RYA or RNLI?

[FullCircle]

Having seen the tides ebbing and flowing on here regarding the merits or otherwise of belonging to the RYA or the RNLI, which do you choose?

Do you support them or criticise them? But really, do you put your hand in your pocket and join up every year?

This year RYA Family membership is £59

Offshore RNLI membership is £116.

Do you support both but belong to neither, or do you just think the bally lot of 'em can get lost?

 

[Little Five]

No option for me to vote on in this poll. I always give to RNLI, have never to RYA, not that I wouldn;t, are they looking for money? Not a member of either.

 

[prv]

Not really a good option for me either.

I wouldn't "join" either organisation (the inverted commas are because the RNLI scheme seems more like a regular donation than actual membership).

I have some misgivings about RNLI top management and strategies, but overall I'm glad the organisation exists, happy it's independent, and grateful to the guys on the ground. I put money in their boxes in pubs etc.

The RYA largely seems like an irrelevance to sailors like me, although I'm glad of their low-key but successful "education not legislation" position over the years. I don't see any need to give them money.

Pete

 

[Searush]

RNLI "Membership" is indeed a formalised donation, but I enjoy the magazines with the rescue descriptions.

RYA seems to be mainly focussed on inland dinghy racing & offshore racers, neither of which interest me in the least - I have a couple of dinghies, but no interest in racing round in circles. But my Club is RYA afiliated so part of my subs will go to them.

 

[prv]

But my Club is RYA afiliated so part of my subs will go to the them.

The union at my place of work gives money to the Labour Party, but there's a box to tick on the membership form if you detest the idea of supporting that bunch of scumbags in any way and want the relevant amount removed from your subs.

I assume club affiliation doesn't work in the same way

Pete

 

[Stork_III]

Not really a good option for me either.

I wouldn't "join" either organisation (the inverted commas are because the RNLI scheme seems more like a regular donation than actual membership).

I have some misgivings about RNLI top management and strategies, but overall I'm glad the organisation exists, happy it's independent, and grateful to the guys on the ground. I put money in their boxes in pubs etc.

The RYA largely seems like an irrelevance to sailors like me, although I'm glad of their low-key but successful "education not legislation" position over the years. I don't see any need to give them money.

Pete

+1 exactly.

 

[dt4134]

I donate to both. Not without reservations in both cases.

I've offshore membership of the RNLI. I haven't got as far as terminating it, but the kidnapping of that skipper on the E Coast and some of their sensationalist & exaggerated reports in the press of simple 'rescues' has made me think twice. When I started I considered the RNLI as beyond reproach, but not any more. I'm currently in wait-and-see mode.

Similarly, I'm a member of the RYA. I don't think they're as useless as some make out and it was probably hard going for them under the last regime. On the other hand my subs have pretty much doubled in a decade, so it is feeling expensive for what I think I get.

 

[sailorman]

Having seen the tides ebbing and flowing on here regarding the merits or otherwise of belonging to the RYA or the RNLI, which do you choose?

Do you support them or criticise them? But really, do you put your hand in your pocket and join up every year?

This year RYA Family membership is £59

Offshore RNLI membership is £116.

Do you support both but belong to neither, or do you just think the bally lot of 'em can get lost?

# Shoreline - our most popular membership, from £28 a year or £2.33 a month.
# Offshore - designed for all water users, from £68 a year or £5.67 a month.
# Governor - all the features of Shoreline and Offshore plus voting rights at our AGM, from £86 a year or £7.17 a month.
# Storm Force - designed for our younger supporters aged 5-10, £7.50 a year.

My Governor membership is £86

 

[Playtime]

I stopped membership of the RYA several years ago when the fees doubled (£15 to £30 IIRC). They extracted the money from my bank by direct debit but only informed me several days later.

 

[Quandary]

If you are a member of a yacht club part of your sub. goes to RYA unless it is not affiliated, however it is not a big levy. Last week I read the submission they made against the Kintyre Windfarm Array and I was impressed how effectively they stated the case so I would consider supporting them directly, particularly as a week later the project was abandoned.
I am a bit ambivalent about the RNLI. They seem to be a very wealthy charity, when we were in business we had facilities for large format printing of plans and large documents which were also availed of by local builders, farmers and the general public, the charge was only about £1 per copy, so to save having to keep track off it, we got an RNLI collecting box and asked the punters to put their money in it, in a very short time it would have a couple of hundred quid in it; but it was very difficult to get the box collected for emptying and even harder to get a replacement. I think they saw our few hundred quid a year as small beer and only a nuisance, unlike other charities we supported they never bothered to tell you how much was collected or what they might do with it. They seem never to be short of money for projects with very large town or village centre modern buildings to house a rib on a trailer which you might think could be kept in a shed.
However I would not want to think of any lifeboat man having to launch without the very best equipment so I will continue to support them.

 

[FullCircle]

# Shoreline - our most popular membership, from £28 a year or £2.33 a month.
# Offshore - designed for all water users, from £68 a year or £5.67 a month.
# Governor - all the features of Shoreline and Offshore plus voting rights at our AGM, from £86 a year or £7.17 a month.
# Storm Force - designed for our younger supporters aged 5-10, £7.50 a year.

