BOF Membership Proposals

[roadrunner]

I'm surprised to be the first person to post something about the proposals that we're being asked to vote on at the AGM. Having read and re-read the details we were sent, and discussed them at a club committee meeting last night, some important issues are very unclear. Perhaps someone on Nopesport is able to clarify them, so that we know what we're being asked to support.

The three issues that I and my fellow committee members were most concerned about were:

1. There is no mention of how people who are BOF members of one club and local members of another will be handled - or even how they will be identified. I know that a significant fraction of our local members fall into this category, but we don't record their other club membership (why should we?), and so we might not know everyone who is affected. Presumably the intention is that such people only pay BOF once, though this creates yet a third type of membership for the clubs to administer - or even a fourth if someone is a local member of two clubs.

2. The statement "newcomers get their first calendar year free of charge" doesn't make it clear whether the clubs also have to do this, or whether it's just the BOF element that is waived. And suppose someone joins in March 2007; what do they get for free, considering that membership fees are due on 1st January? Was the intention that they get free membership for the calendar year in which they join, which would make more sense?

3. I am told (it not being something I handle personally) that at present there is a £50 rebate on event levies, meaning that small (e.g. training) events end up paying nothing. The statement on revised levies makes no mention of this: is it being retained or scrapped?

Some other points also concerned me. It seems strange that we trust orienteers to declare themselves non-competitive if they are too familiar with the event area, we trust them not to show their map to someone who hasn't run (usually), and yet (from reading the FAQs) we apparently can't trust them to be honest about whether they are BOF members or not, and we can't even trust clubs to classify their events correctly! I don't think the refund scheme is workable: the effort to process a £2 refund is too great. We should just trust people's honesty, for those cases where we can't automatically verify membership from e-card number. This is how it works in road running, and while there's some abuse by ex-club members, the problem is not seen as serious.

[Snail]

And what about people who are local members only, because they don't take part in events?

eg
- those based overseas, perhaps former members
- those who just support the club socially, and help out at events, but don't take part because of age / infirmity / other reasons.

[lincolnsteve]

Are we seriously supposed to take down names and addresses of every newbie at every event we put on?? I fear this will not be practical and some people may take offence to giving personal details out on their first event, does this happen in other sports?? is it accepted?

[roadrunner]

Well, you'll have to take their names
But I think there was only a need for the address if someone claimed to be a member but didn't have their card. Of course, this is on-the-day entries - the implication, I guess, is that for pre-entry someone's supposed to check against the database.

[MarkC]

Apologies if this is a little long, but now that I've had a chance to read it the AGM proposal raises quite a few questions...

Firstly, it is not clear what the status of the proposal is - it seems to be too loosely worded to be definitive (as demonstrated by the queries raised earlier in this thread and below) so are we being asked to approve the changes outlined in principle only, with Council to confirm the details?

The suggestion that getting clubs to provide BOF with a list of their local members will ease the transition seems fatally flawed, for two reasons: firstly that clubs may not be able to pass personal details of club-only members to BOF without individually asking them for permission first, which some people are bound not to give; and secondly that according to BOF's own Articles of Association (4) "every Member of the Federation... shall submit a written application for membership", understandable perhaps given that membership represents a legal commitment (however small) to contribute to any debts and liabilities should BOF be wound up.

Clarifications appear to be required regarding the following (some of which have been raised already):

• How are members of more than one club to be treated? As BOF membership relates to an individual, it seems iniquitous to charge clubs for people who are already BOF members, yet there is no reason why they should record this information. If someone is a club-only member of more than one club but not a BOF member, which club should pay for them? When BOF is managing the whole system, will they be able to cope with people who are members of more than one open and one closed club, which is all they record at present?
• How are clubs supposed to treat members who do not fit into the BOF Senior/Junior/Family model, e.g. Groups, or even a different definition of "Family"? If clubs introduce a new class of membership for those who do not actually compete will BOF object?
• Who pays for newcomers' free first year, BOF or the clubs?
• The only events mentioned in the proposal for differential fees are District, Regional, National and the JK; are other types of event such as relays or score events intended to be exempt, or should this read Level 4, Level 3, etc.
• As they are not specifically mentioned, are Local BOF Members entitled to enter the British Championships (presumably at £2 more)?
• Are Local BOF Members entitled to organise, plan, or control events and at what levels? [the driver for me to first join BOF was actually that I was organising an event...]
• Local BOF Members are only entitled to discounted entry fees within their own region, which seems highly unfair to anyone that lives close to a regional boundary - why should an event ten miles north of home be surcharged and an event ten miles south not?
• Even the definition of "own region" may not be clear; perhaps you are a local member of two clubs in different regions, or your club is affiliated to more than one region (I believe that this applies to both SN and HAVOC, and there are probably others).
• Is the first £50 of levy still exempted?
• The proposal recognises (rightly in my opinion) that there may be an issue with more events being registered as C5, yet there is no indication of exactly how they will cope with this - will there be a ceiling on the number of participants perhaps?
• insisting that everyone produces a membership card or has to apply for a refund looks unworkable, as it would be a huge hassle to actually process the refunds; if nobody can be trusted any more, at least it should be possible to have easy access to the membership database at events so that innocence or guilt can be established at the time...
• "The proposal should be cost neutral", but on what basis has this calculation been made? How many club-only members have BOF assumed to become Local BOF Members?

