UK Athletics affiliation

[Bladerunner]

I have recently moved down south and joined a road/xc club down here. We had our agm this week where it was voted overwhelmingly to affiliate to ARC going forward and resign from UK/England/SEAA. Our neighbouring club have done the same and both clubs have over 150 members. There were 2 main reasons for this, firstly cost and secondly admin with ARC being much cheaper and less paperwork. The only perceived benefit of staying with SEAA was 3 London Marathon places and maybe £2 off some races.

Whats anyone elses experience been as I think clubs have to decide who to affiliate to by 1st April.

[XRunner]

Whats anyone elses experience been as I think clubs have to decide who to affiliate to by 1st April.

Non-registered athletes will not be permitted to participate in English championships, e.g. the County, Regional and National Cross Country championships.

Athletes who want to be considered for International competition will also be barred from selection unless they are registered with EA.

[Bladerunner]

Interesting to see what happens going forward as our club provided 4 members of the Bucks mens and womens team at the Inter Counties

[Bladerunner]

p.s XC Runner that won't matter to 95% of runners as they aren't interested in/good enough to be running at county level, all they want to be able to do is run local road races with the minimum of hassle and cost.

[Martins Mrs]

p.s XC Runner that won't matter to 95% of runners as they aren't interested in/good enough to be running at county level, all they want to be able to do is run local road races with the minimum of hassle and cost.

As I understand it, the clubs that are not affiliated to England Athletics their members will have to pay the unattached levy fee in road races. It will be interesting how they will administer this policy (as most races organisers won't have a clue which clubs have affiliated or not !)

[XRunner]

p.s XC Runner that won't matter to 95% of runners as they aren't interested in/good enough to be running at county level, all they want to be able to do is run local road races with the minimum of hassle and cost.

Lack of interest may be associated with lack of organisation within your Club.

A Team Manager is normally required for Clubs to enter athletes in many County, Regional and National events.

Whereas local road races usually only require athletes to enter to enter individually.

[Bladerunner]

Its not lack of organisation, we are in the Chiltern League and another local league and have 2 of the best men and 2 of the best women in the county. I'd say around 20 people regularly run in the leagues and in the county xc championships which is just over 10% of the members. The rest either just train to keep fit or are happy running mid pack 10ks and half marathons and that I think applies to the vast majority of clubs in the country.

The sport has changed massively the last 25 years. When I first started the vast majority of club members were good runners and the number of clubs was much smaller and had grown up as either track clubs or 'harrier' clubs. Nearly all of them had very active junior sections from which we 'graduated' into the senior teams. Following the fun running boom there's many, many more clubs and lots of them are road running clubs. Most of them don't have a junior section as they have no track and field interest and/or facilities and the average age of members is probably over 40. The members of these clubs don't see why they should finance a bunch of suits whose only visible impact on them is to increase fees and regulation.

[XRunner]

The members of these clubs don't see why they should finance a bunch of suits whose only visible impact on them is to increase fees and regulation.

So your Club wants to replace one bunch of suits with another bunch of suits whose only visible impact will be to introduce fees and regulation?

[dominion]

It's a bloody mess isn't it?

[Madeleine]

Its just the roadrunners echoing the FRA's 'what does UKA do for us?' debate - but 6 months on. Its not an either / or situation either, you can still affiliate to both organisations. Anyway, the South of England have always been against a membership scheme, they've never had one, never wanted one and are now fighting against it. Of course, UKA to get their funding from UK Sport have to jump when asked....I'm sure if I work hard enough I'll be able to link the blame back to Blair or Brown. J