BMFA SUBS 2024 ????

[Andy Symons - BMFA]

10 minutes ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

I have to admit that I was unaware of this facility but we have a member who invariably attends on our club’s behalf so maybe our secretary didn’t feel the need to highlight it.  
 

I try to stay aware of BMFA matters but I don’t think I spotted it in an email either so perhaps it could do with publicising a little more prominently?

Hi Martin
It was emailed to club secretaries 3 times, on the website as a newsflash and emailed to every member. Not really sure there is much more we could do.

edit - Just checked the stats, it was sent to every member we have an email address for, over 28000, 94% deliverability rate, 60% opening rate.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Andy Symons - BMFA

[Learner]

 

1 hour ago, kc said:

Learner - my reply was for John Stone who enquired if I attended the BMFA AGM.     However I think it answered your question too.    If the whole membership had been asked if they wanted to spend a lot on renting Buckminster or perhaps considered  investing in something else instead like buying a field in every county then the outcome would have been democratic and one that suited the majority.      But it wasn't!

 

We now have a super field for those who live near but which is no use to many members ( the majority? ).    However having spent money on renting and not even investing  by buying land ( which was the original idea ) it's the whole membership that will need to subsidise Buckminster if it makes losses.   Allowing all members to vote would tell the BMFA whether the majority want this or not.   Not allowing all members to vote and say what they want might cause many to drop away from BMFA which could be a disaster.  

 

It's not a question of whether the BMFA suits me - it's whether the BMFA suits the majority of members.    If it doesn't they may leave.  

 

Buying a field in every county would be impossible. Cost would be horrendous,even finding anything around London would be next to impossible, landowners dont sell except for building land.

Even if you could you'd still get the moaners saying its in the wrong part of the county.

I can't see a bmfa member in the north being happy the southeners land cost 5 times as much coming out of their subs.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Learner

[RottenRow]

The ways to attend the AGM, including zoom, were in the e-mail announcing the AGM, received (by me at least) on Friday 3rd November at 18:45.

 

Brian.

Edited December 5, 2023 by RottenRow

[Peter Jenkins]

1 hour ago, kc said:

My 2 clubs were, and still are, unable to send representatives to BMFA AGM due to the cost involved for small clubs.   Always at expensive hotel venues too far for a day trip.   Individual members cannot vote anyway it's club reps that vote.   That's why I want BMFA to be a democratic club and  give " one member-one vote "   rather than allow local club reps  who can attend easily to decide everything.    There is no excuse nowadays for not having one member one vote.   

 

I seem to remember you are East Anglia based.  So am I.  I managed to make the trip to the AGM as a day trip.  I would also observe that only a few clubs in East Anglia sent reps to the Esst Anglia Area meetings that were held in the Bury St Edmunds area.  The latest East Anglia Area AGM was on Zoom but only a few clubs attended.  The Area meetings are open to all club members to attend but there will only be one vote per club.  I only ever have seen one or two club members attend in the 6 years I used to be involved.

 

I suspect your wish for one member one vote would be met with the same sort of response as we see from clubs.  So I suspect it will be the same people who will step forward to do the hard graft and there will be no difference in outcomes.  Just look at what happens in Clubs.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

3 hours ago, kc said:

Learner - my reply was for John Stone who enquired if I attended the BMFA AGM.     However I think it answered your question too.    If the whole membership had been asked if they wanted to spend a lot on renting Buckminster or perhaps considered  investing in something else instead like buying a field in every county then the outcome would have been democratic and one that suited the majority.      But it wasn't!

 

We now have a super field for those who live near but which is no use to many members ( the majority? ).    However having spent money on renting and not even investing  by buying land ( which was the original idea ) it's the whole membership that will need to subsidise Buckminster if it makes losses.   Allowing all members to vote would tell the BMFA whether the majority want this or not.   Not allowing all members to vote and say what they want might cause many to drop away from BMFA which could be a disaster.  

 

It's not a question of whether the BMFA suits me - it's whether the BMFA suits the majority of members.    If it doesn't they may leave.  

 

 

No, John Stones asked if you attended the EGM when the vote was held to say yes/no the the NFC, it was well publicised, also stated, votes could be cast via Proxy. You were very active in the threads at the time, did you attend or arrange a vote via proxy ?