Overall I think that if this motion were passed as it stands there would be chaos in the next couple of years; our membership structure is already complicated with the intermediate tier of Associations which are funded in different ways in different parts of the country, so to add a further level of complication, and one which will operate differently next year to the year after, seems to me as though it will be inpenetrable to newcomers to the sport and lead to increased hassle for the volunteers that run it.

[Becks]

Everyone,

I don't feel quite confident to try and answer any of these questions myself, but I encourage you to continue posting them. Simon Errington has already sent a list of questions to BOF Office and they are presently being answered. The answers will most likely follow in some kind of extended FAQs. I'll ensure that these questions (some of them very similar to his) are also highlighted and dealt with in this way.

[guest]

Only question I have (seemed to be covered by the above) is that clubs are not legally allowed to pass member details onto BOF without their (written?)consent. Rightly or wrongly, what would happen if those club members refused to agree passing on these details?

[stodge]

can anyone point me towards where these proposals are on the BOF website ?
Gave up after 1/4hr of searching....

[Rookie]

not sure about website - were sent out with the spring issue of Focus

[currently reading myself - the booklet looked too boring before]

EDIT - OK - read it - sounds ok, points mentioned proabably need clarifying

[LostAgain]

There is a proposal to reduce the annual membership cost and claw back this reduction through increased levy. With the statement that it is cost neutral.

Why bother, family membership down from £26 to £20, but claw it back with levy fee's of +50p for regional and national events. This works out approximately an additional cost of £30 for a £6 saving.

[awk]

Two issues jump to mind in addition to those raised already.

1) Who pays for the £2 discount?

If it's the club (i.e. BOF does not reduce its levy), which is the implication, why? What this effectively means is that clubs will be asked to add £2 on to their current fees, in order to offer the discount, because they certainly can't fund the £2 fee on the current finances. What possible incentive is there for a club to do this?

Given that virtually all regular orienteers will get their discount (being either National or Local BOF members), this may seem reasonable but what about the newcomer who is not? Do we really want to see a 50% or more price rise in the cost of District events? Do I, as someone with an interest in development, want to encourage families to come along and face such steep prices?

2) There is still no justified argument for this.

There is an assumption in all the documentation that the increased expenditure on a falling membership base is acceptable/necessary. At no time, as far as I can see, has that expenditure ever been justified to the membership - I've been back through goodness knows how many papers and trawled the website without joy. The presumption is that we all agree with whatever increase in expenditure is planned.

To that extent, the proposals for me are fatally flawed. They are also fatally flawed because alternatives and why they are not being adopted are not discussed. For instance, I'm still puzzled why we are not going down the route of membership through club (as many, many sports do) rather than direct membership. I'm sure there are good reasons, but I can't find them anywhere.

And that is why I am currently of a mind to vote against. I simply don't have enough information to make a reasoned decision.

[Gross]

And talking about expenditure from looking at the AGM stuff it looks like the GB International Programme was around £40000 over budget in total.

[SeanC]

Awk wrote

"Given that virtually all regular orienteers will get their discount (being either National or Local BOF members), this may seem reasonable but what about the newcomer who is not? Do we really want to see a 50% or more price rise in the cost of District events? Do I, as someone with an interest in development, want to encourage families to come along and face such steep prices?"

Am I right to assume that clubs will still be able to use their discretion when applying entry fees. Let say a handful of newcomers turn up to a distict event, surely it's OK to charge them 0 so long as the full BOF members get their £2 discount. So typical entry fees for a district event would look like this.

Local BOF from another region: £6.50
Full BOF or local bof: £4.50
Helpers or a newcomer: £0

If we can do this, this addresses Awks issue. If the families come back for a second district event, my feeling is that they'd pay the higher fee.

[Gross]

what happens if Ivan Ivanoff comes & wants to run...?? Ivan is a member of another IOF federation and can't be discriminated against... how is that handled?? (thinking JK's, 6 Days etc)

Plus I'd guess the 6 Day leaflets and JK leaflets will be printed by the time any decisions are made and putting two tier price will be difficult:)

[Oldman]

can anyone point me towards where these proposals are on the BOF website ?
Gave up after 1/4hr of searching....

They may not have been there when you looked, but they're there now at

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/a ... D=membprop