Many of you may be wondering why do we need all this structure?
Firstly, we needed to move away from Meetup as there is a charge of £14 per month for the privilege, which was previously paid via Chris Bentham (club founder) out of the kindness of his heart. However, Chris has now turned his talents to other projects. Which left us with a dilemma of having to charge a membership fee to cover the costs. Additionally, Meetup does not cater specifically to any given sport or activity, and therefore does not provide any specific “tools” or cover for trail running.
Fortunately, Karen (Thomas) started the ball rolling by completing the Leadership in Running Fitness course (followed by myself and Hugh) which gives us free access to “Run Together” under the umbrella of English Athletics. This gives us the run booking system, which as you may know by now takes you through a simple sign up process to ensure you are fit to run & records your emergency contact numbers etc, as well as some legal cover. However that on its own does not meet all our needs hence the launch of our website as a point of access for all, especially as many people choose not to use Facebook. Thanks to Wix the site is provided free, albeit with limitations and ads etc. Ideally we would like to keep the club free of charge, but there are some unavoidable costs, including the domain name (www.berkshiretrailrunners.uk) at a cost of £11 per year (£0.92 pm), and if we were to upgrade the web site to remove the limitations we would be looking at approx. £72 per year (£6 pm).
So why the AGM and election of roles? This is a pre-requisite of the Bank in setting up a club account to handle the finances, currently we have met these costs out of our own bank account, which is not ideal. Plus the collection of monies for shirts is unrecorded and on trust, although I have always provided Hugh and Karen with copies of transactions for complete transparency.
The big question is how we raise the money to cover the subscriptions etc, a club membership fee or sponsorship etc (although Karen has outlined some caveats to that)
Finally what changes or additions to the club would you like to see?
So please try and make the Inaugural AGM (11th May 7pm Golden Retriever) and voice your opinions and ideas about our club and the way forward. I am sure it can be combined with a run and a pint or two thereafter. Patrick
