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Michael
From a South West perspective the SW EA Office are a lot more use than SEAA ever were with regards to road running. But that isn't saying much.
Podro
Your arithmetic looks sound to me!
I wonder how much they had to dish out in severance pay?
http://www.ukathletics.net/media/news/september-2008/01-09-08-uka-release/
Lots of spin?
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/01092008/4/collins-axed-uka.html
Not quite as amicable then?
How much will the replacement ............ or rather, new post cost? Do running clubs really want to be footing the bill for all this incompetence?
“I am proud of what has been achieved in such a short space of time"
“Dave will leave a valuable and lasting legacy to elite athletics "
Spin, Spin, Spin.
About time I dug this old chestnut up again!
Found this on EA website:
Announcement
Funny how they managed to push it onto page two pretty quick so it didn't sit in full view on the homepage for very long!
spinning is getting harder, the 'R' word has appeared!
Presumably England Athletics has now run out of money. All 10 regional offices will now be closed and their staff made redundant. Some 19 club and local support officers will be appointed grouped into 3 teams. Some additional money will be given to clusters of clubs.
The new structure seems to be entirely concerned with track and field and elite endurance running. What will the road runners receive for their affiliation fees ?
Additionally the whole organisation seems to be unstable. How long till they run out of money again and need to reorganise once more. Clubs would do much better to affiliate to an organisation that is stable, which knows what it is trying to achieve and gives road runners and other athletics clubs all that they require from a governing body - namely the Association of Running Clubs- ARC
ARC Report The first 18 months
It seems all the threats and scaremongering were unfounded running continues, races continue to be organised, ARC are delivering what they set out to do, no dramas, no huge machine to do it. UKA / EA seem to be having to 'restructure' at quite a rate ......... how much of that energy could have been focused on delivering their reason for being? if only they had listened to the people they had claimed to represent? On the face of it, they seem to be falling from their ivory towers and the invented positions within the machine are evaporating, the 'real world' is hitting home?
Although it seems they do want to listen now...... EA Survey
I read that a while ago and was quite scathing when I filled in the survey.
Sadly with most surveys of this nature, they only want to hear from a small select bunch. This is why I think it is burried in the UKA site. If they really wanted to get a broad picture of road running and what people think, they would have used sites like RW etc to promote the existance of the survey.
Our club have all received theirs. They came through in October, only 6 months late this year.
I've got mine.
Can I ask a question?
Is it possible to get your comp licence without being a member of a running club?
My club have had a number of issues with this. No-one got sent competitor licences at first, but after a lot of faffing on the website, it's all up to date and we raised our remittence and have sent payment. The website is not friendly, difficult to use and annoying when you change someones details on page 17 and then it sends you back to page 1.
My club's details have taken a year to sort out, but we are ARC registered as well which is much simpler. We are EA as well for the marathon places and to reduce race fees for those of us who wish to do EA races.
We are hoping for our competition licences before April when we go through the process again. I would say that Nichola at EA has been very good in helping us, but whoever designed the website did a shocking job.
We run our race under the ARC licence... We get more money from it, which if we held an EA race, would be given to track and field athletes...
Woohoo!
........... guess what?
EA have commissioned ...........................
........................ another Survey!!???
'Sport England has commissioned Ipsos MORI to conduct this important research study, which is the first of its kind in the UK. The survey will establish what is important to people when they take part in sport and how satisfied they are with the quality of their sporting experience. The purpose is not to try and sell anything, it is purely a research study.'
popsider. If you haev paid your £5 affiliation fee then you should get a competitor licence. If not then they can put you down as a volunteer. If you haev paid family memberships then that is to the club. The affiliation fee is usualyl on top.
The system is a nightmare as it is difficult to change information especially if a club member originally affiliated via another club.
Of course you do get your money back now via a Sweatshop load of £5 on your card. Note that Rowing charges £15 to affiliate to their national body and Swimming about £34 !!!
Jiffle King - from a club perspective I tend to disagree. If you affiliate the club to UKA you now keep ALL the unattached fees. The affiliation is more for EA than for ARC though.
