bca meeting 25/3 /2017

[Simon Wilson]

Simon queried:

Is it also possible to see the officers' reports?

Are the officier's reports available for members to view?

I cannot find an answer to this post.

No I didn't.

Simon queried: is it also possible to see the officers' reports? Are the officers' reports available for members to view?

No I didn't.

There is an inbuilt mechanism for quoting. If you use it you will be more likely not to misquote.

 

[Simon Wilson]

Full agenda here: http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php

Is it also possible to see the officers' reports?

Are the officier's reports available for members to view?

I cannot find an answer to this post.

There should be no reason the officer reports cannot be made available.  They were already bundled ahead of the meeting and the BCA secretary has an assistant to help with such things.  However, if you are looking for any comfort in reading the reports you are not going to find much.

The minutes, I imagine, will not appear for many weeks or months.  Although they are taken by a paid professional I expect they will be the subject of much to'ing and fro'ing between the exec before they are agreed.

When there was no response to my question I took that to be a 'no'.

Officers' reports should be attached to the agenda. This is because they are likely to be discussed at the meeting and somebody might decide to attend or ask to be represented to comment on a report.

 

[Simon Wilson]

The last time I saw a full copy of BCA's insurance terms, which was in connection with setting up the cover for the Cave Access Ltd mines agreement, the BCA total premium paid had been redacted (blacked out) in my copy so I don't know what it is.

Why was this blacked out? Surely, as a BCA member, you are entitled to see this figure? In fact, I would have thought we all were.

So, two questions for either the BCA Insurance Manager or BCA Legal and Insurance Officer (both of whom have recently posted to this very thread) to answer:

Why did you not want Stuart to see the total cost of the BCA insurance premium?

As a BCA member myself, I would like to know the amount paid too. So will you tell me, please?

You can see the financial statement here: http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php?id=about:documents:general_meetings:start

The financial statement for 2015 shows the insurance premium to be ?37,182.

 

[Bob Mehew]

The last time I saw a full copy of BCA's insurance terms, which was in connection with setting up the cover for the Cave Access Ltd mines agreement, the BCA total premium paid had been redacted (blacked out) in my copy so I don't know what it is.

Why was this blacked out? Surely, as a BCA member, you are entitled to see this figure? In fact, I would have thought we all were.

So, two questions for either the BCA Insurance Manager or BCA Legal and Insurance Officer (both of whom have recently posted to this very thread) to answer:

Why did you not want Stuart to see the total cost of the BCA insurance premium?

As a BCA member myself, I would like to know the amount paid too. So will you tell me, please?

Thank you Simon, you got in before I finished this.

I was not party to the correspondence so am unable to comment about why it is blacked out.  But  in respect of the request for the figure, I would point you to the minutes of the last AGM at http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=about:documents:general_meetings:agm_minutes_2016.pdf where on page 28 of the pdf you will find break down of the accounts showing the cost of the insurance premium for 2015 was ?37182 and in 2014 ?39444.

I will correct one point in Stuart's post re "I think I paid my club ?17 last time around for my BCA insurance".  The figure of ?17 was for the BCA subscription which includes insurance.  If you read the accounts further you will see where else the subscription is spent.  The subscription funds much more than just insurance.  (And if you go back to previous AGM minutes since BCA's inception you will find similar information.) 

And for those who do not recall the setting up of BCA, BCA is unable to 'sell insurance' as that requires compliance with all sorts of financial rules.  The way we step around that requirement is to provide it as a benefit of membership.  Membership of BCA covers much more than just providing insurance, such as funding regional caving councils, access work, conservation work, and anchors among other things.

Bob Mehew
Legal & Insurance Officer 

 

[Bob Mehew]

When there was no response to my question I took that to be a 'no'.

Officers' reports should be attached to the agenda. This is because they are likely to be discussed at the meeting and somebody might decide to attend or ask to be represented to comment on a report.

The requirement for officers reports and minutes is as follows:

1 month before: Secretary to request Reports and Agenda items by e-mail.

2 weeks before: Council Members to submit additional Agenda Items to Secretary, including details of any potentially large items to be raised under the Standing Items (for details see Written Reports section below). Secretary to distribute the Agenda and Draft Minutes of Last Meeting to Council Members by e-mail.

1 week before: Council Members to submit Written Reports to Secretary. Secretary to collate and then distribute Reports to Council Members by e-mail.

1 month after: Secretary to publish Draft Minutes (for details see Meeting Minutes section below).

