Membership fees to play Community RL

[henage]

Most rugby teams in Hull (junior) operate in some of the most deprived areas in the city . To ask the people who run these teams to pay a membership fee is another nail in the games coffin .

If You want to engage with children and local youth that live within some of the poorest areas in the country , local and national government really need to spend more money .  Targeted into areas that would help communities , children and youths .

 

[Impartial Observer]

2 hours ago, tonyvikinggee said:

 

Because now when we sign new players they will not only need to pay a monthly fee for playing, which can cost in excess of £300 a year at some clubs.

 

Wow, £300 per year. Which clubs are they?

[nadera78]

8 hours ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

The RFL fought for years to take control of the amateur game from BARLA finally succeeding in or around 2003/4.

Amateur clubs paid a nominal fee to BARLA and the game was ran pretty much in it’s entirety by volunteers.

For those of you who don’t know the background, BARLA was formed by what was left of the amateur game after years of neglect from the RFL and grew at an exponential rate in its first 20 years.

the sports council weren’t happy that the game had two governing bodies so BARLA was eventually absorbed by the RFL.

Along with other sports, rugby league participation has declined year on year since the RFL took over the running of the sport, despite millions in funding from Sky and Sport England.

most the of Regional Leagues are still ran by volunteers and those leagues in the heartland receive very little (if any) money from the RFL, unlike grassroots rugby Union clubs who all receive annual grants.

The argument here is that the community clubs haven’t had any consultation in regards to these fees, by all accounts the ‘consultation panel’ was 4 players !!

The community clubs have a right to know where their allocated money (sport England grants) is being spent, as most will argue that the RFL offers heartland clubs very little value for money, and the old guard would argue that they have a cheek asking payment for a service that was previously supplied free of charge by BARLA and the regional league management teams.

The RFL need to get their own house in order, get their Cup competitions sorted so people want to attend, reinvigorate the Tri Nations and expand the competition to include the pacific teams so that the Aussies and New Zealander’s only hit our shores every 2 or 3 years !!

in fact do anything but sit on your ***** like they have done for the last few years 

 

You mention heartlands clubs getting nothing twice here, which presumably means you think non-heartlands clubs are therefore getting something the heartlands clubs are being denied. I don't suppose you could expand on what that is?

[nadera78]

I coached football teams for near enough 15 years, and the club I was at had a very strict policy in place: no pay no play. You can't have some paying and others not, it's simply unfair to expect some players to effectively subsidise others. Everyone accepted it, and it was certainly not a wealthy part of west London, but it needed people to enforce it early on and not let it slide. Out of their subscriptions (payable annually or in instalments) a set amount went straight to the county FA who ran the leagues, refs, etc. I'm not entirely sure how this situation is any different - it may simply be how it's being presented, ie as the individuals being charged rather than the clubs.

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

3 hours ago, nadera78 said:

You mention heartlands clubs getting nothing twice here, which presumably means you think non-heartlands clubs are therefore getting something the heartlands clubs are being denied. I don't suppose you could expand on what that is?

Well as I’ve mentioned Regional Leagues I thought that would have explained itself.

I have no idea how non-regional leagues operate as those leagues in the main were RFL competitions so it would be unfair of me to make assertions.

Are you happy with that reply?

[Impartial Observer]

12 hours ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

 

Amateur clubs paid a nominal fee to BARLA and the game was ran pretty much in it’s entirety by volunteers.

 

 

What did BARLA do with all that money, use it for the good of the game or is it still in a bank account somewhere?

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

3 hours ago, nadera78 said:

I coached football teams for near enough 15 years, and the club I was at had a very strict policy in place: no pay no play. You can't have some paying and others not, it's simply unfair to expect some players to effectively subsidise others. Everyone accepted it, and it was certainly not a wealthy part of west London, but it needed people to enforce it early on and not let it slide. Out of their subscriptions (payable annually or in instalments) a set amount went straight to the county FA who ran the leagues, refs, etc. I'm not entirely sure how this situation is any different - it may simply be how it's being presented, ie as the individuals being charged rather than the clubs.

Slightly different I would say as our local football leagues are ran by the local FA who have paid employees to handle registrations, fixtures referees etc.

