's somewhat inappropriate insult and wish .... whilst I have zero problem in accepting an apology from barnett [which he has made], I will be unable to do the same for cesspit ... me and him have some 'talkin ' to do ... this is not some veiled threat that would return to legally haunt me should cesspit experience some unfortunate mishap sometime in the future, it is merely a wish to meet him face to face so's he has an opportunity to repeat his outburst.

 

[Robbo]

Deleted. I give up

.
Brian, if you give up on something you know to be the truth then you have to stick by that, no matter what.
I coulda just let this one slide from the outset because I knew full well it was gonna escalate pretty damned quickly but I wasn't gonna ignore some pretty serious questions just to lay back and those questions go unanswered.

 

[Echowitch]

Robbo, how did you receive the Councillors details?

Im sure you've been involved with businesses directly or indirectly in the past, so you must be aware that no business prints its accounts when people demand it. They publish it after the end of the financial year, or at the most appropriate time.

Accusing Suzy Barnett of falsifying accounts is uncalled for and incitement. No I don't know her but dragging a third person in who is not one of the two you dislike so much, regardless of her relationship is totally uncalled for !!