How should we pay the 90K british orienteering wants?

[SeanC]

BO would like an extra 90K per year from us as SportEngland will be reducing their subsidy.

They have proposed option 1 as a way of paying for it.

But are other options better?

Don't forget if clubs pay BO (via levy or capitation) rather than the individual through membership, clubs can decide how much to put fees or membership up by, or they can use up their reserves to cushion the fees increase. But there are also downsides.

What do you think?

[Paul Frost]

There probably isn't one solution that will suit all clubs.

Some may have small reserves but large membership, so subsidising the membership fee and Capitation won't appeal to them.

Some may not put on many events and have small membership, so high levy and low membership fee may suit them

Some may have reasonable membership but have a lot of low cost activities and few events, so increased levy wouldn't affect them so much, but increased membership fee would.

The clubs that put on a lot of levy paying events would probably be better off with a high membership fee and low levy.

The Capitation option could tempt some clubs not to encourage membership, but just participation. If they don't charge much or anything for club membership now because they get their income from events (pay and play), there would be less of an incentive to have a large membership.

[daffdy]

Far as I can see, the only difference between increasing the membership fee by £10 or keeping the fee the same and introducing a £10 per member club capitation fee is, erm, that members of closed and open clubs get to pay twice?

Don't forget if clubs pay BO (via levy or capitation) rather than the individual through membership, clubs can decide how much to put fees or membership up by, or they can use up their reserves to cushion the fees increase. But there are also downsides.

Surely adjusting club membership fees would lead to exactly the same outcome?

[maprun]

If members opt for a tripling of fees or most of the increase in fees, it would seem sensible to keep the notional £5 fee in place to attract for new members when they join.

I suspect some associations outside England may prefer an association or club capitation levy as their National grant is based on membership targets.

[SeanC]

Far as I can see, the only difference between increasing the levy by £10 or keeping the levy the same and introducing a £10 per member club capitation fee is, erm, that members of closed and open clubs get to pay twice?

Did you mean increasing membership fees rather than levy? Assuming so, the key difference is that a membership fee must be paid by the individual whereas the capitation is paid by the club. This means the club can optimise their payment collection for their local conditions - eg charge more for green/blue/brown runs instead of just increasing the club membership fee, or use up some reserves. With the proposal a family of 4 for example just gets a £26 increase which is clearly going to reduce membership. Because a club can optimise collection for local conditions using capitation or levy collection, the amount of revenue that is collectable for BO could actually be higher IMO.

Student clubs = no capitation I would hope?

I'm sure we'll all agree that membership is a key development aim. New people in the club - new ideas, changes the demographic, makes the new orienteers more likely to continue, easier to publicise events to, makes them more likely to promote the sport to their friends because they "are orienteers" rather than "have done a bit of orienteering".

Surely adjusting club membership fees would lead to exactly the same outcome?

Yes, if clubs are like my own and currently charging more than £10 for their club membership, but lots don't. Some charge £0, such as MOR and total fees paid direct by their members must therefore rise by the full amount. It seems particularly unfair on these clubs who embraced the previous BO philosophy of low membership fees to encourage a larger and more diverse membership.

Daffdy - thank you for still being in this debate. I think there is a real risk that the proposal will be rejected at the AGM and then where will we be? Presumably new proposals which will be either be a different mix of payment methods and/or orienteers pay less than the 90K required. I hope that it is still possible that we could vote on a proposal that said something like "orienteers agree in principle to provide the 90K using a funding mechanism to be determined after consultation and a later vote on choice of options". If at the EGM at the Welsh 6 day or wherever orienteers voted for a funding mechanism via membership increase, then people would accept it as democracy and get on with it.

Mike and your fellow board members may privately groan at the thought of more months of arguments over funding, but it would be a great opportunity (to use the corporate buzzword...) to engage with BO's new chief funding partner and visa versa. That's really important from 2017 onwards. It's obvious that the membership needs a better understanding of what BO does and its challenges, and also at times a better understanding by some people who work at/with BO of the challenges faced by clubs.

[maprun]

SeanC, well put. When you read the Board minutes just one person, no names, was given the task of deciding on the new income sources and they presented this at the February 2016 Board meeting. That appears to be the BOF consultation process, giving no opportunity for the directors to talk to the members they represent, or apparently for them to recall that the members instructed the directors via a binding resolution passed at the 2012 AGM, that the fees were not to exceed 25% of the income to encourage new members. Lets get it right!This is not a blame game, it's about the future of our sport.

[nooomember]

A very loaded question... How about NOT paying it?

[andypat]

Agree with noomember, the question at least should have had that as an option. Otherwise its not really a valid survey.

