Boat Club "Social" Membership.

[oldgit]

This is purely hypothetical and am asking for a friend.
Does your boat club a have a "social membership" for folks who are not full members/boat owners,but allows them to use the clubs facilities and attend club events.. Perhaps at a reduced fee.?
My friend frequently brings immediate family along to club and reports that there have been dark mutterings about the number of times they have visited.
Is here some legal argument about number of visits per year ?
All comments welcome.
Will pass on all comments to my friend..

 

[aquapower]

This is purely hypothetical and am asking for a friend.
Does your boat club a have a "social membership" for folks who are not full members/boat owners,but allows them to use the clubs facilities and attend club events.. Perhaps at a reduced fee.?
My friend frequently brings immediate family along to club and reports that there have been dark mutterings about the number of times they have visited.
Is here some legal argument about number of visits per year ?
All comments welcome.
Will pass on all comments to my friend..

I can't se the problem here, if you want to bring guests to the club then that's good as no doubt they are spending money boosting club funds or are there so many members there that there's no room for guests?
That's surely a good way to gain new members for the future.

 

[lpdsn]

This is purely hypothetical and am asking for a friend.
Does your boat club a have a "social membership" for folks who are not full members/boat owners,but allows them to use the clubs facilities and attend club events.. Perhaps at a reduced fee.?
My friend frequently brings immediate family along to club and reports that there have been dark mutterings about the number of times they have visited.
Is here some legal argument about number of visits per year ?
All comments welcome.
Will pass on all comments to my friend..

I had it with one yacht club that I used to go to regularly after racing. A couple of junior members started muttering about people coming into the bar who were not members, so I said we could go to the pub up the road. Turned out it wasn't a problem at all.

There's always some miserable B muttering darkly. Maybe worth remind them of the role the bar takings play in the economics of the club (which I presume they do).

In terms of legal (and I know this more from WMCs that YCs) it is necessary for a guest to be signed in by a member and they are not allowed to go to the bar and buy a round themselves. Must be > 5 years since I've signed in to a WMC and I think I've only done it once in a yacht club. Needless to say, I've found my turn to go to the bar has come around just as regularly as elsewhere.

 

[PhilipF]

I am not and never have been a member of a yacht club. However I rather suspect that the 'mutterings' referred too would be from members who pay a - often quit substantial - annual subscription, suppose they don't think some should get in without becoming a member like themselves.

 

[Alpha22]

My club has 'social' membership... it is at a slightly reduced rate, but holds no voting rights.

Members are permitted to sign in guests for a maximum 5 times in a year. Unless attending a social function.

Close family members are permitted to be added to the members membership. They pay the full rate and have a vote, but are not required to be proposed, interviewed etc.....

Just as a comparison.....

 

[l'escargot]

Most clubs, and not just sailing clubs, have a rule that non members can only be signed in a certain amount of times a year. This is to prevent people "freeloading" - enjoying the benefits of membership without paying the membership fees.

If they want to use the club the simple answer is they should cough up and pay the membership fee. Many sailing/yacht clubs have members that don't have boats and use the club for other reasons, they shouldn't expect to be exempt from paying for membership just because they don't have a boat.

 

[ProDave]

This is purely hypothetical and am asking for a friend.
My friend frequently brings immediate family along to club and reports that there have been dark mutterings about the number of times they have visited.

Is there not a family membership option? There is at our club.

 

[prv]

I know Emsworth have non-sailing members - my grandad was one for donkey's years, despite not being a particularly keen sailor (in the yacht and dinghy sense; he was a Naval officer in the 40s and 50s). Now we're holding the reception there after his funeral on Thursday.

Lots of old folk like him maintain membership in order to go there for lunch. We had a family membership for a couple of years when I was a kid, and my brother and I rather resented the (as we saw it) useless old farts who never sailed, moaned at us coming into the building in wet clothes, and provided a ghoulish audience for any cockups in arriving at the slipway. But I now realise that their membership fees and bar bills, and lack of use of any facilities beyond a chair by the window, meant they were probably subsidising those of us who actually sailed.

Pete

 

[epervier]

I'm in the Groucho camp as regards clubs,

"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member".

 

[oldgit]

Thanks for comments...Anybody else want to pitch in ?
Interested in the 6(ish) visits rule. Is it an internal club rule which has just become common practice over the years or something to do with the licensing laws and legal stuff enabling clubs to enjoy a more lax tax regime than for profit organisations.

 

[Greg2]

I am an associate member of a Yacht Club and was previously a full member. Our club rules allow members to bring non-members to the club on a maximum of four occasions each year. Associate membership doesn't give voting rights and the fees are slightly less than full membership. This is pretty much in line with what others have said and I think it is fairly common. The only slight confusion is that visiting yachtsmen/crews get temp membership for the duration of their stay.

