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The Association
of Running Clubs |
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How the new UK Athletics affiliation fees
structure will affect non-Track & Field Road & XC Running clubs - and
their members - previously governed by the SEAA |
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This page is intended to give background information. For this
year Sandhurst Joggers will be affiliated to both ARC and English
Athletics. More information will be added from time to time as we learn
more I’ve been made aware that members of other clubs are reading
this page and the feedback has generally been that openness is good and that
this debate should be in public and not stifled. If you have comments, please
pass them on to your club officials and, if you like, by emailing
me. |
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Background As a result of The
2004 Foster Report changes have been made to the structure of our
governing bodies. Where once was the AAA, now stands England Athletics. The SEAA has now been stripped of all powers
of governance and will now only operate as a competition body, running the
SEAA championships. A similar fate has befallen all the old regional
governing bodies. In place of the SEAA and all the other area governing
bodies, England Athletics now
fulfils this role nationwide. There are similar Welsh and Scottish Athletics
bodies. I don’t know about The websites of the above organisations have to be
searched carefully for any road-running relevance. The UK:Athletics site refers to the news
that a Road Running Leadership Group is to be formed, but this is to be
temporary and has no terms of reference. The SEAA has always charged the club affiliation fees, the
benefits of which are outlined below. These benefits are pretty minimal and,
whilst we were charged approx £2 per member per annum, the benefits
outweighed the monetary cost. Now however, a new regime is in place and the
fee structures are changing. It should be noted that Unaffiliated fees
charged at races, currently £2, are due for review in 2007 for implementation
from 1st April 2008. I don’t know what the new amount will be,
although I have heard rumours. Not all races are affiliated – the Shinfield 10K for
example – and their insurance is implemented independently. Please note also
that this is Public Liability Insurance and
does not insure any runner against any injury – only third parties such as
landowners if properties are accidentally damaged by runners. In 20+ years of
involvement in organising the Yateley races, Sandhurst Joggers has never seen
a Public Liability claim of any kind.
The system is that we apply for Race Permits from the governing body
and that the unaffiliated fees collected at our races are then paid to them.
This year that amounted to more than £2,000. Other than permits, we must
occasionally pay for the course to be re-measured to ensure accuracy.
Although some seem to have ideas to the contrary, we have no support from the
SEAA in terms of officials for our races other than the measurements and
permits. This letter
is the EA missive that discloses extended affiliation fees from 1st
April 2007. Basically it says three things:
What it does NOT say is what we, as a road-running club,
will get from this increase in fees. Initially I sought clarification by
phoning up England Athletics and spoke with Nigel Bailey. Then at the
suggestion of Nigel, I emailed John Temperton and Alan Harrison asking for
more detailed information. John, who is Project Manager for Athletic
Services, the body that will collect affiliation fees, deferred to Alan to
reply. The following conversation took place. Please do read all of these
emails in order to have a good basic understanding of what is going on here. My third email, stating
that this conversation will be aired on our website Purely financially, the impact to the club that our fees
change from 2006/7 £ 240.00 (SEAA) (plus £60 approx. for
1/1/7-31/3/7) to:
2007/8 £ 683.00 (EA) (1/4/7-30/3/8) and thence:
2008/9 £1105.00 (EA) (1/4/8-30/3/9) All of which is subject to who is affiliated to what club,
whether that club is affiliated and whether you are paying your affiliation
fee to this club or another one or not at all. Our current membership fee is £15 annually. In order to
accommodate the new affiliation scheme, this will inevitably rise to about
£17 in 2007/8 and £19 from 1/4/8 onward – but only if you are a ‘competing
member’. A
‘competing member’ is a club member that competes in any race holding |
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What we get from being affiliated
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Other items of interest A colleague of mine attended a meeting with John Temperton
of Athletic Services. Here is part of his email to me about what was said: Clubs
who wish to affiliate to England Athletics should send to EA before 1st
April 2007details of all their competing members. Details required name,
address, DoB and gender of each person. They will also have to send a cheque
for £50 plus £3 * no of competing members. A competing member is a 1st claim
athlete who wishes to compete in any event run under UKA Rules. Since
many clubs will be late paying, a 5 to 6 months period of grace will be allowed.
All affiliated members will be sent a membership card direct by Athletics
Services. Some 130,000 to 140,000 members are expected to pay the fee. In
future the £2 discount on races will only be available to those who have paid
the £3 affiliation fee. Race
organisers are supposed to check on line to see that those entering an event
and claiming the discount are entitled to it. It
will be at least 5 to 6 months after 1/4/7 before Athletic
Services are aware whether or not a club is affiliated to England Athletics
and a record has been established of affiliated athletes In another conversation, this time with John Temperton of
Athletics Services, I asked for guidance as to how to tell affiliated people
and clubs from unaffiliated people and clubs. John replied that an up to date
list of affiliated clubs will be maintained on the governing body websites. I
asked when this would be available, which it turns out, is rather uncertain.
Sometime next year, but way too late, for instance, for me as organiser of the
Yateley Road Races to be able to use. Even when the data is freely available
it is going to be difficult to look up 1000+ runners to establish their
legitimacy (or lack thereof), not to say time consuming. One of the key
things about our current entrants database is that we retain records from
year to year, thus reducing the data entry burden to anything that’s changed,
plus, of course, newbies. On-the-day entry is never trivial, we’ve had up to
300 people arrive and enter in the half hour before a race. We will never,
ever, be able to look up affiliations on-the-night, it just won’t be viable
in such circumstances – for a start, there’s not likely to be internet access
in the middle of a field and even if I have a copy of the database onsite and
all the people checking entries and taking money had terminals in front of
them (which they don’t), we just won’t have time to do lookups. So I think that this is the death of on-the-day entries
for EA affiliated races. It is unclear how will clubs send on the data and fees
from those who choose to affiliate. John agreed that it will be a huge task
for membership secretaries and Athletic Services if all data is submitted on
paper when the minimum requirement will be name, club, gender, all contact
details and date of birth. Apparently it’s felt that we’ll just turn
over our computerised records if they exist in that form. This will be
difficult for Sandhurst Joggers since we’ve always said that any details held
will never be passed on to anyone. This is going to be yet another topic for
our AGM. What I believe is shown by all the conversations is that
there are many issues that are not going to be resolved the way that issues
are ignored or trivialised when raised doesn’t help at all. I think the problems inherent in this re-organisation are
that the organisational pyramid is upside down. The reforms and additional
hierarchy are being put in place to serve the needs of those at the top of
the organisations, the Elite and the Track & Field clubs, rather than serve
the needs of the grassroots road-running clubs that have more adult members
than all the T&F clubs put together. Alan Harrison refers (I paraphrase here) to our
contributions going to the greater good of the sport. I’d like to see due
consideration of the greater good of the road running clubs and their
members. Then there might be less of an image of the tail wagging the dog. The debate will continue. |
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Where do we go from here? Because of the advantageous terms with regard to road race
permits and unaffiliated fees (60% rebated back to the club), Sandhurst
Joggers Committee has already decided to affiliate to ARC from 1st April. By the time we get to our AGM in March, club members must
decide whether they, individually and as a club, wish to affiliate or
disaffiliate from EA. Your committee will make a recommendation, but you must
make the decision. If the AGM decision is to affiliate to England Athletics,
this means that we will have to change our subscription structures to
accommodate the increased affiliation fees and allow all personal details
held about you by the club to be passed to England Athletics |
