BMFA subs increase.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Reluctant to start BMFA threads, but it'll be in mags and reported to the clubs anyway.

Had an email from our area about the latest full council meeting. In short it's as follows.

The treasurer proposed an increase of £4 for 2019, taking the fee to £38. Reasons..2 fold...BMFA finances are worked out based on a membership of 35,000, this year it is likely to fall to 33,500, if we lose another 1000 next year it'll equate to £100,000 in lost revenue.

Insurance costs...

This costs around £360,000 a year, over a quarter of the yearly budget. As part of the deal we get £35,000 back if claims are low, there is a good chance this year we won't get the refund, due mainly to significant increase in claims for members crashing into other members vehicles or expensive aircraft in the pits area.

This was voted in and will be put to the AGM.

My thoughts ? Assuming we ain't upping spending on something not yet seen, I can't argue against it, opinions no doubt will vary.

[Geoff S]

£4 is probably less than the car fuel cost of a single visit to many member's flying field. It's a trivial amount.

Geoff

[Cuban8]

Nothing gets a club's AGM hot under the collar than a hike in fees. I suspect that if the proposal was for a £4 increase in BMFA, then it's not unreasonable to assume that a £2 rise will be ratified at the BMFA AGM. Not a lot of money, our club and BMFA cost for the year works out at about £1.75 per week all in, so a few extra coppers will not make a difference.

Surprised that BMFA membership is said to be declining..........where are all the new drone flyers, or is the grim reaper working overtime?

[MattyB]

Posted by Cuban8 on 10/09/2018 16:48:09:

Nothing gets a club's AGM hot under the collar than a hike in fees. I suspect that if the proposal was for a £4 increase in BMFA, then it's not unreasonable to assume that a £2 rise will be ratified at the BMFA AGM. Not a lot of money, our club and BMFA cost for the year works out at about £1.75 per week all in, so a few extra coppers will not make a difference.

Yeah, I agree it is likely to be knocked back to a couple of quid. £4 might not be much in the grand scheme of things, but it still represents nearly 12% inflation which seems a bit steep, though I suppose we have had several years of zero or £1 rises in the recent past.

Posted by Cuban8 on 10/09/2018 16:48:09:

Surprised that BMFA membership is said to be declining..........where are all the new drone flyers, or is the grim reaper working overtime?

...and surely the National Centre should be causing people to join up in droves, right? No? Why ever not?

In all seriousness, I find it a bit depressing that the BMFA is doing it's financial planning based on a potential loss of 1k members in 2019. With the latest legislation I would have thought they would be gearing up for an increase, even given the aging demographics of modelling in general. For instance I am a member of one non-affiliated club which is considering affiliating because of the 400ft restriction, which would give them 30 odd new members for a start; there must be other clubs and individuals who are thinking of doing the same.

Edited By MattyB on 10/09/2018 18:10:14

[Allan Bennett]

Posted by MattyB on 10/09/2018 17:53:54:

. . . In all seriousness, I find it a bit depressing that the BMFA is doing it's financial planning based on a potential loss of 1k members in 2019. With the latest legislation I would have thought they would be gearing up for an increase, even given the aging demographics of modelling in general. For instance I am a member of one non-affiliated club which is considering affiliating because of the 400ft restriction, which would give them 30 odd new members for a start; there must be other clubs and individuals who are thinking of doing the same.

Edited By MattyB on 10/09/2018 18:10:14

I too am surprised that they should be planning on a reduction in membership numbers. But remember that many members of non-affiliated clubs are also BMFA country members already, to make it easier to go visit other clubs.

Interestingly, at my non-affiliated club one of our members took his altimeter-equipped model up to 400ft to show us what it looked like. We were all pleasantly surprised to find that our 'normal' circuits height is more like 300ft, though thermals would sometimes take us up to an estimated 500ft.

[Former Member]

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[FilmBuff]

No problem at all for me.
People spend hundreds or thousands on their planes. Yet some worry about this increase.

[Tomtom39]

I'm blaming Brexit!!!!!

