Quote Originally Posted by Pudgy View Post

My major concern with disaffiliation is the development of juniors and intermediates, and this is perhaps my biggest reason to vote no. The future of junior running lies with the clubs, and individual race organisers. UKA is likely to harm this by the onus on development being on an organisation remote from the grass roots, that wants people willing to give up their spare time and enthusiasm to jump through myriad and expensive hoops. If we disaffiliate then the onus remains on clubs and race organisers, who I believe, will keep it simple and effective.
Well said Pudgy! Frequent regular training for juniors can only be provided by Clubs which have weekly training regimes. Much of this will be general and relevant to the various athletic disciplines as I know from personal experience with Stockport Harriers.

An examination of the leading positions in e.g. the 2006 Junior Championship race results (page 100 of the Oct. 2006 Fellrunner) supports this. They include several juniors from non-traditional fell running clubs such as E.Cheshire Harriers, Stockport Harriers, Liverpool Harriers and Leigh Harriers which all provide this type of training. Such multi-disciplinary and other clubs are likely to remain UKA affiliated and eligible for UKA financial support.

As Pudgy suggests the key role for the FRA should be to provide juniors with fell competition. In my opinion it is impractical for the FRA to provide anything other than a minimum of fell-specific training regardless of finance.

On this basis I do not consider there to be any overriding considerations with regard to juniors which would prevent disaffiliation from UKA.