NSRA Obligatory membership Proposal

[RobinC]

There is a new proposal from the NSRA to make individual membership of the NSRA compulsory for all shooters, and controlled through the clubs, so all NSRA clubs will have to collect and pay the fee per shooter. It proposes that all shooters must pay the proposed minimum Bronze annual fee of £35 per person per annum.

There is a link to the proposal on a post on www.stirton.com forum, I have it on PDF but I can't download it to here, or find it on the NSRA website, its in a document presented to the shooting council.

Have Fun
Robin

[Unframed Dave]

Is this being voted upon at the next agm?

Personally, I couldn't support this idea.

Dave

[zooma]

There is a new proposal from the NSRA to make individual membership of the NSRA compulsory for all shooters, and controlled through the clubs, so all NSRA clubs will have to collect and pay the fee per shooter. It proposes that all shooters must pay the proposed minimum Bronze annual fee of £35 per person per annum.

There is a link to the proposal on a post on www.stirton.com forum, I have it on PDF but I can't download it to here, or find it on the NSRA website, its in a document presented to the shooting council.

Have Fun
Robin

Will this be in addition to the fees that the clubs have to pay every year ?

Let's hope not - its hard enough trying to get new members to take up the sport (or existing ones not to quit for a new interest) without making it more expensive.

Most small clubs (ours for sure) only change enough to pay the rent and the NSRA annual affiliation fee (to keep us insured) so any increase would be a bigger cost to the club members each year.

Unless the NSRA is hard up and desperate for an extra income this must be seen a huge mistake and will do nothing to promote or encourage the sport.

Is the NSRA struggling financially?

[Unframed Dave]

What he said.

Dave

[Hemmers]

Is this being voted upon at the next agm?

Personally, I couldn't support this idea.

Dave

No. The document being circulated was shown to the Shooting Council for comment with a view to consulting on it through 2020. It is not up for vote any time soon.

Will this be in addition to the fees that the clubs have to pay every year ?

Let's hope not - its hard enough trying to get new members to take up the sport (or existing ones not to quit for a new interest) without making it more expensive.

Most small clubs (ours for sure) only change enough to pay the rent and the NSRA annual affiliation fee (to keep us insured) so any increase would be a bigger cost to the club members each year.

Unless the NSRA is hard up and desperate for an extra income this must be seen a huge mistake and will do nothing to promote or encourage the sport.

Is the NSRA struggling financially?

The NSRA has a falling membership and falling competition entries. They're just barely breaking even but can't afford things like replacement/refurbishment of equipment at the Lord Roberts Centre or Aldersley. They have maybe 10years before they collapse in on themselves. A major restructure is inevitable, and it's better that it happens sooner rather than later.

This is in part their own fault through a variety of shortcomings and failures to modernise, but there is also a curiously prevalent view that people do not need to support their Governing Body. NRA and NSRA affiliated clubs have ~52,000 members but only 10,000 have joined the NRA and 5,000 the NSRA. The other 35,000 are presumably quite happy for their sport to be banned.

Given the threats facing the sport, it's curious that more than half of club shooters don't see any value in joining their representative bodies. They only have themselves to blame when the next round of legislation rears its ugly head.

This is one option to collect income differently, via membership subscription rather than the current system of Club/County affiliations and individual "direct" memberships. The current proposal is that Club Affiliation would be something nominal like a pound.

The current scenario is a situation unique to Shooting and borne of our diversity (Clays/Fullbore/Smallbore/Air/etc). Most sports have a monopoly. If you join an Archery club, £47 of your membership fee goes straight to ArcheryGB - you don't get a choice whether you join the NGB or not. Gliding clubs collect membership for the BGA and this is basically common for every other sport. No pay, no play.

I'm fully in support of this in principle. If you are not a member of a governing body (I don't care if it's the NRA, NSRA, BASC or CPSA) then you're not supporting the sport. And you're not insured. Which is idiotic. If you can't chip in £30/yr to support the sport then you can't afford to shoot. It is absolutely right that we should move to a model where participation is the default (just like every other sport). Rifle clubs are dirt cheap compared to most sports but in my experience people are usually put off by cold facilities and grubby toilets rather than twenty quid either way. The sport is a victim of a self-imposed race to the bottom.

