Archery GB Membership Review.

Furface

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At the first of the three "AGB Membership Roadshows" last night, far and away the hottest discussion came around the suggestion that they would abolish the block membership fee for Junior, Disabled and University clubs. Instead, fees for these groups would be set at 25% of the adult fees (currently roughly ?10 each). The claim was that this would be revenue neutral - NOT a money-raising scheme - and would be more equitable (Why should some juniors pay nothing and others a full annual fee for the same service, for instance?). Some maintained it would not make much difference, and Archery was still a lot cheaper than Golf, Gymnastics, Hockey etc. Full adult members might wonder why they are expected to subsidise these groups if they are not affected by them. AGB also suggested that the block fees also masked the real number of archers in the three groups, as they suspect that clubs simply send in the same list of names year on year and don't give accurate returns
Others (myself included) tried to focus on the effect on recruitment. These block fees were introduced in the distant past to encourage recruitment from those three targeted groups, though whether this purpose had been considered still valid was airily dismissed. It was argued that removing the flexibilty they allow clubs would seriously affect the numbers who join. It is already dispiriting when, at the end of a Beginners' course, you go over the fees and you can see the disappointment at the initial cost, particularly for family groups. At my club we do not take any of the AGB fees from the juniors, but we could not continue to do this at ?10 a head. For a family with two children it adds up. And we are in times where a ?1 annual increase can be the difference between staying in the sport or not. It would be particularly hard on University clubs, which are all governed by different rules set by their institution's sporting bodies.
I did not feel the case for the change was well put, and it was obvious those advocating it had not understood the recruitment aspect at all, particularly in Universities. IMHO, it was a bit rich blaming clubs for inaccuracies in data on membership numbers.
However, it is likely that a proposal to abolish these block fees will be put to the AGM next April. Unless you get to one of the two remaining roadshows, I very much doubt whether there will be any further formal opportunity for discussion until then. So, let's get discussing!
 

bimble

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I am sure there is nothing that university clubs want more, when trying to get new students to chose archery over all the other sports available at Freshers' Fayres, is to have to raise their membership fees as so not to lose money to cover the extra fees. And if you thought the difference between membership and attendance in open clubs was big, there is probably an 80:20 difference between people who join university archery clubs and those who end up as regular members. However, all of these end up on AGB's books as AGB members as part of the ever increasing number of people who do archery.

I am intrigued to see how charging people more money will be revenue neutral and not raise cash...
 

bimble

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AGB also suggested that the block fees also masked the real number of archers in the three groups, as they suspect that clubs simply send in the same list of names year on year and don't give accurate returns
Also, surely they have the lists that get sent in with all the names, so it should be a very easy check to see if the lists have been changed year on year by looking at their records... If the membership names from 2009 are wildly different from those in 2014 (the majority of university archers are only about for 3-4 years), then no, the same list of names aren't being used. Indeed, they could check to see if clubs are filling in new names by comparing lists... that'd take what?? A morning?? Assuming they've kept records...
 

AndyW

Well-known member
Seems like a golden opportunity to alienate your target age for olympic hopefuls and to mangle membership stats. Will the revenue neutral (?) changes be so when funding is cut after the downturn in membership? Hey, on the bright side it can only help the NFAS etc. - every cloud.
 

ben tarrow

Well-known member
I for one am disgusted that these "roadshows" have times and locations clearly intended to make it as difficult as possible for the majority of the membership to attend.

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I for one am disgusted that these "roadshows" have times and locations clearly intended to make it as difficult as possible for the majority of the membership to attend.
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
Unusually, I find myself dissenting on the block fees idea...
I was a university club member before the block fee idea came in and the (at the time) ?6 GNAS fee was not an obstacle in any sense, though I suspect it was relatively more expensive, then.

Paying a fee promotes a sense of committment. If it's paid for you, there's less incentive to continue. And you really need the incentives, with a university club (too much competition for attention).
The university athletic union at the time used the number of members paying national body fees as a measure of the seriousness of the club, which also had an impact on funding requests.
 

Furface

Moderator
Supporter
Unusually, I find myself dissenting on the block fees idea...
I was a university club member before the block fee idea came in and the (at the time) ?6 GNAS fee was not an obstacle in any sense, though I suspect it was relatively more expensive, then.

Paying a fee promotes a sense of commitment. If it's paid for you, there's less incentive to continue. And you really need the incentives, with a university club (too much competition for attention).
The university athletic union at the time used the number of members paying national body fees as a measure of the seriousness of the club, which also had an impact on funding requests.
It would appear that University clubs are as varied as the day is long - 60 clubs and 61 methods of paying. My feeling about block fees is that it provides the clubs in the targeted sectors the flexibility to decide how they will implement the fees. There is nothing to stop a University club from paying the block fee, then charging each member say ?6 to cover it. Or ?10. Or ?1

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Unusually, I find myself dissenting on the block fees idea...
I was a university club member before the block fee idea came in and the (at the time) ?6 GNAS fee was not an obstacle in any sense, though I suspect it was relatively more expensive, then.

