EGM 16th October

Will This also allow armed forces personell to have free membership? And if no why not?

A few weeks ago Suzanne was asked if they could do the grass auto test with a one day &1 membership like most clubs do.She was told they would have to become full members.We lost five entries.The last Gymkhana several people had to pay up as well,even to just navigate.Now i see that an extraordinary general meeting has been called to let students join free.What makes them special?,what about young people on training and apprenticeship schemes,low paid workers , oaps?Will we end up with differant memberships for people depending on how much they can afford.You can't have one rule for one and one rule for others.
I am all for bringing new blood into the club,but £10. for a year, it's nothing.

Have I missed the discussion regarding free student membership???????????
Can a committee member post a rationale for the decision?
Students are not as poor as you think!
Trust me, I've sponsored two of my own.
As the previous post suggested, this should at least extend to apprentices and others on traning schemes.

Dog House.

I agree that apprentices etc should also be included if thats the way forward. Being a student myself I should be pleased to think that I could get free membership but I am not.

I think £10 to join a club is not to much to ask - thats a couple of beers less a year!

There is a rationale behind this proposal.
Many of you will have noticed the support we have been receivng from the Motorsports Degree Course students at Thames Gateway College - service crews on the Woodbridge Stages, marshals on most of the gymkhanas etc. To encourage furher participation in club events the committee intends to enter into a partnership with the college.
This initiative is broadly in line with the MSA's volunteers in motorsport strategy and will benefit the club and the college. It is already starting to open doors for a possible new autotest venue not too far from here....

We do not wish to discriminate against students on other courses and therfore propose a limited form of free membership (effectively web-based) for all students.

Yes, we recognise there are plenty of anomalies with this strategy, people left out, exceptions to the rule etc. But overall we feel that this is positive move to bring new blood into the club. Some of the students on the TGC course have cars, but many of them come from poorer parts of east London. It's a small but valuable gesture.

Charlotte - if you have an NUS card, you can have a free club card!
Suzanne - we do allow competition membership, I'm not sure where you got your advice from, but this is something we should think about more carefully in the future.

I asked the question recently, prior to the autotest and the reply I got, was that the question would be raised at the next committee meeting, however have subsequently been informed that the subject of £1 on the day membership was not bought up. I also know several people who had to become full members at the last Gymkhana which is why I am raising the point, one being Louises boyfriend, who was only a navigator. It could quite possibly be the only event he would participate in

Suzanne

for what it's worth you have my full support

when i was a student sccon gave me free membership for a couple of years as i didn't have enough to pay for it, something i was very grateful for. i could then carry on navigating, which kept me in motorsport.

i very much doubt we will be down for the egm. so a couple of thoughts:

is this designed for full, part time students or both.
don't just use nus cards as proof allow other forms of proof, say college registration cards.

Firstly re having to join a club for the gymkhana - I think many of us will have found at some point we have had to join another club in order to do an event if it was "out of the normal area" or "our club" was not invited - I know I did last year and had to register for a one-off race to the cost of £75......so £10 on the scale of things is good going. To be honest if you're navigating on a gymkhana what do you actually pay - I know I'd buy lunch and offer £ towards fuel so even with a membership on top it's still a good cheap day out! I joined CMC at the beginning of the year for the Jan gymkhana when driving and even on top of fuel / entry costs it was still a cheap - and fun - day out.

Re students I'm all for it - no it's not because I'll get a cheap membership as I won't, but all you see nowadays about young people is the negative side of things - young people cause issues, young people are bad for society, etc etc. Anything that can be done to bring new blood into the sport and encourage people to get involved is a good thing as the Thames Gateway marshals / service crews have already shown with their positive input. As Paul said, there will always people that will be left out and unhappy [just like the whole gymkhana regs discussion, you can never please everybody] but that's life. I won't be at the EGM as will still be in bonny Scotland but it has my full support.

Apprentices on LSC approved FMA or AMA schemes are students and will therefore be eligible for free membership.

I agree that perhaps you should offer free membership to the colleges or Unis.
Rather than individuals within the uni etc. That way it is open to all who attend there.

Not sure why there needs to be an EOM, especially as we only have a couple of months left of 2008.

Makes more sense to put something in the spotlight mag with reply strips, or email replies, as not all members may have read this post, saying from Jan 2009 we CMC propose free membership etc. Otherwise do you not have to have a percentage of club members in attendence to make the vote count?

Irene,

We have to have an EGM because we are a limited company with defined rules, articles and memoranda of association. We currently have no framework in the rules to cover the type of membership that is being proposed. The decision is needed now to get the framework in place for the new year.
A quorum of 12 is required.

You are right that publicity is needed - a Spotlight is due out before Christmas.

We do not want to get involved in inviting individual institutions - that would be too complicated.