I certainly have a number of implementation concerns, regarding the tiers, at what point clubs join people up (presumably when they become full members not probationers) and other aspects like FT - most FT clubs affiliate to the NSRA for insurance but the discipline is adminstered by the BFTA, so the NSRA should not be trying to collect the full whack from FT shooters. They would also need some sort of recognition so that NRA members can be opted out. But one way or the other you should be a member of the NRA or NSRA.

[Unframed Dave]

Could those who have commented declare their position relating to the NSRA please. Just so we know who we are discussing this with.

I am a club chairman with affiliation. Our club makes zero profit, our membership pays primarily for the use of the hall, NSRA affiliation, and equipment.

If I were to ask members for a further payment, my prediction is that the club would lose so many members, it would close.

Will a nominal annual fee of one pound pay for the current benefit of club insurance?

The fact that I am not an affiliate of the organisation nor member of BASC absolutely does not mean that I do not support our sport.

Not living within a half days drive of Bisley nor shooting firearms does mean that my benefit from NSRA affiliation would be significantly less than some.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to use Bisley's facilities, but until teleportation is a reality, I can't.

Dave

[RobF]

Sorry I missed this...

I've posted a link to the document in this thread.

http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....58#post7782858

[Steyr]

I cant think of a worse scenario than the NSRA being in charge.
God help us all

[Powderfinger]

There is an NSRA EGM this month but this item does not seem to be on the agenda. Like Hemmers says, it seems to be a proposal for next year.
I agree that the NSRA is in decline and has little future unless something radical changes.
But I disagree with what I understand is the proposal. It would cause more problems than it solves.
The best hope for the NSRA is a takeover of its assets and role by the NRA. A merger was discussed about ten years ago but the CPSA were brought into it and that would never have been an easy fit.
I am a member of NSRA and have attended NSRA AGMs.

[Prone Shooter]

We have 150 members of which about 16 shoot CSFTA HFT. A further 6 or 7 shoot 10m pistol under NSRA. The rest are plinkers with no interest whatsoever in competitions. A very large proportion are retired with limited budgets.

Like Dave has said, I can see this potentially decimating our club numbers.

I am not unsympathetic to the position of NSRA but this is not in my mind the best option. It won't be my decision, it will go to committee and then the membership for comment.

What it will mean is a 50% increase in subs. I can certainly see this being contentious.

Bob

[Powderfinger]

I have now read the PowerPoint presentation.
I am now firmly convinced it is a bad idea.
It would lead to some clubs closing and other clubs looking elsewhere for insurance. It will cause more problems for the NSRA than it would solve.
Carrots are better than sticks.
Nudge is the way to get people on your side.
One volunteer is worth ten pressed men.
I speak as an NSRA member who has had various committee roles at club level.

[Hemmers]

Speaking as a County Captain, competitive club shooter and former Club Secretary who earns slightly less than the national average I'm fully in favour of this in principle. This is an absolutely standard and uncontroversial arrangement in literally every sport except shooting. £35 is at the high end, but within the range of other organisations. If you join an Archery club the first £47 will go straight to ArcheryGB - it doesn't matter if you don't shoot competitions, it is everybody's responsibility to contribute to the administration of the wider sport. I don't especially care if you join the NRA, NSRA or a quasi-political outfit like BASC - but the fact that 10k NRA and 5k NSRA memebrs are subsidising the sport for the other 40k club shooters is neither fair nor reasonable. EVERYBODY should be a member of somewhere. Competitions are irrelevant. The NRA and NSRA both do a bunch of "non-revenue" activity like political and press work which benefits everybody in the sport. And everybody in the sport should contribute to that. Unless you're of the opinion that the sport will be dead in 10 years anyway, in which case why are you still here? I've watched carpetbaggers try to run down clubs in the hope that they'll be one of the last 5 standing and can profit a tidy sum when the club folds and they sell the clubhouse/range to a developer. Not on my watch.

Club affiliation fees are really a pittance. £80-200/yr amounts to £2-4 per member in most clubs and raises less than a quarter of the NSRA's "Membership" income. Most of their income is derived from individual memberships. You're welcome.

