So how much would you pay?

[Andrew S.]

While Alex is traveling round and assessing the feedback on the membership fee proposed for 2007, it might help TBA if we could show some opinions here as to what the members expect for their dollar and how much they would be prepared to pay.
We are not a high profile sporting organization, and our National Body probably does the best it can with the money available but despite huge numbers of competitive players we struggle to convince people to part up with $15 or $20 a year for registration.
I don’t need to list the costs of registration for other sports, we’ve been there and done that and most of them are well over $100 a year and in some cases several hundred dollars a year.
I have in the past paid many different bowling registration fees, mostly around $10. Currently my registration fee is $14.
This is what I would prefer to pay for, and these are the benefits I would like to receive in return.
1. A properly structured National Body which would give me or my representatives full voting rights.
2. An award scheme.
3. A reasonably staffed National Office.
4. A reasonably staffed State Office.
5. Player Insurance.
6. A Local Association independent of (but working with) bowl management.
So what would I pay for all this?
A hundred dollars a year is not unreasonable to me, the sport goes 12 months of the year and is an all weather event.
Incidentally I also expect to bowl in a fully registered Centre that complies with all the Lane measuring specifications. The Centre would of course pay a nominal registration fee to the National body.
So lets give the National Office some feedback on this – they are asking.

 

[Samael]

If the key issues you listed can be sorted, and if management can show themselves to actually honor the above, then i wouldnt have any problems paying upwards of $40 a year for membership (considering other sports i currently do/did, i think even $100 isnt an unreasonible figure like you).

However, you want to get something for your money and a working and efficient award scheme would be a big part of that. Id love to see some form of real accreditation and sanctioning as part of my membership fee's too, but it might be a little too much to ask at this point in time (stretching staff levels a little too thin to cover the whole country).

Id love someone to draft up a minimum standard of service agreement so you can basically expect a level of compliance in every center you walk into (aus wide) that currently has sanctioning, but there dont seem to be enough people willing to put themselves on the line for this to happen.