Paying a fee promotes a sense of commitment. If it's paid for you, there's less incentive to continue. And you really need the incentives, with a university club (too much competition for attention).
The university athletic union at the time used the number of members paying national body fees as a measure of the seriousness of the club, which also had an impact on funding requests.
It would appear that University clubs are as varied as the day is long - 60 clubs and 61 methods of paying. My feeling about block fees is that it provides the clubs in the targeted sectors the flexibility to decide how they will implement the fees. There is nothing to stop a University club from paying the block fee, then charging each member say ?6 to cover it. Or ?10. Or ?1
 

Qechua

New member
Firstly, thanks Furface for going along to that. There was no way I'd be able to make it to any of the roadshows without taking a day off of work, and without your effort I'd have no idea this had been brought up.

Raised this with our club captain last night. Currently, our club pays ?135 block membership. With around 100 members, this works out at around ?1.35 a member. 25% of AGB fee (currently ?41) puts each member at a shade over ?10, increasing our (AGB) membership costs over 7 time. Yes, we could raise our membership price, but it's already pushing a bit high for a university club (our AU alone wants ?45/head). I know it's easy for some of us employed folk to figure "bah, ~?8 increase is nothing", but I think a lot of us forget just how stretched a student budget can be, and how much more of a difficult sell it is for the more casual archers. I can imagine for junior/disabled clubs it'll be worse, since the increase is significantly higher, and I've been told children are very expensive.

Returning archers will be even more difficult. Assuming AU costs go up again (because they will), and AGB membership, potentially region/county increases, we could be looking at a ?15-?20 rise on the previous year, for (as far as a returning member is concerned) absolutely no benefit. Longer term, between AU and AGB, we'd probably be looking at a ?5-10/year increase in fees. Does anyone have figures for previous years' individual and block membership prices to see what the various rates of increase are? I can probably scrounge together the block prices from our accounts, but the individual fee I've no idea.

Also, because I felt math-sy, University clubs with 14 members or more will be worse off. Junior clubs with 7 members or more will be worse off (assuming they are paying 25% of the senior rate, 11 members or more if they are paying 25% junior rate). All disabled clubs will be worse off. I'm really not sure how this can be described as revenue neutral, unless there are some *really* small clubs out there.

...Indeed, they could check to see if clubs are filling in new names by comparing lists... that'd take what?? A morning?? Assuming they've kept records...
This is an organisation that, in the last 7 years, has failed to ever get all of our membership cards right, despite us sending the correct information (last few years we've kept copies of the forms sent in to prove it). Names get changed, people go missing, people appear out of nowhere, one year someone gained a clone, and people change genders (one of my archers was nearly refused entry to a competition because he'd (correctly) entered as a senior male and his card said Ms). Conversely, after 15 years of Scouting, I've only ever seen a single mistake (spelling error), which was reported to Gilwell (Lilleshall equivalent) and fixed (with a new membership card and a small letter of apology) within a week.

Hey, on the bright side it can only help the NFAS etc. - every cloud.
BUCS (British University & College Sport) require AGB membership if you want to compete. We already looked ;)

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Firstly, thanks Furface for going along to that. There was no way I'd be able to make it to any of the roadshows without taking a day off of work, and without your effort I'd have no idea this had been brought up.

Raised this with our club captain last night. Currently, our club pays ?135 block membership. With around 100 members, this works out at around ?1.35 a member. 25% of AGB fee (currently ?41) puts each member at a shade over ?10, increasing our (AGB) membership costs over 7 time. Yes, we could raise our membership price, but it's already pushing a bit high for a university club (our AU alone wants ?45/head). I know it's easy for some of us employed folk to figure "bah, ~?8 increase is nothing", but I think a lot of us forget just how stretched a student budget can be, and how much more of a difficult sell it is for the more casual archers. I can imagine for junior/disabled clubs it'll be worse, since the increase is significantly higher, and I've been told children are very expensive.

Returning archers will be even more difficult. Assuming AU costs go up again (because they will), and AGB membership, potentially region/county increases, we could be looking at a ?15-?20 rise on the previous year, for (as far as a returning member is concerned) absolutely no benefit. Longer term, between AU and AGB, we'd probably be looking at a ?5-10/year increase in fees. Does anyone have figures for previous years' individual and block membership prices to see what the various rates of increase are? I can probably scrounge together the block prices from our accounts, but the individual fee I've no idea.