Consequently, I have very little truck with the arguments "our members can't afford it" and "we'd lose members". Are Archery clubs so rare? Have all the Netball clubs closed down? Football - there's a sport which died a death because people were forced to join the FA when they joined a club. Such comments are indicative of the race-to-the-bottom many clubs are engaging in, having convinced themselves that they basically need to be free or people won't join. Even if that means putting up with grim facilities and cold toilets (ironically the most successful clubs tend to be the ones investing in facilities and competing with the likes of the local sports centre).

If a club is struggling to break even and is not accruing a rainy-day fund for the day when it has to find a new home, the boiler blows up or the roof needs work then it has larger problems than the NSRA asking shooters to actually pay for the work it does on their behalf.

Naturally there are a range of implementation issues that need working through:

• Obviously this won't apply to NRA-affiliated clubs. How multi-affiliated clubs will separate out smallbore shooters, pure fullbore shooters (who don't want to join the NSRA) and multi-discipline shooters who participate in both NRA and NSRA disciplines needs resolving.
• There probably needs to be a really cheap tier for people who are a member of the NRA but want to shoot NSRA Comps. They can join the Association without duplicating things like insurance.
• Field Target is in an awkward position. Most FT clubs affiliate to the NSRA for insurance but the sport is administered by BFTA. Clearly a separate approach is needed for that cooperative-but-separate relationship.
• I can see some club structures (particularly the likes of Bell Target shot in pubs and WMC with almost no overheads and a correspondingly small financial setup) would have issues. On the other hand, I know quite a few Bell Target shooters and many of them are members of other clubs and would be joined through one of their other clubs anyway.

They also need to get competent and earn that membership. Having almost at-random acquired a multitude of disciplines under their umbrella since the simple days of Prone/3P Smallbore, the NSRA has woefully underserved many of those. They need to look after FT better, as well as well as the likes of Match Crossbow. They've also really stopped looking outside the LRC. Aldersley is grim. They need to serve the regions better. But that can be improved (and needs money to improve). Unless anyone fancies investing the blood, sweat and tears starting a new body from scratch then the NSRA is what we have.


I doubt that many clubs would actually close. Some clubs would almost certainly drop their NSRA Affiliation and stick with the NRA - but most of those clubs likely didn't have much NSRA involvement to start with and probably few-to-none of their members were NSRA Members so this is not actually a loss to the NSRA. A few lost affiliations are easily made up by a few individual memberships at other clubs and there is nothing to stop individuals taking "direct" membership even if they're a member of a club which isn't affiliated to the NSRA.

[Zomboid]

I put a comment on the other thread for this.

I've no problem with the bronze membership, but as a member of the BASC and sometimes the CPSA I wonder whether its time to have ONE shooting organisation/association regardless of discipline.

[Hemmers]

I put a comment on the other thread for this.

I've no problem with the bronze membership, but as a member of the BASC and sometimes the CPSA I wonder whether its time to have ONE shooting organisation/association regardless of discipline.

I would tentatively agree in places. The NRA and NSRA in principle make good bedfellows (except the NRA don't really want anything to do with the NSRA. There seems to be longstanding animosity there for reasons I'm not fully conversant with, though they're probably pathetic and hark back to some perceived slight in the 1970s).

There was an attempt to merge them and the CPSA ~2008 but it collapsed. NRA pulled out, CPSA is a Ltd not a Charity (and technically an England-level body, not GB).

There's certainly room for consolidation but I suspect the target shooters and hunters are respectively best served by dedicated organisations who can then collaborate though the BSSC umbrella on shooting-wide matters along with the industry groups like the GTA.

This is pretty common on the continent - France has separate Tir and Chasseur Federations and even in the USA their NRA is not the be-all-and-end-all, being accompanied by USAShooting, the CMP, National Shooting Sports Federation and UKPSA amongst others.

[angrybear]

As per Zomboid above, The UK is a small country with relatively few shooters, there is no need for multiple groups BASC, NSRA, NRA, CPSA, etc.
Combine in to one group.
Fishing did this some years ago because it's pointless having several niche organisations each having to shell out 1/3 of it's income on admin.