[graeme]

British orienteering *could* raise the money through Xplorer.
AFAIK, there's no levy and no membership requirement on Xplorer*. BO pays 100% for mapping cost. Why shouldn't BO run their own programmes in the same profitmaking** way they expect clubs to?

It seems the deficit is down to their own genius for evading their own taxes.

* Presumably participants are automagically covered by insurance without joining.
** Let's not pretend the levy is anything other than event profits being reinvested in the sport.

[SeanC]

How to fund is a different question than whether to fund. If it helps, imagine the majority of orienteers want to fund the 90K but don't know how.

Whether to fund can be done in another poll if someone wants to start one.

I did Xplorer with my son at the Kirroughtree visitors center, Galloway last year. In some ways it was really good, in some really bad. He loved much of it, but finished upset. I offered to do a review in CompassSport (free publicity for the visitors center) but unfortunately the forestry commission person never sent me an electronic version of the map.

[RJ]

The basic principle of a lower membership fee is a good place to start. People (membership) are the critical 'valuable' asset of the sport. They are not just 'cash cows' but are the volunteer base of everything we do, from updating a map, standing in a field directing cars, collecting in controls, coaching kids, stuffing newsletters into envelopes, repairing event signage, writing the press report..... etc. They will put in thousands of pounds worth of unpaid 'work' into the sport over the years. It is critical that we protect them and increase their number. Orienteering is unlike almost all other sports.... we are all participants, but we give up such a lot of our time to make the sport happen, because events involve hundreds of manhours of effort just so we can have an hour's exercise ourselves.

I believe it is easier to entice people into the sport through low cost membership. The 25% split for membership/levy is a good principle. Participation can be taxed more easily, and lets face it, a level D event that costs £3-£4 is a good deal. Making that £1 more expensive will be more effective. Because, in the end, the more members you have, the more volunteers there are to organise and run those events, and the more participants there are to pay the entry fees.

Whatever else we do we must not dent the growth in membership numbers. We are, and have been for a long time, below a sustainable level. We may have to cut back the 'office staff' and administration in the short term and make the sport more cost effective. The debate can be on what we really need to keep going until such time as membership numbers are growing substantially. We are about to see the older age class demographic 'bulge' take large numbers out of the system.

[Scott]

Far as I can see, the only difference between increasing the membership fee by £10 or keeping the fee the same and introducing a £10 per member club capitation fee is, erm, that members of closed and open clubs get to pay twice?

I think if British Orienteering were to move to a capitation fee model, we would need to commit to doing it properly and completely replace the membership fee with a capitation fee rather than trying to run with a mix of the two.

And plenty of other sports have managed to come up with systems so that only an individual's first claim club (or equivalent) have to pay an affiliation fee for that person, so I'm sure we could manage to devise with something similar.

Some may have small reserves but large membership, so subsidising the membership fee and Capitation won't appeal to them.

There's no requirement for clubs to subsidise under a capitation model - they could just pass the entire fee on as part of their membership fee if they want to, which would effectively be the same as a straightforward membership fee increase.

The Capitation option could tempt some clubs not to encourage membership, but just participation. If they don't charge much or anything for club membership now because they get their income from events (pay and play), there would be less of an incentive to have a large membership.

That's a good point, and pay and play is a perfectly valid model for a club to pursue. Setting the balance between capitation and levy would need some thought, and the club can, of course, use some of their event income to subsidise the capitation fee - it would be a nice way to spend any non-member entry fee surcharge!

[Paul Frost]

There's no requirement for clubs to subsidise under a capitation model - they could just pass the entire fee on as part of their membership fee if they want to, which would effectively be the same as a straightforward membership fee increase.

But almost every mention of Capitation in these threads infers that clubs could/should subsidise it. If clubs don't subsidise it then we might as well stay as we are and British Orienteering takes its cut directly from the joining/renewal process. It's also more transparent to members (and prospective ones) where the real costs are.

Subsidies usually mean that one group of people end up paying for another group, why should they?
In this case it probably means the more active orienteers have to pay extra so that the more casual participants get off lightly.

[SeanC]

It's just devolution of the problem Paul so that clubs with different views and situations can choose the best path for them. It doesn't make the problem go away ... the end of the free meal.

[Paul Frost]

A potential consequence of some clubs subsidising membership and increasing entry fees to compensate, is that some people will hunt around for the club with the lowest membership fees and join that club, even if it's miles away from where they live. History has shown that some people will do anything to save money.

Compared to many triathlon, athletics and running clubs who often include weekly coaching/training sessions and facilities, orienteering clubs generally don't offer much in return for the membership fee, so it doesn't matter if you are not local.
I could even be tempted to look around for a club that has the best O-Top design/colour scheme.