why cant club members of BCA join the British Cave Research Asociation?

[ian.p]

right then i would like somebody to explain some good reasons (apart from internal politics) why people are not allowed to join the BCRA without becoming direct individual members (DIMS) of the BCA.
The main reasons i have been given are that:
1)the BCA provides the majority of the funding for the british caving library (a facility that is available to all cavers not just BCRA members)
2)the BCA provides funding for the publishing of speleolgy a very iregular publication that cant possibly justify charging BCRA members ?32 for the privilliage of joining there organisation every year.

so as far as i can see the curent system is frankly compleatly counterproductive with our sports representative body penalising people for wanting to suport cave science and research we have put a sticking plaster on student membership but i think that the cost of membership in excess of ?50is prohibative to many non students ?32 pounds of this is DIM membership quite apart from being unfair its also unnescersery and i think any lost revenue from the DIM memberships would be made up for in new BCRA memberships meaning BCRA will require less subsidy from BCA we might also find a bit more speleological research being done in the UK.
Discuss....

 

[graham]

right then i would like somebody to explain some good reasons (apart from internal politics) why people are not allowed to join the BCRA without becoming direct individual members (DIMS) of the BCA.

'cos they are all oiks. BCRA should only be for Old Etonians and graduates of Oxbridge.

 

[cap n chris]

I'd have thought it more likely that you might perhaps get invited to join BCRA only after having had a caving-related peer reviewed article published. You'd still need to pay, though, naturally.

 

[ian.p]

give that a bit more thought itd be a bit crap to not be able to apply for CSTRI funding untill after youve produced youre research now would it quite apart from not receiving C+K science or access to feild meets and confrences first peice of research is the time you most need suport...

 

[Cookie]

BCRA is a charity whose purpose is to promote the study of caves.

The thing about charities is that you're are supposed to put more in than you take out.

 

[ian.p]

which has what relevance to the BCA requiring DIM membership?

 

[Cookie]

Your argument for allowing CIM's to join BCRA seems to be very money orientated.

Anyway CIM+'s can join BCRA.

 

[martinm]

sorry to say this, but I can't believe the bad spelling in some of these posts! 

Your teacher needs sacking.... 

 

[ian.p]

well yep fair enough it is pretty money orientated the reason being that over half of the money you have to pay for membership doesnt go anywhere near the BCRA it goes to BCA. But theres also the issue when your trying to draw people into an organisation that the system doesnt make sense and yes overall cost is an issue for the majority of people if you think the present system is working then by all means carry on....

 

[graham]

sorry to say this, but I can't believe the bad spelling in some of these posts! 

Your teacher needs sacking.... 

It's the poor grammar that I object to. 

 

[Glenn]

If the question is, "why can't CIM's join BCRA", they can, it's called CIM Plus. It's an option that's been available for a couple of years, and despite informing all clubs of the option, the take up has been low (9 CIM Plus members in 2012).

If the question is about cost, then that has been addressed for 2013 with the introduction of the discounted student DIM membership - see minutes of the October Council meeting for details;
http://british-caving.org.uk/?page=82

However, from my side of the desk, BCA and BCRA have undertaken several membership initiatives (at HE, at CHECC etc,) and despite the amount of effort put in to these initiatives, I am not seeing lots of new members as a result. So I'm not convinced of the demand you think is out there.

 

[ian.p]

im not surprised CIM plus has had a limited take up given that you cant upgrade to it on the online membership form the only option available there is DIM membership. This means that you might want to join BCRA but you cant untill your next years club subs are due. How are you ment to recruit new people into an organisation when you have to start of with a conversation that goes "well if you want to join for a sensible amount of money you need to wait six months and then apply" its a rubish system and it doesnt answer the question of why you cant join BCRA as a normal CIM. Yes i understand that BCRA membership should require an extra fee but this fee should be for BCRA membership not the privalage of being allowed to then pay your BCRA subs from the parent body.
Administrativly it would be an order of magnitude simpler:
1) are you a member of BCA (whatever sort CIM or DIM)
2)great right do you want to join BCRA yes/no job done.
DIM membership should be there for people who dont want to be members of a caving club BCRA should not be being used to push club cavers into becoming DIMs if they dont want to be a DIM or a CIM plus for that matter.

 

[Glenn]

Ian, I'm not sure if this answers your question, because I'm losing track of what the question is. But any CIM can upgrade to CIM Plus at anytime, it just takes an email to the membership administrator and payment of the appropriate fee.

