The workaround is fine, but what about those currently in the situation?
Thinking about Nat and Simon C - both historical Pennine members who have joined Buxton for XC and therefore you would assume are EA-registerded with Buxton. Mark Pursell was a buxton member then joined Pennine for Fell, so I'd assume stuff may be in order for him
Interestingly, searching them on powerof10.info, Nat comes up as Pennine, Simon and Mark as Buxton/Pennine.
As all 3 have run Relays and champs races for Pennine in the past I'd hope (...) they'd be counted as Pennine by the FRA, though EA/BA may think differently.
I know Peter Bray had this issue trying to represent Ambleside on the Fells and Chorlton elsewhere. The FRA were fine with this (he ran the HBMR for Ambleside) but BA weren't and he wasn't able to run the British Fell Relays.
If stuff like this is going to be an issue, to be eligible for a certain club for the first champs race (11 March), paperwork would have to be with EA by very early Feb, the change taking affect by early March (the changes board meets early in each month, new clubs taking effect from the start of the next month).
If this is the case, it would have been much better for the FRA to raise this earlier (say November) to give some time to get all the faff sorted (though an email may have gone around clubs at that time?). Otherwise, we could end up in a similar situation to the Womens' champs this year but not through personal/club staff oversight.
I'm hoping that:
1. English championships are under FRA control, not EA, so there's time to sort everything before EA/BA-controlled races start (British champs? Def. British Fell Relays.
2. I'm overthinking this massively!