[kc]

Sorry John I omitted an  s  when typing! .  No, I didnt attend - too far away.    Actually I wasn't informed that there was some online poll until after it was already decided!  

 

Peter Jenkins  - One of my clubs is in the London Area, the other is only a few miles away but is in East Anglia according to BMFA.   Sending reps to AGM etc is expensive for small clubs & would only be democratic if the reps asked all his club members what they wanted him to vote for.   But do they ask?    Never in my experience.     One man one vote and voting for or against any particular proposiition would at least be democratic.  

4 hours ago, Learner said:

I can't see a bmfa member in the north being happy the southeners land cost 5 times as much coming out of their subs

Well if it did cost 5 times as much it should still be worth more in future and maybe go up more than in the North!  Better investment buying than renting.  

[Andy Symons - BMFA]

3 hours ago, kc said:

Sending reps to AGM etc is expensive for small clubs   

No it isn't. Doesn't cost a penny.

[GrumpyGnome]

So, 97 counties, say 3 acres for a small field, say an average of £10.5k per acre equals...... over £3m. 

 

It'd take years to find and purchase that many fields. And require lots of people to be involved, including legal fees - lets add, say, 1m.

 

Who decides where they are? Some counties are pretty large so would still be out of reach - personally, I would be reluctant to travel more than 30 mins....

 

Who maintains them - an existing club, or a specially formed new club? Or the BMFA remotely? 

 

If the field is for the benefit of the county, how is it 'policed' to make sure it is actually used for that purpose?

 

What happens if the BMFA gets into financial difficulties? What's to stop them selling off the most valuable land?

 

I'm pretty sure these arguments will have occurred in the BMFA for years. 

 

I've nothing against 'one man, one vote', but suspect that not many of the membership would actually vote, meaning a large, militant club could have disproportionate power. 

 

The best way to change things, if that's what is wanted, is to get more involved - the invitation is always there. 

 

As you will see, I think the BMFA do an excellent job, in challenging times.

 

Have I been to Buckminster? No. Will I go to Buckminster? Probably not as it's a long drive with arthritic knees. Do I support it's existence? Irrelevant really - the democratic process agreed to it, and I support that process. 

 

Finally, getting back on topic, I don't think the increase is disproportionate at all. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by GrumpyGnome

[Ron Gray]

Well put GG.

[Learner]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGnome said:

So, 97 counties, say 3 acres for a small field, say an average of £10.5k per acre equals...... over £3m. 

 

It'd take years to find and purchase that many fields. And require lots of people to be involved, including legal fees - lets add, say, 1m.

 

Who decides where they are? Some counties are pretty large so would still be out of reach - personally, I would be reluctant to travel more than 30 mins....

 

Who maintains them - an existing club, or a specially formed new club? Or the BMFA remotely? 

 

If the field is for the benefit of the county, how is it 'policed' to make sure it is actually used for that purpose?

 

What happens if the BMFA gets into financial difficulties? What's to stop them selling off the most valuable land?

 

I'm pretty sure these arguments will have occurred in the BMFA for years. 

 

I've nothing against 'one man, one vote', but suspect that not many of the membership would actually vote, meaning a large, militant club could have disproportionate power. 

 

The best way to change things, if that's what is wanted, is to get more involved - the invitation is always there. 

 

As you will see, I think the BMFA do an excellent job, in challenging times.

 

Have I been to Buckminster? No. Will I go to Buckminster? Probably not as it's a long drive with arthritic knees. Do I support it's existence? Irrelevant really - the democratic process agreed to it, and I support that process. 

 

Finally, getting back on topic, I don't think the increase is disproportionate at all. 

The Bmfa could put their fees to fund it, nobody would mind😂

[steve too]

I just had an email from the BMFA giving their new Leicester office address. They appear to be renting space from the British Gliding Association. Does anybody know what the cost of this is? I can't see anything obvious in the AGM budget.

[leccyflyer]

Paid mine last night. The online portal for renewal is a significant improvement on the old school way of renewing your BMFA and completely painless. I remember the club members jostling for position to pay their subs on AGM night, literally fighting for the privilege of being Member 001 for the next year and funnily enough, those at the front of the queue were typically the very infrequent flyers. Certainly don't miss having to stick all those sticky labels onto the sheets and then chase The Few into early summer the following year. I christened them The Few in recognition of Sir Winston Churchill's famous speech when he reflected on his time as Membership Secretary of Chartwell MFC....