Again in our local RL league the fixtures and league is ran by the local management committee, referees insurance etc are paid by the clubs and until recently they also did their own registrations.

I’m not for one minute saying that a fee of some sort shouldn’t be paid, but the RFL need to do things properly and engage with the community game prior to ‘forcing’ these payments on their players, parents and other volunteers

 

[Impartial Observer]

12 hours ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

 

The RFL need to get their own house in order, get their Cup competitions sorted so people want to attend, reinvigorate the Tri Nations and expand the competition to include the pacific teams so that the Aussies and New Zealander’s only hit our shores every 2 or 3 years !!

 

 

People don't attend the cup as they have to pay due to it not being part of their season ticket which is the same in the FA cup.  What would you do to get fans into these games? 

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

4 minutes ago, Impartial Observer said:

What did BARLA do with all that money, use it for the good of the game or is it still in a bank account somewhere?

it was a nominal fee which went towards the couple of employees they had.

as far as I know BARLA still had quite good cash reserves as well as property in Huddersfield, but its a long time since I’ve seen a BARLA balance sheet so no idea what (if anything) happened to the money.

BARLA wasn’t perfect by any means but at least the officials were answerable to the clubs who had the option of changing the top table at the AGM.

 

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

2 minutes ago, Impartial Observer said:

People don't attend the cup as they have to pay due to it not being part of their season ticket which is the same in the FA cup.  What would you do to get fans into these games? 

No idea mate, but if I was at the RFL I would be asking the question why people don’t attend as this isn’t a new problem, and engage with supporters to get them to attend so games, or what’s the point in keeping the cups?

likewise with the Tri-Nations which was a brilliant competition that brought much needed cash into the game.

I know the Aussies are the problem and don’t want to play every year, so get creative and create a competition that only sees the Aussies travel every 2 or 3 years.

year 1: England, New Zealand, Tonga, France

year 2: England, Aussies, fiji, France

year 3: England, Sami’s, France, New Zealand 

...you get my drift 

 

[Spidey]

5 minutes ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

BARLA wasn’t perfect by any means but at least the officials were answerable to the clubs who had the option of changing the top table at the AGM.

What happens when there’s nobody left who want to be on the top table?

[Impartial Observer]

1 minute ago, Spidey said:

What happens when there’s nobody left who want to be on the top table?

Barla balance sheet shows £922,000 with £192,000 in 'cash'

What are they doing with that money, why do they need it now? 

 

[Spidey]

3 minutes ago, Impartial Observer said:

Barla balance sheet shows £922,000 with £192,000 in 'cash'

What are they doing with that money, why do they need it now? 

 

If that was given over to the RFL maybe there wouldn’t be a need for membership fees just now?

[Damien]

10 minutes ago, Spidey said:

What happens when there’s nobody left who want to be on the top table?

That seems a pretty poor reason not to accountability and agm's where you can elect officials.

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

8 minutes ago, Impartial Observer said:

Barla balance sheet shows £922,000 with £192,000 in 'cash'

What are they doing with that money, why do they need it now? 

 

They don’t need it, but the argument always used to be that the money should be evenly distributed amongst the member leagues for them to use to help their own member clubs.

the counter argument was that some leagues had more clubs that others so they should get a bigger slice of the pie....absolute minefield getting everyone to agree!

End of the day BARLA was set up the the regional Leagues not the RFL so whose money is it?

I personally think if BARLA was dissolved then the money should be given to one of the Community Associations to invest and manage who could then allocate grants to the grassroots clubs, possibly aimed at helping new clubs set up throughout the country.

One thing I wouldn’t do is give it to the RFL as it would just disappear into a black hole

 

[Spidey]

3 minutes ago, Damien said:

That seems a pretty poor reason not to accountability and agm's where you can elect officials.

It’s just reality. There are just about enough volunteers keeping the clubs going, let alone the leagues

[Impartial Observer]

Barla are still collecting subs each year, not sure why they need to. They do not need it to run their cup comps.

Other leagues are just as bad sitting on pots of money and not seem to be doing anything with it. Why not use the money to pay for coaching courses etc?  