Also, because I felt math-sy, University clubs with 14 members or more will be worse off. Junior clubs with 7 members or more will be worse off (assuming they are paying 25% of the senior rate, 11 members or more if they are paying 25% junior rate). All disabled clubs will be worse off. I'm really not sure how this can be described as revenue neutral, unless there are some *really* small clubs out there.

...Indeed, they could check to see if clubs are filling in new names by comparing lists... that'd take what?? A morning?? Assuming they've kept records...
This is an organisation that, in the last 7 years, has failed to ever get all of our membership cards right, despite us sending the correct information (last few years we've kept copies of the forms sent in to prove it). Names get changed, people go missing, people appear out of nowhere, one year someone gained a clone, and people change genders (one of my archers was nearly refused entry to a competition because he'd (correctly) entered as a senior male and his card said Ms). Conversely, after 15 years of Scouting, I've only ever seen a single mistake (spelling error), which was reported to Gilwell (Lilleshall equivalent) and fixed (with a new membership card and a small letter of apology) within a week.

Hey, on the bright side it can only help the NFAS etc. - every cloud.
BUCS (British University & College Sport) require AGB membership if you want to compete. We already looked ;)
 

AndyW

Well-known member
Compete at what? Forgive my ignorance as I've never been involved with any college / university archery. If you join the NFAS and not GNAS no one's going to stop you shooting - just not target archery as we prefer bunnies. If you've still got a hankering for international competition you can go with EFAA who are IFAA affiliates so you will be eligible for those as well as national comps. As regards require membership surely there's a back door - I'm assuming they allow overseas students/visitors to shoot at whatever these events are so simply join the least expensive of those instead and deprive GNAS of the money.

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Compete at what? Forgive my ignorance as I've never been involved with any college / university archery. If you join the NFAS and not GNAS no one's going to stop you shooting - just not target archery as we prefer bunnies. If you've still got a hankering for international competition you can go with EFAA who are IFAA affiliates so you will be eligible for those as well as national comps. As regards require membership surely there's a back door - I'm assuming they allow overseas students/visitors to shoot at whatever these events are so simply join the least expensive of those instead and deprive GNAS of the money.
 

bimble

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Compete at what? Forgive my ignorance as I've never been involved with any college / university archery. If you join the NFAS and not GNAS no one's going to stop you shooting - just not target archery as we prefer bunnies. If you've still got a hankering for international competition you can go with EFAA who are IFAA affiliates so you will be eligible for those as well as national comps. As regards require membership surely there's a back door - I'm assuming they allow overseas students/visitors to shoot at whatever these events are so simply join the least expensive of those instead and deprive GNAS of the money.

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Compete at what? Forgive my ignorance as I've never been involved with any college / university archery. If you join the NFAS and not GNAS no one's going to stop you shooting - just not target archery as we prefer bunnies. If you've still got a hankering for international competition you can go with EFAA who are IFAA affiliates so you will be eligible for those as well as national comps. As regards require membership surely there's a back door - I'm assuming they allow overseas students/visitors to shoot at whatever these events are so simply join the least expensive of those instead and deprive GNAS of the money.
If you wish to compete at the University Championships you have to be a member of AGB (the outdoor is a WRS event, the indoor is a RS Portsmouth), and with the various regional leagues, you then have the issue of insurance not being valid if people are not all members of the same organisation. Keep in mind there is also international representation (World University Games/World University Champs), which will require membership of a World Archery affiliated organistion.
 

AndyW

Well-known member
Bimble - no offence, you may as well be talking Urdu to me. I'm just a mediocre field archer who didn't do University archery and have never been in GNAS. ( Sorry - if at all possible I don't refer to them as AGB as I and many others are archers who live in GB and they don't represent me one little bit ).

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Bimble - no offence, you may as well be talking Urdu to me. I'm just a mediocre field archer who didn't do University archery and have never been in GNAS. ( Sorry - if at all possible I don't refer to them as AGB as I and many others are archers who live in GB and they don't represent me one little bit ).

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Aaaaaaargh.

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Aaaaaaargh.
 

bimble

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Bimble - no offence, you may as well be talking Urdu to me. I'm just a mediocre field archer who didn't do University archery and have never been in GNAS. ( Sorry - if at all possible I don't refer to them as AGB as I and many others are archers who live in GB and they don't represent me one little bit ).
it basically comes down to the fact that there is nothing stopping an individual club from getting membership from NFAS, but they would be unable to compete against other university clubs (except those who are also members of NFAS), would be unable to take part in the university championships which are specifically GNAS associated. And as university clubs are usually restricted to shooting in the sports hall they will still be shooting GNAS rounds as I don't believe NFAS have many indoor rounds??
 