[Cuban8]

51 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

Paid mine last night. The online portal for renewal is a significant improvement on the old school way of renewing your BMFA and completely painless. I remember the club members jostling for position to pay their subs on AGM night, literally fighting for the privilege of being Member 001 for the next year and funnily enough, those at the front of the queue were typically the very infrequent flyers. Certainly don't miss having to stick all those sticky labels onto the sheets and then chase The Few into early summer the following year. I christened them The Few in recognition of Sir Winston Churchill's famous speech when he reflected on his time as Membership Secretary of Chartwell MFC....

I've had the privilege of being my club's membership sec for 25 years - in that time the admin has gone from a pile of paperwork posted to me to be manually filled in, then the stickers and then to the totally on line system that we have now and I can get done sitting comfortably on my sofa with my laptop.

I used to take a lot of payments at our AGM and it wasn't unusual to be in receipt of well over a thousand pounds in cash and a load of cheques as well. I had only a dozen cheques the other evening and I'd previously asked that cash not be used any more which was heeded.

Funnily enough, we've also got a member who busts a gut to pay his subs before anyone else - very happy with that, but it does make me smile when I get a call from him to check his No1 status within a few minutes of the club email renewal going out. 90% of our members pay by bank transfer now, which is excellent.

Not a murmer so far about the BMFA's and club's subs going up by a few quid this year or concerns expressed about recent BMFA changes or the regulation of the hobby and  those others that might be in the pipeline after I gave a very brief talk on those subjects at our meeting.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Cuban8

[Engine Doctor]

It must be all to do with the short days and horrible weather as this moan occurs each year . The AGM's on wet gloomy nights dont help obviously haveing to make financial increases to sustain our clubs. Without the BMFA  and possibly the  LMA model flying would I feel be just a distant memory . They offer sage advice and practical help where needed . In our clubs case they offered advice when obtaining  Certificate of Lawful use / limited planning permission and practical advice and encouragement  when Andy visited our site as a   large solar farm was being built next to our site, and without any additional cost to our club. Without them having a good relationship and negotiating good insurance rates other insurers would i feel have milked us out of existance with higher premiums. Dont forget any insurance company who will still cover our hobby is only competetive due to the BMFA negotiated rates. Also remember the often overlooked personal accident and club equipment cover  included that other insurance companies would laugh at or charge the earth for and god forbid you have a claim!. Stop knocking the BMFA they have a hard enough job as it is and lets face it a £5 increase isnt the end of the world ; its not even a pint of beer or ten fags for those folk who inhabit the downwind part of the pits😉 and £47 a year is only half atank of fuel

Carry on like this and we will score an own goal / shoot our selves in the foot or whatever euphamism you like to use . Get positive and back those that stand up for us and our hobby.

Hindsight has 20/20 vision through rose tinted lenses . Stop harking on the past and lets  move forward in positive way

[Andy Meade]

That's good to hear Cuban - I've recently been voted in as Treasurer and member administrator at our club, and I'm slowly moving everything from cheques and a paper membership list (!!) to an online shared spreadsheet of members and a bank that has an app for scanning cheques if need be.  I'm totally lost on the membership admin side of things (I'd heard about stickers and SAE's and all sorts of steam powered horror), so hearing that it's a simple online affair now is music to my ears!  

[Andy Symons - BMFA]

1 hour ago, Andy Meade said:

That's good to hear Cuban - I've recently been voted in as Treasurer and member administrator at our club, and I'm slowly moving everything from cheques and a paper membership list (!!) to an online shared spreadsheet of members and a bank that has an app for scanning cheques if need be.  I'm totally lost on the membership admin side of things (I'd heard about stickers and SAE's and all sorts of steam powered horror), so hearing that it's a simple online affair now is music to my ears!  

Andy, I have ran a couple of club admin training sessions this past week and will be doing a few more too. Next one will be after Christmas though, now on annual leave for 2 weeks. I have also made a start on some short videos about using the portal. See https://bmfa.org/justgo-bitesize-club

 

Will be more added on my return.

