He’s just irked that nothing is 2 and 6’ anymore.
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I hope they still take glass bottles for payment
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I know, I saw a couple of bans Iron Maiden and Marillion in them before they ‘made it’ and loads who just missed the big time and stayed on the pub circuit, along with many rhythm and blues bands (not what gets called RnB) but proper guitar and drummer groups. You can’t beat the atmosphere in a pub/club for bands.
Been a member since 1986 and stayed 1 night - cost per room on that basis makes your eyes water.
Was paying former serving membership rates for years until realised that as VR(T)/CFC rates was a lot less and had my membership changed - Doh!
Am I missing the cost here - affiliate membership is something like £460 for the initial application & year one, then £230 a year onwards?
Must be - mine was about £5 per year for the first 5 years of commission and it’s now £54 per year…
Edit: I’ve just seen those are the rates for Affiliate members. As part of the CFC we’re counted as serving officers and only Fg Off at that!
I believe affiliate membership is for overseas forces.
As a serving RAFAC Sqn Ldr you would pay £86 a year.
Ah, OK then, I must have been looking at the wrong rates in that case. Where are the CFC rates advertised?
That is much better, although I’m still not convinced I go to London enough to justify it.
Why does it operate a on subscription membership basis? What benefits does this bring? Just being a member doesn’t cut it. Do those above Air Cdre not have to pay?
Do they get all RAF officers to sign up on passing out and because it’s DD or other automatic payment, they get an income as people rarely cancel subscriptions like this, until maybe they get told as they’ve retired, it’s this amount and people who’d never used in during their time in, bin it.
When I did my initial officers’ the RAF Club wasn’t even mentioned, if it was it would have been a discussion point, but maybe now with the RAF contracting and less officers, they are a bit more ‘open’.
The fact they are ‘crowd funding’, suggests reduced subscription income and less people using it in recent months. As I said if you want to survive with a limited audience, change the model and not be officer’s and selected groups only. Then on production of ID when to book, you get a discounted rate.
We have an ID, it’s the RAF club membership card you get on joining 
Fewer. Whatever happened to the old days when schools taught grammar and used the dunce’s cap to enforce it?
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@Farmerdan Whichever way you look at it or wish to word it, you cannot avoid the point that there aren’t as many Officers, which will mean the model isn’t as viable as when it opened. So change or die away slowly, eating into reserves, increasing membership fees and prices as you go, getting sold off for less than it should. Another option is sell it with time limited aspects to the contract to afford preferential rates to specified groups. This is commonplace in mergers and acquisitions.
@Brooke_Bond Nope the ID Card all members of the RAF have should be enough.
As much as I hate to say it, Teflon has a point.
The reduction in the RAF means fewer people using it. They need to diversify. Maybe join up with all the other clubs.
We can prop up a failing business model all we want but they need to adopt new ways of working like the rest of the world…
It isnt failing at all. Read the last 10 years worth of accounts if you want.
Problem is large part of their income, (read most) is from selling hotem rooms, conferences and dining…
Covid equals not much of that at the mo.
Normal times. Very successful.
They had cash reserves to keep all their staff on full pay for the first 7 months of this god awful pandemic. More than most other restaurants or hotel!
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This so much this.
The companies that survived covid weren’t necessarily the rich ones but those who have the ability and adaptability to make things workable
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This again.
There is no protection for hospitality against mandated closure?
Nope. But plenty of hospitality businesses evolved new business models - whilst the hotel rooms and conference facilities couldn’t be used in the same way, the catering and dining element could’ve been used - providing take aways, breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Central London was quiet, but it wasn’t dead.
Other businesses in the same sectors diversified and came through stronger.
A different income stream is still an income stream - and it has positive impacts on supply chain to help other businesses survive too.
They already are joined up with all the other clubs, as a member you can use hundreds of clubs both nationally and internationally.
The loss of the hotel side is a killer, as an example my old Police Force used to book something like 40 rooms at the Club every August Bank Holiday to accommodate the Notting Hill Carnival Command team, that’s £12K once you include meal lost just from that weekend. (Before you consider what we spent in the bar which was substantial).
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I wish the RAF Club well, and hope it survives. There was a mention of it and literature about it on my SCC course. Simply for me though is living in a rural backwater that requires a seemingly three day Camel ride through the swamp to reach London, I just cannot justify, nor would I ever get the use out of membership.
I suspect there are many others, regulars included who live more than say 90 minutes from London who are in the same position.
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If you lived 90 minutes from anywhere like a large city or attraction you are less likely to visit regularly and even less likely to stay there. Say you commuted 90 minutes to London for your job, you’d be looking to get home PDQ at the end of the day.
When you look at the affiliated clubs they seem to be worldwide and then the advertised £150 per night for members of those clubs. If the club was in London would you stay in another club in London?