AndyW

Well-known member
Thanks Bimble, In that case they're pretty much stuffed if they want to go that way. Captive.
You're right we tend not to do indoor except to smash a few arrows and have a chat on a club night. Spend most of the time in the woods. Although, as the rules say we should place targets in their natural environment there's a good case for a zombie apocalypse shoot to be indoor. Please Lord let somebody do one.:pray: I promise to be good if you do.

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Thanks Bimble, In that case they're pretty much stuffed if they want to go that way. Captive.
You're right we tend not to do indoor except to smash a few arrows and have a chat on a club night. Spend most of the time in the woods. Although, as the rules say we should place targets in their natural environment there's a good case for a zombie apocalypse shoot to be indoor. Please Lord let somebody do one.:pray: I promise to be good if you do.
 

dvd8n

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Bimble - no offence, you may as well be talking Urdu to me. I'm just a mediocre field archer who didn't do University archery and have never been in GNAS. ( Sorry - if at all possible I don't refer to them as AGB as I and many others are archers who live in GB and they don't represent me one little bit ).

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Bimble - no offence, you may as well be talking Urdu to me. I'm just a mediocre field archer who didn't do University archery and have never been in GNAS. ( Sorry - if at all possible I don't refer to them as AGB as I and many others are archers who live in GB and they don't represent me one little bit ).

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Aaaaaaargh.

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Aaaaaaargh.
Yep, the double posting thing's been happening to me off and on for a while.
 

Mark31121

Member
Ironman
Didn't AGB already reduce the level of a Students membership anyway? So if they wanted to enter a non-student competition or shoot at another club as well they needed to "top-up" their membership.

I started archery at university and without that I doubt very much that I would be shooting now. I paid ?10 to join the club (plus whatever the Athletic Union fees were), realistically the club would have had to double this and that would have made a huge difference back then as I was always broke and I was very careful with money.

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Didn't AGB already reduce the level of a Students membership anyway? So if they wanted to enter a non-student competition or shoot at another club as well they needed to "top-up" their membership.

I started archery at university and without that I doubt very much that I would be shooting now. I paid ?10 to join the club (plus whatever the Athletic Union fees were), realistically the club would have had to double this and that would have made a huge difference back then as I was always broke and I was very careful with money.
 

English Bowman

Well-known member
I think that the block fee is a good thing. I joined a junior club in the mid '80s and didn't have to pay a membership fee to GNAS, so my parents could afford for me to get involved in the sport. I stayed in the sport, have paid my GNAS fees every year as an adult, and even gone on to shoot for GB, all thanks to being encouraged into the sport by it being accessible due to the block fee system. I also have been teaching at the same club since I turned 18, and have seen other juniors join the club, and go onto become accomplished senior archers, all paying their fees. Dropping the block fees would be a bad idea in my opinion, particularly for junior archers. (I don't have the same experience of student or disabled clubs so won't comment on them.)

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I think that the block fee is a good thing. I joined a junior club in the mid '80s and didn't have to pay a membership fee to GNAS, so my parents could afford for me to get involved in the sport. I stayed in the sport, have paid my GNAS fees every year as an adult, and even gone on to shoot for GB, all thanks to being encouraged into the sport by it being accessible due to the block fee system. I also have been teaching at the same club since I turned 18, and have seen other juniors join the club, and go onto become accomplished senior archers, all paying their fees. Dropping the block fees would be a bad idea in my opinion, particularly for junior archers. (I don't have the same experience of student or disabled clubs so won't comment on them.)
 

ben tarrow

Well-known member
Bimble - no offence, you may as well be talking Urdu to me. I'm just a mediocre field archer who didn't do University archery and have never been in GNAS. ( Sorry - if at all possible I don't refer to them as AGB as I and many others are archers who live in GB and they don't represent me one little bit ).

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Bimble - no offence, you may as well be talking Urdu to me. I'm just a mediocre field archer who didn't do University archery and have never been in GNAS. ( Sorry - if at all possible I don't refer to them as AGB as I and many others are archers who live in GB and they don't represent me one little bit ).

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Aaaaaaargh.

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Aaaaaaargh.
I've informed Dave of the duplication problem.
Maybe the hamsters need some stronger coffee?
 

Dave

Administrator
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If you're getting the duplication problem please PM me and let me know which browser (and version) you're using. Ta :beer:

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Why's everything duplicating itself?

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Aaaaaaargh.

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Aaaaaaargh.[/QUOTE]
 

bimble

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Interestingly, was talking to a current Uni archer I know who's recently moved Uni for her phd... at her old Uni club membership was ?20, at her new one ?135. I will admit, if I wasn't already an archer, at ?135, archery doesn't interest me that much!!

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Interestingly, was talking to a current Uni archer I know who's recently moved Uni for her phd... at her old Uni club membership was ?20, at her new one ?135. I will admit, if I wasn't already an archer, at ?135, archery doesn't interest me that much!!
 
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