Subscription Fees
Due to the good management of our money the BFR’s have managed to maintain our annual subscription fees at £10 for at least the last seven years since I joined. Whilst this may help in attracting new members it has led to an increasing number of ‘plastic members.’ These are the people who only join our club to get the affiliation discount on race entries, which is now generally £2 a race, plus a free shot at the London Marathon places in the club ballot. These are the same benefits that the more committed members enjoy.
Whilst a blanket raise in fees could stop this from happening to some extent, it may also put off legitimate new members from joining us in the first place.
How about the introduction of a ‘Gold’ Membership, set at around £50 a year which could include the following benefits;
Free Wednesday training at the track.
One free item a year of club kit.
Free entry to the Forest Five.
Plus only Gold members could get a London Marathon place in the general club ballot.
Ooops. Sorry.
You're right about the timing of the message Gary, I apologise for getting that wrong.
The timing, if you check,
The timing, if you check, was actually in the morning before the draw and the idea encompasses a wider area anyway and was posted to encourage a constructive discussion.
It's Christmas time again
Ah, club traditions. Don't you just love them. It's certainly a tradition that, just after the marathon draw, one or more of our "committed" members comes out with "Ere, who's that bloke what got one of our marathon places then, I never 'eard of 'im. It ain't bleedin fair, wot's 'e ever done for this club, some of us, we turn up week after week and this is all the bleedin fanks we get. 's not right, I tell you."
No coincidence that this post appeared on the 19th December. Hopefully it will also follow the usual tradition of being forgotten about by January.
I admit the "I'll give you £50 up front to have a better chance in the draw" approach is new, but no, creating second class membership would be very unhealthy for the club. And let's not forget, the number of marathon places we get for the club ballot is determined by the number of members we have, whether they are "plastic", "legitimate", "committed" or anything else. It's not determined by how many miles they run or how many track sessions they attend. It's therefore invalid to exclude those whom you label as plastic.
Wednesday night showed that if you want the draw to work in your favour, you can do that by assisting with the baggage or the drinks. That is open to all our members to do.
I have no problems with a fee increase, but the timing makes me think this post is not really about that.
Steve
Subscription Fees
Your club's committee have recently been discussing membership fees and Gary's suggestion is worthy of further discussion.
For my part, and I said this before I became treasurer, the value I get out of my subscriptions is considerably more than the ten pounds spent and I would happily pay more. The value is not only in terms of money but also that in the two years I have been a member I have met such a friendly bunch of like minded people who I am proud to call my friends.
The sting in the tail however is that this year our costs have risen considerably. This increase is almost entirely due to our affiliation fees to SEAA having sky rocketed, personally I would question what value SEAA gives back to road and cross country running. Inevitably therefore there will have to be an increase in fees next year so possibly factoring in something like Gold Membership could be an option.