Following on from the above, I've had an exchange of EMails with a number of members of the GLASS Executive. This culminates in an EMail from Chris Mitchell the GLASS Affiliated Clubs Liaison Ofiicer. It makes an interesting read (see below). He explains some of the benefits on both sides of affiliation and suggests a possible way forward that would have only a very modest cost and would also provide free access for some members to the official GLASS/TRF Wayfinder and, when it is launched (probably early next year), also to Trailwise which is a replacement for Wayfinder.
Thoughts?
Andrew Kay
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Hi Andrew
I understand the problem with justifying the financial outlay involved - in
the past we have made a few exceptions to the normal affiliation fee
particularly in the case of clubs (like internet clubs) who don't charge
their members a subscription and therefore have little in the way of
funding.
In the case of clubs which do charge their members to join, larger clubs
such as yours usually pay less than £1 per member overall to affiliate to
GLASS, and find the benefits are worthwhile despite the often small
proportion of members interested in regular laning.
The fact is that these days we need clubs to contribute in order to help
GLASS pay for (for example) the legal and consultancy expenses in lobbying
parliament and fighting TROs with local authorities, national parks etc. As
you know there are threats to lanes on a number of fronts and members tell
us that they want GLASS to be active in fighting lane closures/TROs etc.,
rather than purely a club for people who go laning. If we can say we
represent thousands of affiliated club members it has more impact than a
few!
Whereas a small proportion of your club members actually go laning, the
others may (unknowingly) use BOATs and/or UCRs during their day-to-day life
or for access to their home, or for access to canoeing, hang-gliding, model
flying etc etc, and when these unsurfaced routes have been lost to the
"recreational" motorist it will be too late to complain that GLASS didn't do
enough to prevent it! Afiliated clubs have access to GLASS local reps and
the local pub meets, plus r.o.w. advice of course.
As Ed has pointed out there are also considerable IT benefits for clubs and
their members - including free access to GLASS Wayfinder for (say) 25 of
your members. This figure can be negotiable if more members are interested.
The GLASS web forum is a great source of lane information as well.
An idea may be to form a sub-group of your club which is focussed on green
laning (e.g. Nissan 4x4 Owners Club Green Laning Section), and have a
separate membership for it (say an extra £1 subscription per member per
year). Then this group could apply for affiliation to GLASS at lower cost
in its own right? A £1 extra subscription would pay for the GLASS
affiliation fee.
Hope this helps
Chris Mitchell
GLASS Affiliated Clubs Liaison Officer