[Damien]

Just now, Spidey said:

It’s just reality. There are just about enough volunteers keeping the clubs going, let alone the leagues

Was it ever a problem in the history of BARLA? It wasn't as far as I'm aware. The alternative is a dictatorship where clubs cant change or question anything. That leads to splits, breakaways and infinitely more problems. It also isn't very fair and I'm not sure why anyone would want that.

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

6 minutes ago, Impartial Observer said:

Barla are still collecting subs each year, not sure why they need to. They do not need it to run their cup comps.

Other leagues are just as bad sitting on pots of money and not seem to be doing anything with it. Why not use the money to pay for coaching courses etc?  

Some leagues already pay towards coaching courses as well as first aid courses etc

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

I also know for a fact that some of the regionals pay the BARLA league fees to ensure they still have a say in how the cash is eventually distributed 

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

Some leagues already pay towards coaching courses as well as first aid courses etc

Some local professional clubs do as well

[zylya]

I replied with a longer post detailing some of the issues on the topic on the community forum, but the main crux of the issue, for me at least, is this:

I don't have a problem with the RFL trying to generate funds for growing the community game - I assume that it'll go on things like development officers for regions etc. The problem is the implementation of this system. Asking people to pay two different people for the same product is going to create resistance - the evidence is clear for this in consumer behaviour analysis (as an easier-to-understand example, people would rather pay £25 with free shipping than pay £20 + £5 shipping - the same principle holds here). If a club charges £50 and the RFL charges £30, it's actually harder to get them to pay those two sums than it is to pay one payment of £80.

Additionally, they mention other sports, and they're right - other sports do pay a fee, but only individual sports (athletics, gymnastics, swimming etc) tend to charge a per-person fee. For example, at my rugby union club, I pay one monthly fee that covers my membership and my subs, and the club pays an affiliation fee to the RFU. The same is true for the FA - players pay their match subs and the club pays an affiliation fee to their county FA.

Here's why that would be a far superior system:

• People only pay one person, reducing the amount of friction
• You don't directly increase the cost for new participants, allowing players to try the sport
• Clubs could decide their membership prices based on their own unique circumstances. So a club could decide to pay the affiliation out of sponsorship or bar revenue rather than passing that cost on to the players
• Clubs are also better placed to deal with hardship cases than a central body - although the RFL has promised a way to deal with this, it would be better administered on a local level, where you might actually be able to speak to someone in person about what is a very sensitive subject
• The fee structure could be based on number of teams so that smaller clubs weren't unfairly impacted

The affiliation fee could still cover insurance, as the proposed structure does. I also don't think it's a problem charging a small fee for DBS checks - all of the places that I've coached any sport (clubs, schools etc) have paid for the DBS check. I imagine most clubs would happily pay a small fee for their coaches to be in line with safeguarding.

I think that most reasonable people accept that it takes money to run and grow the sport - I just think the way they're going about it is all wrong.

[Spidey]

9 minutes ago, Damien said:

Was it ever a problem in the history of BARLA? It wasn't as far as I'm aware. The alternative is a dictatorship where clubs cant change or question anything. That leads to splits, breakaways and infinitely more problems. It also isn't very fair and I'm not sure why anyone would want that.

I just saw the same people at the top tables just getting older. There was very little change in personnel over the years. So yes same issue 

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

3 minutes ago, Spidey said:

I just saw the same people at the top tables just getting older. There was very little change in personnel over the years. So yes same issue 

I think the issue with BARLA board was the meetings were held in the evenings at Huddersfield, which meant a 6 hours round journey for the Cumbrians, 3 hours for the Hull Leagues etc, so unfortunately the only people to put themselves forward were retired people with time on their hands who weren’t possibly the right people to run the game.

with modern technology there’s no need for regular face I face meetings as it can mostly be done electronically 

[Spidey]

7 minutes ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

I think the issue with BARLA board was the meetings were held in the evenings at Huddersfield, which meant a 6 hours round journey for the Cumbrians, 3 hours for the Hull Leagues etc, so unfortunately the only people to put themselves forward were retired people with time on their hands who weren’t possibly the right people to run the game.

with modern technology there’s no need for regular face I face meetings as it can mostly be done electronically 

This extended to the regional leagues though as well. So the travel thing wasn’t an issue