Annual General Meeting

[Colin Ardron]

Thanks are in order to all those who give up their time to make the club operate as a going concern.
A question arising from the AGM minutes concerns the increased levy on members due to UK Athletics. We all get very excited when energy companies increase their charges by 15%, so it might be of interest to members to know how UKA can justify a 150% increase in their levy and how they intend to spend this huge largesse.
Also will this impact on the current UKA £2 levy which unattached runners have to pay in our road races?

[Beneficial Dictator]

Yes I would quite like to know also, but we are stuck with it unless we were to unaffiliate as a club & that is not going to happen unless the majority of the club membership want it. Start a petition now! Call an E.G.M. No please don't.

All I can give as answer is that as I understand it ( & I don't really nor am I desperately interested ) the way British Athletics is funded is changing & it is having severe growing pains - again my personal opinion. Though we will now pay more money out as individuals we get a bit more money back as a club. I personally still consider our sport to be pretty cheap.
As an aside for the Fell Runners under the new system the FRA will get more money especially for national & international competition. This of course will not affect the very great majority of us one bit.

Back to the club membership fees & proposed increase I was hopefull it was clear there is no increase in money the club takes ( though I am hopeful we will get more of the levy back ).
The decision has been taken by the club committee that we wish to stay affiliated therefore we will pay the levy for all club members ( who are not social members, or officials or coaches only ) over the age of 11 yrs.

If anyone truely objects to the levy then I suggest you join the club as a social member only, then you will not pay it. Then you would have to run any track & field or road races as an Unattached runner. You then may have to pay the extra £2 unattached runner entry fee at that event. This of course does not currently apply to fell races ( or at least I have never done a fell race that has charged extra for unaffiliated runners).

This post was written in haste & has not been carefully crafted, it is my personal opinion. I appreciate the original post has been in written to be slightly provocative & of course I have risen to take the bait.
This levy increase issue was raised at the AGM by Phil Cheek & a similar membership option suggestion was highlighted to him.

I would personally rather fight for change from within an organisation rather than be a lone voice on the outside.

Craig Harwood.

[Colin Ardron]

Thanks for the reply Craig. I assure you I was not being any more provocative than usual

The actual sum doesn't seem much (but could be to some). I'm sure most members will be pleased to know that we get something back from UKA. Maybe it's a topic for a future magazine article to detail in what form that something is.
Personally I get enough back just from being able to get out and run (well sometimes); - any extras in the form of UKA benefits I would be more than happy to see going towards helping young and developing athletes to get the most out of the sport.