Volunteer mileage rate up to 25p per mile

[Oldman]

See http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/i ... 9yZy51ay8=

Perfectly reasonable, it seems to me, but almost a 20% increase in travel expenses for planners and other volunteers in clubs who follow the BOF rate which adds further pressure to event and club budgets.

[Big Jon]

I'm not sure how many club members charge for travel to forests for planning/controlling/organising etc events for their club. I reckon its probably pretty low, so the effect will be fairly small. Personally I think its about time the rate was increased - its been 21p per mile for as long as I can remember. maybe someone with more information could let us know when the last increase in the rate occurred.

[denzil53]

See http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/i ... 9yZy51ay8=

Perfectly reasonable, it seems to me.

A more normal mileage rate these days is 40p per mile.

At 25p/mile, with petrol at almost £6/gallon, this rate will barely cover your fuel costs, let alone other costs. Just another way in which the true cost of orienteering is hidden behind volunteer generosity - in time as well as money.

[Scott]

At 25p/mile, with petrol at almost £6/gallon, this rate will barely cover your fuel costs, let alone other costs.

You'd have to be doing worse than 24mpg for it not to cover your fuel costs But you're right, it's probably not enough to cover the various other motoring costs for many people, and given the way that fuel prices have been going I'd agree that the increase is probably overdue.

[pigweed]

Whenever I organise, plan, or control I always submit a mileage claim however I do try to minimise it for the organising club. For example I tagged control sites for one event on two Sundays by driving on after competing in a couple of regional events and only claimed the smaller extra distance between the regional event and the area I was tagging.

I think 25p per mile is very fair. My own car does about 44 to 50 mpg (leaded petrol) average depending on time of year, and my running cost is currently 12 to 13 pence per mile petrol and about 5 pence per mile for on going maintenance, servicing, etc.

Funnily enough over the past six months the most expensive petrol in terms of price per litre I've purchased actually turned out to be the cheapest! I usually buy petrol at the local Sainsburys which is usually 2 to 3 pence per litre cheaper than the average for the area, recently being 125.9/litre, which gave me 44 to 47 mpg at 12 to 13 pence per mile over the last winter, however on a couple of occasions I've had to fill up at a Total service station near Hungerford, and one "UK Bridgewater" where both were 128.9 per litre but both gave me 50 mpg at 11 pence/mile.

Recently I filled up at a local Tesco which was a couple of pence per litre more expensive than the Sainsburys but I had a 5p/litre voucher off, and after filling up again I worked out the Tesco petrol also gave me 50 mpg so I'm wondering if there's something different about the petrol at Sainsburys? I was under the impression that the deliveries in a local area were really from the same batch/refinery but my results seem to say something different. There's been no difference in the driving, routes, or level of traffic for these results.

[zulu_warrior]

Lucky you.

As I do my expences for todays/tomorrows event the petrol station in our village was charging 136p a litre (even after the reduction from the budget!).

There will come a time (maybe it already has - judging from the lack of volunteers in our club) when people are unwilling/unable to afford to volunteer time and money. Then we will either have paid officials with the associated cost but also a lack of variety or a scarcity of events.