What membership fees does you club charge?

[Broken Chris]

We're having a debate in our club at the moment between the committee members about what a reasonable membership fee rate is and how regularly to review membership and hut fees.

If anyone's willing to share what their club charges for annual membership or any policy on hut fee increases (e.g. how, when, by how much), I'd be very interested to hear.

Cheers,
Chris

P.S. I've put this in UK Caving only as I couldn't see a more suitable location!

 

[Peter Burgess]

Hi Chris. Shall we assume a single adult member for the purposes of this question?

And will you charge BCA insurance seperately? We do, because that way armchair cavers pay less per annum than active ones.

Our rate is ?18 per annum plus ?16 BCA active caver insurance. Those who pay BCA cover via another club are exempt from the ?18 charge.

Membership rates are reviewed annually and agreed at the AGM in November, and come into effect on Jan 1st. Our membership year is the same for everyone - 1 Jan to 31 Dec.

 

[Broken Chris]

Thanks Peter,

Yes, single Adult membership for 1 year as that's what most of our members are. We do the same with insurance and charge that separately for the same reason and because it's outside our direct control, so we'd end up to vote on whether to increase fees to cover insurance otherwise at each AGM.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Peter Burgess]

We are probably quite cheap, but the club is going through a big transition at the moment with a new cottage coming onstream this year. We hope to cover our cottage running costs from cottage fees, but won't know for a while how successful that will be so I will hold back on cottage fees for now as it might give the wrong impression. We hope the cottage won't affect membership rates either, if we manage to cover costs.

 

[barrabus]

Kendal Caving Club.

Club fees are ?10.50 and have been for years and years.
BCA Insurance is charged too unless members join direct or via another club.

We have no hut, but do pay rent for a tackle store/gear dump.

In the past, club fees were agreed at the AGM in March, and ran from April to March. When BCA Insurance came along an additional payment had to be collected which sometimes resulted in someone paying one but not the other. At last years AGM we voted to run the club fees from Jan 1 to Dec 31 to run concurrently with the insurance.

 

[Aubrey]

Wessex Subs are currently ?30 p.a. plus insurance of ?16 (or ?5 for armchair cavers)
That should cover all of the general running costs and journal. It also gives each member a free Charterhouse Permit for the year.
The aim is that the club hut should be self financing out of hut fees which are ?2.50 per night for members, ?3.50 for students and ?5 for guests.

IMHO caving club hut fees are one of the best bargins around, especially when compared with camp site fees or youth hostels.

 

[martinr]

Mendip Caving Group

?30 full member, ?15 associate member. Subs do not include BCA membership - this can be paid together with subs if not a DIM. Subs set at AGM in Spring, to take effect the following January. In addition, as we are a charity, we get Gift Aid back on the subs (about 22p in the pound)

Of the 30.00, 15.00 covers the general club costs (newsletters, tackle, library, websites etc - everything except the running costs of the cottage). ?10.00 covers member's day fees (ie day use of cottage  by members and their accompanied guests without staying overnight). The remaining 5.00 plus the income from Gift Aid is invested to provide a fund for future cottage projects (eg more showers, larger tackle store) so with 134 members (a mix of full and assoc.) we invest between ?625 to ?1000 each year . In Dec 2007 the investments had reached ?31,000 since when they have fallen in value but are recovering. Income from the investments is reinvested and not taken as income.

Hut fees per night are 2.50 member, 5.00 guest. The cottage aims to break even (based on hut fees plus the above-mentioned 10.00 per member). This means in some years there is a small excess in cottage income but small deficit in others. When deficits become the norm, hut fees are increased by the committe (not the AGM)

You can find out more from our published accounts eg here

 

[Les W]

<Pedant> The fee to BCA is actually a membership fee. BCA is not able to sell insurance due to FSA rules. Insurance is a membership benefit along with the other benefits that come with membership (for4 CIM members the only other benefit is the right to vote at the AGM and subsequent postal ballot (if one is required)).

It is wrong to say it is an insurance fee as this could cause trouble with the FSA if people thought they were buying insurance.</Pedant>

 

[paul]

Orpheus CC

Membership ?24 (plus cost of BCA Membership fee, if the Club sorts it out)

Hut fees ?5 per night for non-members, ?2.50 for members. Day fees (use of facilities but not staying overnight) ?1.50.

 

[damian]

YSS - ?12 per year plus BCA membership

Hades - ?20 per year including BCA membership (i.e. ?4 per year if you want BCA membership!!!)

 

[cap n chris]

SCG.

 

[anfieldman]

SCG.

?5-50 for 15 cans in Sainsbury's Chard recently. 

 

[slippery_matt]

Wessex Subs are currently ?30 p.a. plus insurance of ?16 (or ?5 for armchair cavers)
That should cover all of the general running costs and journal. It also gives each member a free Charterhouse Permit for the year.
The aim is that the club hut should be self financing out of hut fees which are ?2.50 per night for members, ?3.50 for students and ?5 for guests.

Worth noting that it's only ?15 plus insurance for under 25's too! 

 

[Elaine]

Axbridge Caving Group beat the lot of you! We have no club hut, but this year only charged ?23 for a years membership. This includes insurance. Only ?7 if you get your insurance elsewhere. this was so cheap it even prompted Hugh to rejoin!! However, we meant to charge ?25 but got it wrong!!

 

[damian]

Axbridge Caving Group beat the lot of you! We have no club hut, but this year only charged ?23 for a years membership. This includes insurance.

Hades - ?20 per year including BCA membership (i.e. ?4 per year if you want BCA membership!!!)

:tease:

 

[Peter Burgess]

I wondered how long it would be before this turned into a competition to find the cheapest club!

You get what you pay for. A couple of years ago WCMS reassessed our fees to see whether we were covering the basic costs of membership. We had been charging ?8 per annum plus BCA membership for a long time. We soon discovered that our other income was heavily subsidising the personal club membership. The new rate we calculated should be ?16 (since increased to ?18), so if you are charging a very low fee, it might be worth checking whether you are covering costs, particularly if you have other income streams, and would prefer membership fees to be 'sustainable' and not 'subsidised'. If you think about it, if your fees are too low, then the more members you attract, the more difficult it will be to break even.

Even though our basic membership fee has now more than doubled, we have maintained membership numbers, so I suppose we are still providing members with value for money.

Oh, and I forgot to add - basic junior membership is free!

 

[Broken Chris]

Hmmm, thanks all for the feedback.

Guess I should have said at the start, we (WSG) charge ?30 per year plus the cost of joining BCA to benefit from their insurance scheme. I think we give a ?5 discount if people pay up on time.

Hut fees are ?3 per night members, ?4 for non members.

So it looks like we're not a million miles off other clubs. The discussion we were having was around whether we should propose increasing fees and where we were compared to other clubs. I guess there's a fine line between charging too much for membership and putting people off and charging enough to make sure you don't lose money.

One interesting idea proposed was a flat fee of say ?150 a year to cover unlimited use of the hut for club members. Not sure how it'd work though or whether people'd be interested.

Peter - where's the new hut going to be?

cheers,
Chris

 

[Peter Burgess]

Penwyllt.

 

[graham]

Charge fees!!!!  as treasurer I'm just pathetically grateful for any pennies we are lucky enough to be given. 

 

[Peter Burgess]

Is that why the UBSS HQ looks like a favala transplanted direct from Rio de Janeiro?  :-\