[fly boy3]

It was to be expected whatever the bmfa reasons given. Someone has to pay for the new national centre even though it is 200 miles from me. Cheers

[Cuban8]

Re the drone flyers - I see that FPVUK claim to have around 3000 members and they offer £5M of third party cover for just under twenty quid. Why would a new 'dronie' bother with almost double the BMFA fee ? They also say it covers all model flying except turbines and IC over 40cc!

[Former Member]

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[fly boy3]

I agree with Percy on this one, no doubt there are lots of us who spendhundreds plus on our models, but I bet we are outnumbered by far cheaper fomies, and I have nothing against foamies. Cheers

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Proposed budget for next year will be presented will it not ? then it'll get voted for or against at the AGM, pretty clear to me.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Posted by fly boy3 on 10/09/2018 21:06:22:

It was to be expected whatever the bmfa reasons given. Someone has to pay for the new national centre even though it is 200 miles from me. Cheers

Let's hope that the detailed accounts can show clearly that the NFC has not been subsidised by the membership in general. I do know that the treasurer gave a public undertaking that he would not allow this to happen and I have no reason to doubt his commitment to this promise.

[Gary Manuel]

I can live with £4 increase as it appears to be justified by falling membership numbers. Increasing insurance claims is a concern though. I wonder what the underlying cause of that is.

[Former Member]

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[cymaz]

.73p/ week if it goes up....I wish my car insurance was that cheap.

[Former Member]

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[Andy Meade]

£4 - is that it? I'd be happy to pay double for the work they've done recently. Not an issue.

[Nigel R]

I'm not worried about £4.

However:

due mainly to significant increase in claims for members crashing into other members vehicles or expensive aircraft in the pits area.

so, why have we collectively all got worse and less safe at flying?

[The Wright Stuff]

Posted by Nigel R on 11/09/2018 12:44:54:

due mainly to significant increase in claims for members crashing into other members vehicles or expensive aircraft in the pits area.

so, why have we collectively all got worse and less safe at flying?

We can't tell from that single sentence whether:

1. There have been more accidents.
2. A higher proportion of accidents are now turning into claims.
3. The number of accidents and claims are the same, but the value is higher.

Common sense would dictate that it's most likely to be a combination of all three. But without detailed incident statistics, it's probably fruitless to speculate...

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

I pay my fees to do the right thing and belong to a like minded group, never occurred to me you could claim for a model damaged in the pits, on the one occasion I recall it happening, the flyer payed for the damage.

[Peter Beeney]

Nigel R @ 11/09/2018 12:44:54

Exactly so, Nigel, I was thinking along those lines too. I wonder why a BMFA representative (Safety Officer?) hasn’t at least commented on this; …or perhaps he has, but it’s a little bit unprintable…

Kicking the figures around a little bit, if I assume £350,000 paid out annually and each average claim is for £1,000, then that’s the thick end of a claim a day by my reckoning.

Purely as a point of interest the average cost of a vehicle insurance claim is quoted as being £2,936. At first glance this seemed to be quite low…

A friend who was a BMFA Officer told me in casual conversation many years ago that the biggest single item claimed for was car damage. By far. So probably that’s aways been so.

But that so many models appear to be crashing into into the pits area was certainly the most significant statement in that communication for me. It slightly reads as though it’s almost a common occurrence.

PB

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Posted by Steve J on 11/09/2018 07:31:31:

Posted by Martin Harris on 10/09/2018 23:56:26:

Let's hope that the detailed accounts can show clearly that the NFC has not been subsidised by the membership in general.

The proposed budget from last year's AGM shows £10k in both 17/18 and 18/19 for "Support for NC".

Steve

I'll be a little saddened if this is a subsidy, in the light of undertakings made at the NFC EGM but it might be that this is budget for BMFA general admin functions performed at Buckminster or similar. There again, £10 000 divided by 30 000 ish members only accounts for a little over 30p per member.

If the rise is justified then I'm sure nobody can have any real gripe - but we might need to be a little careful if rises taking the fee over a psychological barrier impact on membership numbers e.g. £39.99 appearing substantially less than £40 to many people at a glance.

[Former Member]

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