You can't do that on-line because the on-line process is for DIM's. Clubs do the admin for CIM's - that's why CIM's get the low cost membership option.

These are answers to the process part of the question. Your other question, which (I think) is why do CIM's have to be (in effect) DIM's in order to join to BCRA, is because that's the way both organisations wanted it to be, and for the vast majority of the membership appears to be a workable solution.

 

[ian.p]

1. no there hasn't been a massive spike in memberships to the BCRA after recruitment initiatives but after last years drive at CHECC we had an extra 10-15 members signed up. BCRA is never going to recruit vast numbers of people but we need to make sure that anybody who is interested does join 10 new keen individuals in the BCRA could double the scientific output of the organisation.

2. BCRA membership especially via CIM+ is not obvious or straightforward i didn't know CIM+ existed until i went to a BCA council meeting and as I'm about as wired into the club caving scene as any youngish caver i think that means it fails the ease of use test.

3. I cant believe this is the easiest way of administering membership it seems incredibly clunky and very few people seem to know how its meant to work outside of those who designed it.

4.The reasons for BCA expecting additional payments on club membership before allowing membership of the BCRA are outdated and need to be readdressed what might have been a good idea some years ago is not working now.

 

[ian.p]

as a point ive just asked two other cavers sat in the living room what CIM+ is neither of them had a clue and both are BCRA members.

 

[Pitlamp]

Let's not forget that this set up is largely run by volunteers. If anyone is really unhappy with the status quo then I guess there's always the option to get involved at administrative level and facilitate some change - but of course that would involve quite a lot of commitment to drive things through. Then again, I'm sure any offers of help to keep things going or make improvements would be welcomed.

I'm generally happy with the way BCRA runs apart from the changes in publication policy in recent years. Rather than disagree with this on a forum I discussed it directly with the key people who actually do all the work. I've failed to persuade them they're wrong but they did listen to me and try to explain their reasons for the changes. I still don't agree but I respect their opinions and, as it's them that do the work, I left it at that.

Nothing in life is perfect but evolution is always possible if folk are determined enough to do the hard graft needed to bring about beneficial change.

 

[Badlad]

Volunteers or not, BCRA administraters would be very wise to listen to the concerns of Ian.P.  Ian and his chums represent what could be the new era of BCRA membership.  If he is feeling this frustrated with the system then it is not working.  Administraters who are satisfied with the status quo are likely to preside over the demise of the organisation.

The whole BCRA and BCA membership structure should be customer centred.  It clearly isn't.  Whoever thought 'DIM' was a cool membership category doesn't understand professional sales and marketing techniques.  Volunteers do an essential job but they still need to listen and be prepared to take on board new ideas to take the organisation into the future.

 

[damian]

The whole BCRA and BCA membership structure should be customer centred.  It clearly isn't.  Whoever thought 'DIM' was a cool membership category doesn't understand professional sales and marketing techniques.  Volunteers do an essential job but they still need to listen and be prepared to take on board new ideas to take the organisation into the future.

BCA launched a 12 month consultation on improvements to our membership structure in, I think, 2011. At the end of the 12 months I was only aware of one response! Executive are now actively looking at moving forward and genuinely welcome input and ideas. As I've explained to IanP in the past, though, while BCA and BCRA work closely together, BCRA's membership structure has nothing to do with BCA. We do combine to process all memberships in one location to make life easier for people, but BCRA's membership structure is quite rightly an matter for them.

 

[graham]

Volunteers or not, BCRA administraters would be very wise to listen to the concerns of Ian.P.  Ian and his chums represent what could be the new era of BCRA membership.  If he is feeling this frustrated with the system then it is not working.  Administraters who are satisfied with the status quo are likely to preside over the demise of the organisation.

The whole BCRA and BCA membership structure should be customer centred.  It clearly isn't.  Whoever thought 'DIM' was a cool membership category doesn't understand professional sales and marketing techniques.  Volunteers do an essential job but they still need to listen and be prepared to take on board new ideas to take the organisation into the future.

I take it you are volunteering to help then? 

 

[kay]

BCA launched a 12 month consultation on improvements to our membership structure in, I think, 2011. At the end of the 12 months I was only aware of one response!

I can remember a consultation on BCRA which I responded to. I can't remember a consultation on BCA. Who did you consult? Did you ask individual members, or was it just for clubs?