 

You will find it very straight forward though, certainly makes the job easy. Would have loved it back when I was membership secretary of 2 clubs with a combined membership of approaching 300.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Andy Symons - BMFA

[Cuban8]

1 hour ago, Andy Meade said:

That's good to hear Cuban - I've recently been voted in as Treasurer and member administrator at our club, and I'm slowly moving everything from cheques and a paper membership list (!!) to an online shared spreadsheet of members and a bank that has an app for scanning cheques if need be.  I'm totally lost on the membership admin side of things (I'd heard about stickers and SAE's and all sorts of steam powered horror), so hearing that it's a simple online affair now is music to my ears!  

To be honest, it wasn't the "steam powered horror"  back in the day, even with half as many more members to cope with - I think we had 147 members at one time. The new portal is fine and quite easy to use once you get used to it - like a lot of online stuff where there are layers upon layers of functionality and it's not something that you go into every day,  it can be a bit daunting at first until you find your way around.

[Andy Symons - BMFA]

1 hour ago, Andy Meade said:

That's good to hear Cuban - I've recently been voted in as Treasurer and member administrator at our club, and I'm slowly moving everything from cheques and a paper membership list (!!) to an online shared spreadsheet of members and a bank that has an app for scanning cheques if need be.  I'm totally lost on the membership admin side of things (I'd heard about stickers and SAE's and all sorts of steam powered horror), so hearing that it's a simple online affair now is music to my ears!  

You won't need a spreadsheet, the portal holds all the info in a secure GDPR compliant manner.

[Engine Doctor]

Think of the portal as similar to your precious computerised Tx . If your like me you only use a fraction of its functions and capabilities😉.

[Geoff S]

5 hours ago, Cuban8 said:

I've had the privilege of being my club's membership sec for 25 years - in that time the admin has gone from a pile of paperwork posted to me to be manually filled in, then the stickers and then to the totally on line system that we have now and I can get done sitting comfortably on my sofa with my laptop.

I used to take a lot of payments at our AGM and it wasn't unusual to be in receipt of well over a thousand pounds in cash and a load of cheques as well. I had only a dozen cheques the other evening and I'd previously asked that cash not be used any more which was heeded.

Funnily enough, we've also got a member who busts a gut to pay his subs before anyone else - very happy with that, but it does make me smile when I get a call from him to check his No1 status within a few minutes of the club email renewal going out. 90% of our members pay by bank transfer now, which is excellent.

Not a murmer so far about the BMFA's and club's subs going up by a few quid this year or concerns expressed about recent BMFA changes or the regulation of the hobby and  those others that might be in the pipeline after I gave a very brief talk on those subjects at our meeting.

 

After cycle club night on Tuesdays, which was evening time trial in the summer, my wife had cash spread all over the kitchen worktop, sorting it out. It had advantages in that we always had cash available for ourselves and our single cheque was easier to pay in to the bank.  When she retired as treasurer last year it was all done online and, fortunately, even at 83 she's a dab hand with a spreadsheet and IT generally, and it was all a lot easier.  Though trying to get the bank transferred to the new treasurer wasn't exactly straight forward for some obscure reason. 

[Bruce Collinson]

Unincorporated Associations like our clubs have nightmares changing bank mandates; we had horror stories at work with certain client accounts too, sometimes taking months before all the stars aligned.   Retail banking in this country is deteriorating rapidly.   Thank goodness for our village Post Office for depositing cheques and drawing cash.

 

BTC

[Tosh McCaber]

I paid up my next year's sub on Dec 01.  Can't believe that this thread is still going!??

[Arthur Harris]

2 hours ago, Tosh McCaber said:

I paid up my next year's sub on Dec 01.  Can't believe that this thread is still going!??

Quite, who cares? Annual cost of insurance and club fees about £100. I spend twice that monthly on filling my petrol tank, the same on take-away meals, and the same again on odd sundries like Greggs, Starbucks and whatever. And a night at the club or a good night at the pub would double that. Cheap as chips, BMFA and club fees could double and still be good value. This argument is like someone driving to an out-of-town supermarket to save 10p on a tin of beans.

[Tim Kearsley]

11 hours ago, Tosh McCaber said:

I paid up my next year's sub on Dec 01.  Can't believe that this thread is still going!??

The thread is still going because some people just love moaning!

[Outrunner]

32 minutes ago, Tim Kearsley said:

The thread is still going because some people just love moaning!

 

A some trying to prove how clever they are