Hi

I'm a student, and a member of a student club. I will be getting membership through the club.

A student membership is ?8, fantastic.

I have an interest in cave science though, so I would like to join the bcra as well (as you now have to join the BCA beforehand) as a cim+.

This, according to the weirdly set out price matrix thing the BCA sent out to our secretary, is ?54 for paper copies of the journal, with digital access (which is free anyways isn't it?) this membership is apparently ?44

I've been to a few BCRA lectures, and lecturers have always mentioned that there aren't many students doing cave science - could a contributary factor be that it is about 6 times the price?

I do wonder why it is pricier than other academic organisations - Royal Society of Biology is ?15 as a student including their paper stuff.

Unless I have totally missed something and I am misrepresenting the issue, in which case why is this not clearer?

Why are there so many different payment categories - there are 36 different prices on the paper sent to us?

Can anybody shed some light - I would just like to give the BCRA some momey in return for a membership

I believe student membership of BCRA is free... 

See http://bcra.org.uk/detail/fees.html

Then why on earth would they send a club email attachments that list 36 different prices!

Also the link you posted says the price of membershiip is ?11.

But is it ?8, ?11, ?8+?11, ?44, ?54, what?

I would guess the price list is generic to meet all requirements, not just yours. To send out specific pricing to various groups would require BCA knowing what group you would fit in before you joined. They wouldn't have that information.

BCA is very aware that the pricing structure is very complex and are currently trying to improve it by reducing categories, however, it was always going to be, to some degree or other as there are so many different options.
Single, joint
Club, direct
student, child, adult
BCA only, BCA + BCRA, BCA + BCRA with paper journals
Full member, associate, etc.

With the end of the paper publications from BCA the differences in BCA membership between Direct and Club members are much reduced so it may be possible to reconcile them into one type of membership, thereby simplifying the structure a bit. It is an ongoing process that BCA is working through.

I appreciate it would be difficult for the BCA to know which group it was we payed for last year.

If the BCA is aware of this then they must also surely be aware that they are putting people off, and be aware of the financial loss this causes them.

Surely an online payment system and a website that wasn't designed in the 90s would counter this.

I know it is easy to criticise whilst sat on my arse - but you might get more people helping should they be able to join without needing to use smoke signals, several messenger pigeons and lucky rabbits foot.

It's good that it is to be simplified.
And it does say ?11 for students (I think!)

It is good that it is to be simplified. You may think my posts sound slightly negative - but I was also told to it was going to be simplified when I tried to join three years ago.

Remember BCRA is run by volunteers, and that includes design and maintenance of the website. Doesn't mean one shouldn't make suggestions for improvement, but cut them a bit of slack.

Hi 2xw

Sorry for your confusion. The simple answer to your query is that it'll cost you a total of ?11 for membership of BCA and BCRA. BCA gives a 50% student discount and BCRA a 100% discount.

As for payment etc, you can do it all very painlessly online, more or less I think, as you were asking for. What you're after is here: http://caves.org.uk/payments/bca/forms/M1.html.

You say you wish to get your membership directly through your club, which is fine. For this you are right in saying you want to be a Student CIM+ with free BCRA membership. However you will be reliant on your club to send off all your information and to act as an intermediary for your membership card etc. You may decide to avoid this by joining yourself as a DIM. Your club can just add you to their list as a pre-paid DIM and pay nothing for you.

As LesW says, BCA is indeed working to streamline our membership structure, but it is probably worth remembering that it is complex because BCA has always tried to give members a fair price for the services they use. The result is the complicated system you have been looking at.

Finally, as a result of this thread, I have had a click around the BCA website and note the lack of free Student BCRA membership being advertised on some of the pages, I will alter this in a few minutes, so hopefully things will be a bit clearer.

If I can be any further help, please ask. Alternatively email our membership secretary directly .... membership [at] british [hyphen]caving.org.uk

Damian Weare
BCA Secretary

Resurrecting this thread with a similar question/experience...

I have (with the patient work of my club membership secretary) finally acquired my red CIM+ plus card plus gold BCRA (online only) membership; originally I only received a green BCA CIM card.

[Edit: further examination reveals that although my card has the text 'CIM Plus: includes BCA and BCRA Publications' at the bottom on one side, it says 'Direct Individual Member - Caver' on the other. But it still says 'Issued via: CLUB NAME' on the first side. My BCRA card says 'Class DIM _B' on it.]

This card states on it 'Fee paid ?40'. I am assuming this is correct and that my membership cost my club ?40. By all accounts assuming anything about BCA membership prices is potentially foolish...

According to this page:
http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php?id=membership:subscriptions_cim_plus
the CIM+ BCA fee is ?22, to which is added ?12 for BCRA (online only) membership.
This is obviously not ?40. Just to confirm, is the website price for 2016 wrong, or just misleading? Or is my card price wrong?

Finally, according to this page:
http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php?id=membership:subscriptions_dim
the DIM BCA fee is also ?22, to which is added ?12 for BCRA (online only) membership. This is the same as CIM+. Is this correct - that CIM+ and DIM should be the same price? If there is no longer any discount for 'club' membership (due to the club dealing with admin), is there any reason for CIM+ to still exist?

The BCRA website simply suggests that membership including BCA membership is ?44:
http://bcra.org.uk/detail/fees.html#notes
with a ?10 discount for online-only access (so ?34 - same as shown on the BCA website).

PS apparently there are also a set of random PDF documents, apparently not available on the website, which have a different set of prices in. Some of these documents may even be correct (although possibly only by accident).

Just for extra extra fun it looks like the SSL certificate for the members.british-caving.org.uk part of the website has expired...

Andrew,

Please can I suggest that if you are having problems you contact Glenn Jones, the Membership Administrator, who will sort it out for you. He is available at membership@british-caving.org.uk. His job is to help people with questions exactly like those raised here, and he's very efficient at it.

BCA's membership structure is not actually very complex but there are a lot of membership categories (which have come about as a result of demands from the members).

Regards

Nick.

I thought I had (through the website somewhere that I now can't find) but not got a response, but looking back it seems the email went to bca.online.admin@british-caving.org.uk rather than the one you have given. Thanks, I will contact Glenn at some point.

Hi Andrew

I can confirm the prices on the website are correct. I suspect a file printing error on your card, but Glenn will be the one to confirm this.

andrewmcleod said:

Just for extra extra fun it looks like the SSL certificate for the members.british-caving.org.uk part of the website has expired...

Click to expand...

Fixed  :-[

damian said:

Hi Andrew

I can confirm the prices on the website are correct. I suspect a file printing error on your card, but Glenn will be the one to confirm this.

Click to expand...

I have had a helpful and comprehensive response (I was originally put down as CIM due to an error/miscommunication on the original form, and thus became possibly the first person to upgrade from CIM to CIM+ retrospectively!) and it is all sorted now