Joining Fees

There's only a share in the equity if the club folds (and then only if it hasn't become a CASC). The infrastructure value is (or should be reflected in) the subs.

My club introduced one again to discourage members from leaving while the refurbishment/ rebuild was supposed to be happening(mostly the social members who frankly get a very cheap deal anyway) but does not apply if the join via the introductory sailing training route which is very cheap. Also it encourages people to pay there membership on time not leave it until they want to start sailing again and most of the duty rota is sorted for the first part of the year.
Not excatly a real killer at £50 and we use it as a special offer reduction at times to encourage new memebers like at the Americas cup when we were one of the local clubs on the RYA stand.

I know a club that has no joining fee but gives a hefty discount on your renewal every year if you pay by the end of Feb.

Originally posted by 423zero My club does not have a joining fee. I do not know if charging one would help, but we have not had a new member for several years who has proved capable of doing duties of any description, the majority only want to pop down to suit themselves. I believe they should be charged extra for not contributing to club, they appear to think members who do duties are employees.

'club development' fee  rebated for  attendance to duties and working parties is  something  which has been debated  before 

As far as I can tell joining fees come from a time when there was an inherent cost of processing a new member, membership packs had to be printed and posted out, and someone had to give up a considerable amount of time. Not knocking any current membership secretaries efforts but the arrival of the computer has considerably speeded up how simply someone's details can be recorded and websites / e-mail can remove the need for posting out any relevant information.

Joining fees are off putting for new members, I have decided not to join 2 clubs in recent years as I couldn't justify the cost per sail and only joined my current one as I needed somewhere to store the boat (and that was as an existing sailor who liked the water, people and club). So if your club is booming then great but for the majority of clubs I really think these are an issue that could put people off.

Someone said they were needed for topping up the coffers but if your running costs per member are x don't add an extra cost y just for some people in case x goes down, just select a better value for x.

The only sensible argument I have heard against scrapping them is that it could be unfair on those who have joined in recent years. There's not an easy way round this but a phased reduction is likely to be the simplest way to go. Although saying that and having just paid them this year I'd happily see it scrapped for next year still... as far as I'm concerned it's gone anyway.

I've heard some people claim it encourages loyalty but from personal experience I've moved club based on other factors such as where I was based with work rather than anything sailing related. The idea of not having to pay a joining fee if I stayed somewhere wouldn't influence bigger life decisions and so just becomes an annoyance (or a deal breaker) when I do move.