As I belong to a Track and Field club (we therefore have to affiliate to EA) we stayed with EA for the permit as a) we keep all the unaffiliated fees b) we would have had to ARC affiliate as well as EA. The ARC permits are certainly less bureaucratic though !"
I can vouch for the simpicity, Application sent to permit landing on the mat, a few days (thank you Michael) .......... although I was initially concerned about the size of the permit!!
Those leading training runs for clubs affiliated to UKA/EA ,who do not hold a UKA Level 2 Coaching Licence, seem not to be insured if a member of their group is injured and subsequently sues them.
I quote from an email recently received by ARC "My name is xxxxxxxx and I am the current chairman of xxxxxxx Running Club. We are members of ARC and I would like to present a question to yourself that I have been asked by several members.
We are a small club and have no qualified coaches although myself and another committee member are working towards Level 2std
So currently a few of our long standing members just take out club training runs. I would like to know that if we had an incident whilst on a training run and lets say for instance a new fell over or something like that. Would we as a club and the club member who has taken out the run be insured.
This seems to be becoming a major problem with most clubs that I have chatted to saying that you must be qualified to take training runs and it must be a Level 2 qualification. Certainly UK athletics and their insurance have told me this but I just wanted to know how we stood with your insurance company."
ARC's reply
"There are no conditions in the ARC insurance which require run leaders to be qualified. There is a condition that volunteers are competent and that reasonable precautions are taken to avoid accidents. We think that your training runs should be led by experienced members of your club who should behave in a sensible manner ie be familiar with the route of the run, take reasonable precautions to avoid accidents, not leave female runners to run on thier own and check everybody back in at the conclusion of the run "
BARR is closely associated with UKAthletics and so is hardly an independent organisation. BARR is unwilling to grade ARC races for no other reason than that the races are not licensed by UKA. ARC races which have lost their BARR grading have suffered no reduction in entry and no reduction in reputation. Several continue to be County Championships.
Although those who are not EA licensed athletes should pay an extra £2 in EA permitted races few in fact do so. Very few race directors have either the time or the inclination to check whether each and every race entrant is EA licensed.
ARC's recent 14% reduction in their race charges will mean that on average ARC's fees will be approximately 14% less than those charged by EA/UKA. And of course with ARC there is less paperwork, less bureaucracy, less interference and a much better service.
Womble,
You also need to ask yourself, would EA have changed the fee structuring had ARC not been on the scene? Then ask yourself if perhaps EA really has your (club runners) interests at heart or are they just trying to keep hold of your wallet?
............. just a thought!
Michael can you show us exactly where UKA are saying club runs should only be led by L2 Coaches? I've just had a scan round UKA's website and can't find any mention of it.
If it's true (and I'm not doubting you - just looking for evidence to pass on) then it's a big nail in the coffin of a lot of small running clubs. Cheers Alan
Are we back at the old 'just giving our money to track and field' line?
I'm sure those of that view made sure they didn't catch any footage of the happenings in Turin last weekend...
Alanj This information was provided to ARC by the Chairman of an ARC member. It did refer to training runs and the Chairman did say that "UK athletics and their insurance have told me this ". Why not put this question to UKA. I should be very interested to hear their response.
One of our main reasons for establishing ARC was to ensure that the insurance provided to running clubs and the regulation applied to running clubs enabled the clubs to continue to operate without imposing unnecessary restrictions upon them. I believe UKAthletics/England Athletics care very little and understand very little about our running clubs. Their main priorities are elite athletics and the major city events which attract thousands of unattached runners.
It does seem a bit crazy, given the numbers of L2 coaches and the number of running clubs across the country, I bet a good number of them wouldn't be physically capable of leading a run at the moment (its a guess here but I would have thought many L2's will be track coaches?). Also, many clubs will have more than one running group going out on a club night.
On the other hand, I can see a need for organised groups(esp if you're dealing with large numbers) sensible, safe route leadership and someone who could look after the welfare of a running group of mixed ability. To me that's a sign of a good running club. I can't see how a Coaches qualification is going to give you that unless they change the curriculum. There is something called 'Fitness in Running & Walking' but that's a 1-day course and though probably more appropriate for grass roots runners, it isnt at the L2 level.
definitely worth further investigation... Keep on providing us with the alternative viewpoint Michael