Sadly it is not followed.  Indeed a number of officers just make a verbal statement or circulate a note at the meeting.  Frankly, I am unable to offer a copy of the officers reports as the run up to this Council meeting was particularly chaotic owing in part to failures in our email circulation system that I am unsure what was meant to be in the reports.  Or indeed if I received all of them.

As Badlad said, await the draft minutes which will contain both the report and then the discussion on it.  But given the Chair is out of the Country until the end of April, I doubt if they will be agreed for publishing until well into May.

 

[kay]

I will correct one point in Stuart's post re "I think I paid my club ?17 last time around for my BCA insurance".  The figure of ?17 was for the BCA subscription which includes insurance.  If you read the accounts further you will see where else the subscription is spent.  The subscription funds much more than just insurance. 

From the DIM renewal form on the BCA website:
BCA Membership fee: Basic fee ?5
Insurance contribution: For each active caver add ?17
                                  For each non-active caver add ?6

That certainly gives the impression that DIMs are paying ?17 for their insurance, whatever CIMs may be paying

And actually CIMs appeaar to be paying the same, from here
http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=membership:m2_club_plus_pli_2017.pdf

So perhaps the wording needs to be changed if the ?17 covers other things as well?

 

[MarkS]

The financial statement for 2015 shows the insurance premium to be ?37,182.

So to take a few steps back, the annual maintenance cost for a database of instructors is deemed to be worth around 10% of the cost of insuring all cavers in the UK? :-\

 

[Stuart France]

So perhaps the wording needs to be changed if the ?17 covers other things as well?

So to take a few steps back, the annual maintenance cost for a database of instructors is deemed to be worth around 10% of the cost of insuring all cavers in the UK?

Here is the income side of the BCAs most recently published accounts, all those ?17 payments etc:

BCA's bank balance grew from ?213,453 to ?231,198 having made a profit of ?19,481 in 2015 on a turnover of ?125,163.  This is after donating ?15,000 to BCRA and GPF, equating to a ?2.50 bung per caver, and paying ?37,182 in insurance premium, equating to ?6.20 per caver on average.

So at this point only ?8.30 of the average caver's ?17 BCA subscription remains.  How did BCA utilise that?

In 2015 BCA spent only ?120 on Conservation and Access, representing 0.1% of its income or 2p per caver, down from ?323 in the previous year.  That leaves ?8.28 per caver still to spend...

Youth development expenditure was ?104 in 2015, oddly enough exactly the same as in 2014, also representing 0.1% of income.  We're down to ?8.26 left to spend...

BCA web services (selling web hosting etc) made a loss of ?396.  So ?8.19 is left...

BCA spent nothing on leaflets, handbook or journal in 2015.  In 2014 they spent on ?4375 on a journal, or 4% of its total income, or 73p per caver.  What journal would that be I wonder?

BCA Newsletter costs were ?424 in 2015, up from nothing in 2014.

BCA spent ?405 in 2015 on amateur caver training, representing 0.3% of income or 7p per caver, down from ?1055 in the previous year.

It made a loss of ?5164 on running professional training services in 2015, following another loss of ?4239 on this activity in 2014.  Losses on supporting the professionals are running at more than ten times the cost of training support given to amateurs.  Amateurs are thus paying 86p a year each to the pros via their BCA subscription, very roughly.

BCA spent ?4040 on the rock anchor programme, or 67p per caver, more than doubling the ?1890 spent in 2014, presumably because so many of the anchors are failing.  I have heard that in some caves where all the resin anchors are having to be replaced.

After all this and more, there is ?3.24 per caver left unspent resulting in a profit for the year of ?19,481.

My earlier posting said that it is not easy to comprehend what is going on financially in just words and tables of numbers.  It is better to visualize trends and to track ratios to discover if the shifting balance between revenue sources and expenditure headings is appropriate.

In other words, cavers should be easily able to grasp the BCA?s financial situation and to comment on it in an informed way to assure themselves that there is good enough governance right now with security for the sport into the long term.

At the moment the cavers at large who pay all these bills can?t see the wood for the trees.  This is not a very sensible position to be in.

 

[NigR]

Thank you for your reply, Bob.

Unfortunately, as Kay points out, the information on your own website suggests you have got it wrong. Certainly, as a SWCC member, I have always been told that the ?17 per year is for insurance and nothing else (just like it says on your website).

Regarding the earlier correspondence to Stuart, I can quite understand why you are so quick to disassociate yourself from it. Hence I will address my previous question purely to the BCA Insurance Manager (Nick Williams):

Why was the figure blacked out and why did you not want Stuart to know what the total BCA insurance premium was (particularly as this information is so readily available in the annual accounts)?

