UK Student Archery Association

Modernisation vs Insurance [28/Nov/12]

Review of the second SUS and BUTTS and first SEAL and SWWU matches will follow shortly, but first, we interrupt your regular programme with some important breaking news. On 15th November, Archery GB put forward a potentially important (and for students, potentially expensive) document with quite a dull title "Membership Modernisation Consultation".

So why is this document important? Sections 4 and 11 deal with student membership. AGB's proposal is to remove the University Club en bloc fee and offer individual Student membership. This would include insurance and membership benefits, although it does not say how much this would cost. However, also in the proposals, the University Clubs would now be offered FE/HE Club Membership which would NOT offer insurance.

The document goes on that students who shoot only within the FE/HE environment i.e. internally or only at inter-university competitions, (somehow ignoring BUCS Outdoors' record status) should not need Archery GB insurance but any student who wants to shoot outside of the FE/HE environment, (i.e. any Open), has to become an individual student member - and pay the appropriate cost.

All clubs should encourage all their members to respond to this on surveymonkey.com by 31st January.

There is an assumption that every HE/FE institution has insurance that would cover archery. This is not the case, in fact many clubs are likely to be only covered by Archery GB's insurance. Students joining those institutions would be forced to join Archery GB as individual student members or face shooting uninsured and pay the sharply increased cost accordingly.

The FE/HE Club Membership therefore seems pointless, more so since University Clubs would have no voting rights, although individual student members would have.

Of course Archery GB needs to make money to carry out its operations, and if the cost of the en bloc fee were to rise there could be few complaints - even if it was a significant rise.

Archery GB ought to be thinking of the University Clubs as a "loss leader". After all, a substanial rise in cost for student archers will, in 3 or 4 years time, cause a substantial reduction in the number of ex-students joining Archery GB, i.e. fewer newly minted tax payers who would pay the full Adult membership cost for years to come.

So those links again, the Consultation itself is on the Archery GB website. Submit responses to surveymonkey.com by 31st January. There is also a Facebook Group to drum up publicity.