England Athletics Affiliation Fee Increases

I really can't afford it any more. I belong to an athletics club and partake in track and field events, I also do xc and offroad races though the number of those is small. Financially I'd be better off not paying EA affiliation.

The club I am / was a member of has enough trouble getting runners to race. This added expense is just going to mean that more people, esp female runners, will say no.

It's going to price a lot of people out or make them rethink club membership.

My running club pay for mine. I'm guessing their policy is to pay for it for the faster runners who represent the club in races where it's needed.

It must be a big club KK..If they pay the membership and affiliation fees of all the fast runners  then all the slower ones would be paying twice as much for the privilege to watch the fast ones zoom off........

you must have very rich slow members there .there would be an uproar in the valleys if our club tried that 

welsh athletics is seperate I believe and doubled there fees last year I seem to remember

No seren, the club fees are the same for all. How would you ever imagine a tiered payment system based on speed?? Lol.

You don't actually need affiliation unless you want to compete in races that it is necessary for.

As far as I've looked into it... which equals zero Googling or reading.

And we all pay our own membership.

right...misunderstood..everyone pays the same here at our club.....so not sure how the opting in and out works..irrepsective if you race or not

maybe the bigs clubs acan get sponsorship that pays the racing fees for all.....might be a good idea

kittenkat wrote (see)

You don't actually need affiliation unless you want to compete in races that it is necessary for.

That's true - the majority of races you can enter without being affiliated.  At £5 a year, you only had to enter three races to recover your outlay, now it'll be five.  A lot of our members only do two or three local races a year. 

Clubs should offer members the option of being affiliated personally, or not.  It doesn't really add to the admin, especially if you only register your competing members on the dbase.

It's easy to separate them - at our club membership is due in September, then in March I ask all members if they want to be competing members, get the dosh from those who do, and put them on the dbase.

I think that from next year there will be fewer.  As a club we'll probably stick with EA, in order to get the VLM place.

We do the same.  It is £12 for the year then additional £5 if you want EA or not. 

Subject to approval at the ARC AGM in November ARC will maintain affiliation fees at their present level for 2013/2014. They will also be reducing the fee for race permits for their affiliated clubs to just £25 with no further payment. All income from unaffiliated levies will now remain with the race organising club. 

For races organised by commercial organisations and charities ARC are issuing a new schedule of fees which will mean that for all races with over 150 entries race permits with ARC will be 25% cheaper than a UKA licence.

ARC offers many benefits to their affiliated members. A wider insurance cover than that available elsewhere. Simple and straightforward procedures. Minimal bureaucracy.  

I appreciate all that ARC do for the sport.

However there is no link up (obviously) to Power of 10.

The results of ARC races on fully certified courses are not included on Power of 10 because UKAthletics exclude them in order to boost the attraction of their licensed events.

As from 1st January 2012 ARC started its own rankings system. This is shown at www.topsinathletics.info/arc. This now includes the results of over 100 races. 

The number of races under the ARC banner is increasing rapidly. 283 races in 2011 356 races in 2012. 

Note: Due to demand for places from clubs this Friday’s England Athletics consultation event has moved to the Savoy Place Conference Centre a mile from the previous venue.

I have to say that I don't think £10 a year for insurance and cheaper entry fees is very much at all when you consider how much people waste on gym fees and then never go!  Admittedly doubling a fee is a lot and I don't know what EA offers to events that ARC doesn't, other than a listing on runbritain/power of 10.

Our fees are increasing from £20 to £25 a year.  That seems good value for free coaching and runnning sessions and the EA affliation.  

Hellywobs,

Its going from £5 to £20 with no consultation, EA have slashed funding for clubs with no funding at all for U13 youngsters. They have stopped subsidising coaching courses, etc, etc.

They have a massive deficit because they have increased their permenant staff by 400% with a CEO on £200,000 package and it is athletes that pick up the tab.

A medium club such as say Winchester will pay an extra £10,000 a year for less from EA

EA are a massive quango with no accountability.

I'll put my two pennyith in for what it's worth! It's the lack of value that ticks me off. We are a social kind of club without any stars or younsters. We get almost F all for the 75pounds we now have to pay Hampshire AA (from 35 pounds two years ago) let alone the individual fees we need to pay to EA. ARC are all well and good but we want to stay with the National body for the sport. Mugs maybe but there you go. The sports bodies have got so big with all those paid staff, means nothing to us lot though. SEAA are still a tener, good on them. Will there by a cateogry for small clubs like us that never need coaches, referees, etc? Will there F! We will continue to pay the increaseing fees year by year. When will the increases stop?

This is what happens when a self-governed organisation bloats itself on Olympic funding.