 

[Bob Mehew]

So perhaps the wording needs to be changed if the ?17 covers other things as well?

:-[ 

As the first Treasurer of BCA, the theory was (and still should be) that all cavers who are members of BCA whether Club Individual Member or Direct Individual Member paid a basic subscription which covered a range of costs including insurance.  Communications from BCA to CIMs went via clubs with clubs covering that cost whilst DIMs paid a little more for direct communication (the ?5).  It appears the wording has lost that concept. 

 

[nickwilliams]

To answer Nig R's specific point:

The document which Stuart was sent a copy of is the policy schedule which is already on the BCA web site. The policy cost is commercially sensistive, but only in the sense that if it's widely available then you can expect any future offer to provide cover from a different insurer will be at pretty much the same premium. When negotiating for such things, it's usually a good idea not to show your hand to the supplier in the opening round.

This thread effectively buggers that strategy, doesn't it?

Had Stuart asked for the information then I would have given it to him. He didn't.

 

[MarkS]

To answer Nig R's specific point:

The document which Stuart was sent a copy of is the policy schedule which is already on the BCA web site. The policy cost is commercially sensistive, but only in the sense that if it's widely available then you can expect any future offer to provide cover from a different insurer will be at pretty much the same premium. When negotiating for such things, it's usually a good idea not to show your hand to the supplier in the opening round.

This thread effectively buggers that strategy, doesn't it?

To be fair, the figures quoted in this thread are simply those available on the BCA website.

 

[Simon Wilson]

BCA spent ?4040 on the rock anchor programme, or 67p per caver, more than doubling the ?1890 spent in 2014, ...

It is more informative to average it out over several years. According to the published statements, over the 10 years up to and including 2015 the BCA spent per member per year on the anchor programme about 36p.

 

[NigR]

Thank you for your reply, Nick.

However, if (as MarkS points out) these same figures are freely available on the BCA website for any future prospective insurer to peruse, this does not explain why you should feel the need to redact them in your correspondence with Stuart, does it?

So, I will ask again: why did you do this?

 

[alastairgott]

It weakens your case when asking for Insurance. The wording of the insurance was probably the more important thing (ie what Excesses and what the limits were for the insurance).

I'm sure that if Stuart had asked whether he had been given a fair premium on the insurance, then he would have been given a comparison with the BCA.

Before going into the venture I'm sure Stuart would have done some rough estimates of costs to work out what was feasible.

I've lost the thread? what's the point of this topic again? BCA bashing? or are you all volunteering for roles in the organisation, sounds like you think they need your help!?!

 

[Simon Wilson]

I've lost the thread? what's the point of this topic again? BCA bashing? or are you all volunteering for roles in the organisation, sounds like you think they need your help!?!

The thread was started with a general question about the recent BCA meeting. What followed is a discussion of the workings of the BCA by people who mostly already have roles in the organisation.

 

[nickwilliams]

I was not aware that the numbers were quite so freely available. Maybe I won't bother to redact it in future, although I probably ought to check with the insurer before I do that.

I send out about 10 copies of the policy schedule a year in response to requests, and it's available to download from the website so I guess quite a few more people get it from there without needing to ask me for it. Stuart was sent the same document as everyone else.

 

[idriswilliams]

Thank you for your reply, Bob.

Unfortunately, as Kay points out, the information on your own website suggests you have got it wrong. Certainly, as a SWCC member, I have always been told that the ?17 per year is for insurance and nothing else (just like it says on your website).

Regarding the earlier correspondence to Stuart, I can quite understand why you are so quick to disassociate yourself from it. Hence I will address my previous question purely to the BCA Insurance Manager (Nick Williams):

Why was the figure blacked out and why did you not want Stuart to know what the total BCA insurance premium was (particularly as this information is so readily available in the annual accounts)?

I suggest you take up this with SWCC. I also am a member but SWCC has consistently not informed their members about any thing to do with BCA. SWCC has an email contacting scheme which it could easily do this.
Fortunately I get much better info. from my other clubs.

Idris Williams

 

[NigR]

Thanks for your interest, Idris. However, I certainly do not need to take this up with SWCC as you suggest. As I said previously, I have always been told that the ?17 per year was purely for insurance and nothing else. Presumably this is because the SWCC committee members who told me this have all read it on the BCA's own website where it says the very same thing (as discovered by Kay earlier today).

 

[cavemanmike]

This is turning into a bit of a witch hunt .