Club Membership at Opens

Playing devil's advocate! Why not make all opens a commercial venture, so thats £200 per day for the race officer £100 for every other member of staff plus a margin on the use of venue and equipment for wear & tear, say £1500 costs including profit for a small 1 day event with 10 - 15 boats = entry fees of £100+ per boat.  So can someone explain why there is such a reluctance to pay £25 and be a member of a club or RYA.  And sailing isn't expensive compared to the ticket prices / season tickets to a premiership football club.

My remark included the words "round here" and there are no local clubs offering that kind of fee "round here".

As for the price requiring four days of volunteering, people's situations vary. Personally I work freelance and time is money. 4 days of my time is actually worth quite a lot of money. 

At times I've belonged to a number of clubs and at times I've belonged to the RYA. I've always belonged to something that has allowed me to enter events within the rules and I've always paid my class associations subs. 

OK here is another slant on this issue. We have a Laser Open this weekend but some of our own members will not be taking part because they refuse to pay an entry fee to sail at their own club. The entry fee is only £10.00

Now that to me is tight. They should support their club by making the event both successful in terms of attendance and financially.

These are the same people that bring their own sandwiches to the club. We man our canteen on a rota basis and only charge £1.00 for a sandwich. The canteen makes a good profit for the club. 

Definately tight.  If that laser open is part of a circuit then the club will be paying subs to be part of that and also they have to cover the cost of prizes which will be issued whether it is a club member or visitor winning them.  Open meeting costs are additional to a clubs normal expenses and they have to be met.