My Governor membership is £86

Of course, I include Madame FC on ours......Family Memb dontcha kno'?

 

[glashen]

I am a bit ambivalent about the RNLI. They seem to be a very wealthy charity, when we were in business we had facilities for large format printing of plans and large documents which were also availed of by local builders, farmers and the general public, the charge was only about £1 per copy, so to save having to keep track off it, we got an RNLI collecting box and asked the punters to put their money in it, in a very short time it would have a couple of hundred quid in it; but it was very difficult to get the box collected for emptying and even harder to get a replacement. I think they saw our few hundred quid a year as small beer and only a nuisance, unlike other charities we supported they never bothered to tell you how much was collected or what they might do with it. They seem never to be short of money for projects with very large town or village centre modern buildings to house a rib on a trailer which you might think could be kept in a shed.
However I would not want to think of any lifeboat man having to launch without the very best equipment so I will continue to support them.

I think you raise an interesting point about how the RNLI fundraises. From what I see it is now has four "sources"

• The HO fund raisers who organize the mailings the stands at shows etc, etc, and encourage joining the RNLI.
• The legacies (Historically very important maybe now less so.
• The contracts with local authorities to provide lifesavers.
• The local supporters based at a station. (Who I think normally keep the funds for that station)

I can see that sometimes these four sources can conflict in some ways, but I think a keen station fund raising group would have emptied your box PDQ, they would in my part of the world.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

I donate to both. Not without reservations in both cases.

Not sure how you donate to a commercial organisation like the RYA, which although it has some charitable trusts, like Sailability, it is not a charity.

You pay the membership fee for them to act in your interests.

Anyway, I am not a member.

As to the RNLI. I am conscious that they have pots of money but still need ongoing donations to buy the best equipment and build a state of the art HQ.

I do not subscribe directly but put an average of £20 year into their boxes. Last year I sent them a cheque as I hadn't been close enough to or seen many collecting boxes.

I am a close inshore boater and feel that amount reflects the risk I pose.

To give it some perspective, it is a tenth of the amount I donate to MacMillan Nurses.

 

[Searush]

That posh HQ generates income for them & offers premises for offices & training which they would otherwise have to pay for. It may look extravagant, but the business case was worked out carefully.

 

[dt4134]

Not sure how you donate to a commercial organisation like the RYA, which although it has some charitable trusts, like Sailability, it is not a charity.

I was taking the p!$$. As you are by calling them a commercial organisation. Like many clubs and similar organisations it is a company limited by guarantee.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

I was taking the p!$$.

Oh.

 

[Doug_Stormforce]

I am often surprised how may YBW forum members do not regard these two organisations as worthy of a few quid a year, but each to their own.

........ I am a bit ambivalent about the RNLI. They seem to be a very wealthy charity, .........

As a yachtsmen this helps me sleep at night. The idea that our life boat service should be penny pinching or on the breadline to make you feel more comfortable about giving to them horrifies me. These guys are in the business of savings lives. Sadly saving lives costs money.

 

[fien397]

That posh HQ generates income for them & offers premises for offices & training which they would otherwise have to pay for. It may look extravagant, but the business case was worked out carefully.

Spot on, in fact the lifeboat college has already paid for itself, and will continue to do so over and over, through the paying customers who use the hotel, and through the use of the facilites from outside parties.

As for fund raising on a station by station basis, all funds raised belong to the RNLI, not the individual station. in an ideal world it would be nice for the stations to have their own pot so to speak, which they can do, but if the RNLI deems it necesarry it will use the funds elsewhere. if this wasnt the case, some of the more remote stations would run out of money.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

I am often surprised how may YBW forum members do not regard these two organisations as worthy of a few quid a year, but each to their own.

My point was that the RNLI is not short of funds and has enough income, not counting their huge reserves, to sustain their level of efficiency and capital replacement without me having buy membership.

So, other than my few pounds in casual donations, I prefer to channel my available charity funding to organisations that do need my money.

The way I see it, I am more likely to need the services or expertise of Macmillan Nurses, British Heart Foundation and the Cancer Research Campaign, than the RNLI and I fund the RYA by paying premium prices as a non member when I need training or literature.

But, as I have already pointed out, the RYA is not a charity.

 

[Quandary]

I am often surprised how may YBW forum members do not regard these two organisations as worthy of a few quid a year, but each to their own.



As a yachtsmen this helps me sleep at night. The idea that our life boat service should be penny pinching or on the breadline to make you feel more comfortable about giving to them horrifies me. These guys are in the business of savings lives. Sadly saving lives costs money.

You might have paused to read all of my post, if you were going to quote me; we were donating several hundred pounds a year to the RNLI, probably about £20 a week through our printing charges and we paid for the consumables, but they could not be arsed to replace our collecting box or tell us exactly how much was in it. When we gave money to Water Aid or Trocaire they made sure to thank us and to follow up with a call about what they were doing with the money. Having contributed perhaps close to £10 k to the RNLI over the years I was in business, I feel that I have already made a contribution and I do not feel the need to be a member now, I also feel it entitles me to be critical if I want to). We gave the traditional 10% of profit to charity each year (not so hard when you include tax) on top of the RNLI printing service collection but we tended to support the people we thought were making the best use of the money.