My understanding is that this is all internal club rules and not something that is stipulated in liquor licensing. I am not aware of any dispensation granted to clubs on the tax front (I was on committees including Finance)

 

[JumbleDuck]

My understanding is that this is all internal club rules and not something that is stipulated in liquor licensing. I am not aware of any dispensation granted to clubs on the tax front (I was on committees including Finance)

There are, or can be, or were VAT implications. I was a member of a gliding club which was able to reclaim a very large amount of VAT when it was ruled that clubs did not have to charge VAT on services (launches and glider hire, in this case) provided to full members but did have to charge visitors and non-members.

 

[maby]

I think it would be an excellent idea - and did suggest to Medway Yacht Club that they should introduce social membership some time ago when we resigned our membership. We were not using any of the boating facilities and I calculated that every pint that I drank in the bar was costing more than £25 - impossible to justify, I'm afraid.

 

[macnorton]

Thanks for comments...Anybody else want to pitch in ?
Interested in the 6(ish) visits rule. Is it an internal club rule which has just become common practice over the years or something to do with the licensing laws and legal stuff enabling clubs to enjoy a more lax tax regime than for profit organisations.

If members of the public have unrestricted access to a members only bar it becomes a public bar (pub) with loads of legal/tax implications.(hence max no of visits rule)
The licensing laws were recently changed (when 24 hr drinking was bought in) and now signed in visitors can purchase from the bar.

Its not clubs being snobby, its the law..

 

[oldgit]

If members of the public have unrestricted access to a members only bar it becomes a public bar (pub) with loads of legal/tax implications.(hence max no of visits rule)
The licensing laws were recently changed (when 24 hr drinking was bought in) and now signed in visitors can purchase from the bar.

Its not clubs being snobby, its the law..

Can appreciate about it a club for being members and not for joe public.

My...sorry... "his" query is about bringing along immediate family members, as an example, say daughter and husband ? on more than six occasions.

Would there any legal implications if the rules were changed to either allow more visits by guests or to allow a family member to visit without restriction, provided a club member paying a full membership was present. ?
Pretty certain it has to go to a AGM, but as we (if not The Lounge ) are now in the 21st century, perhaps the rules can be modified. ?
As an example.
Two new members have a youngster who always goes everywhere with them to do with boating. No problem until they turn 18.They then need to find the full membership fee for said sprog merely to enter the club premises .
Reduced fee for a non voting non boat owning family member would surely merely add to club coffers without detriment to club ideals..

 

[sailorman]

This is purely hypothetical and am asking for a friend.
Does your boat club a have a "social membership" for folks who are not full members/boat owners,but allows them to use the clubs facilities and attend club events.. Perhaps at a reduced fee.?
My friend frequently brings immediate family along to club and reports that there have been dark mutterings about the number of times they have visited.
Is here some legal argument about number of visits per year ?
All comments welcome.
Will pass on all comments to my friend..

Social is for him alone, it does not allow him to bring friends / family along .

 

[macnorton]

Can appreciate about it a club for being members and not for joe public.

My...sorry... "his" query is about bringing along immediate family members, as an example, say daughter and husband ? on more than six occasions.

Would there any legal implications if the rules were changed to either allow more visits by guests or to allow a family member to visit without restriction, provided a club member paying a full membership was present. ?
Pretty certain it has to go to a AGM, but as we (if not The Lounge ) are now in the 21st century, perhaps the rules can be modified. ?
As an example.
Two new members have a youngster who always goes everywhere with them to do with boating. No problem until they turn 18.They then need to find the full membership fee for said sprog merely to enter the club premises .
Reduced fee for a non voting non boat owning family member would surely merely add to club coffers without detriment to club ideals..

I am pretty sure it is covered by the clubs act and licencing laws so a club has to comply regardless of AGM votes, most clubs have an associate membership which is for non boat owning non voting members.

 

[maby]

..., most clubs have an associate membership which is for non boat owning non voting members.

Medway certainly doesn't list any such option - their membership fee for a single person comes to close to £300. At the frequency I would visit, that makes every pint in the bar very expensive. It is a nice bar with a decent restaurant, but I simply could not justify the price.

As far as offering some form of "social membership" is concerned, I'm not sure what the effect on club finances would be. On one hand, they would gain a number of new members (or regain old members) such as us who simply cannot justify paying full membership to gain access to the bar. On the other hand, they might find a fair number of full members falling back to social membership in order to save money - I get the impression that there are quite a few Medway members who keep their boats in adjacent marinas and really don't make much use of the technical facilities or activities of the club. I'm not at all sure if the overall effect would be beneficial or detrimental to the club finances.