how is this different to the RBL or RAFA??
As there are local “Branches” that operate each with a membership fee of which a portion goes up the CoC to HQ how is that different to Squadrons (Branches) charging subs (membership fee)??
Interesting point.
My understanding of RBL and RAFA was the membership fees go to head office.
RAFA branches get a pro rata amount back for administrative purposes(?), the RBL don’t, it lines the pockets of head office types. RAFA branches also get a percentage of their Wings take returned, RBL branches get nada from their poppy take.
Additional fees (affiliation??) for the RBL are decided and voted on at branch level only. In 30 years of being in the RBL I’ve never paid any more than the membership in the 3 branches I’ve been in.
Within RAFA there are still different levels of membership, our branch has a club and some are club members only I believe and pay a membership just for the club. But they have no RAFA voting rights, I believe. I’ve only ever been a RAFA member, so not really sure
Charities funding other charities can only happen as far as I’m aware if the money is raised and stated as being raised in part or total for that organisation. This is how I believe Lions, Round Table etc operate, with their charitable donations.
Interesting to think that HQAC might be a bit naughty there, especially if squadrons are considered as charities in their own right. If this was the case the percentage of subs going to HQAC would have to be made clear to parents/carers and maybe like union political levy, given an opt out.
Interesting reading:
http://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regid=1160910&subid=0
I did somewhere on here that a squadron and the wing charity numbers were the same therefore are squadron CWCs not truely independent and monies can be mived without disclosure.
True - to a point
At our Branch at least annual membership is £19
£17 of that is membership of the RBL (HQ)- you get “The Legion” Magazine, a membership card and can call yourself a member
£2 of that goes to the Branch, and get that years colour sticker for the Branch on your membership card. Permits access to that RBL Club (if there is one) and to sit in Branch Meetings.
[quote=“Farriersaxe, post:63, topic:4055”]
RAFA branches get a pro rata amount back for administrative purposes(?), the RBL don’t, it lines the pockets of head office types. [/quote]
false.
RBL Membership fees are split between HQ and Branch (see above)
with regards Poppy Appeal money - this is charity money and NOT for Branch use.
membership fees are for admin and running costs (either for HQ or Branch)
Donations to the Poppy Appeal go to the charity pot.
RBL Branches send what they collect/is donated up to HQ to be added to the National Pot. Yes it is recorded against the Branches name, be that £4k for a village or £40k for a busy market town but RBL Branches do not do anything with Poppy Appeal money expect pay it into the national pot.
Charity donations are exactly that - donations to the Poppy Appeal Charity and not for Branch use. If donating to the Poppy Appeal that money goes to the charity chest and to the charitable cause.
if donating to the Branch that will go towards the admin/running costs of the Branch
this is why I am raising it.
if part of a local membership fee goes to the higher national body be that RAFA, RBL, Cadet Forces, WI, Rotary or whoever - I am not sure how some of the £8/month the Cadets pay can’t legally go up the chain…
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It is not necessarily wrong for a portion of subs/charitable monies to go up the chain. steve679’s examples demonstrate that the money given is being used by the section that it is being donated to so that is good.
However, in RAFAC we have sqn subs going to Wing who keep a bit and then pass further up the chain. Perhaps the GPF - itself a charity - sends a bit back down the chain to Wing. As a charity, how much independent fundraising does Wing do? The issue becomes that charity A can support charity B through donation to support a particular charitable objective - and that is the example you give in the RBL donation above.
But it is different in RAFAC and, on the whole, the Wing charities are pretty well totally funded from the charitable monies of other charities. They are functioning more as a financial clearing house and it would be more correct for sqn subs to be paid to HQ directly - again as identified happens in the Poppy Appeal example.
I can only identify that the key word is donation which is a voluntary payment at the decision of the individual and not necessarily (but possibly) on a regular basis. It can be withdrawn at any time. Sqn subs are paid to the CivCom (at any level they choose to set, not HQ) as charitable funding on a regular basis as a condition of membership. In cases of hardship the CivCom may assist or wholly pay for the cadet.
To be correct, there are no charity numbers in this context. Squadron’s receive a number which refers to the legal Exception Order under which, through association, charitabvle activities can take place. Trustee responsibilities are identical to a full-blown registered charity and to the Charity Commission, but without the need for annual returns to the CC as a matter of course (that is what the exception order specifically grants).
The reason I say there are no charity numbers is that an exception number is not publicly recognised and may apply to 50 or more squadrons at a time. It is an en-bloc processing reference and nothing more. Incidentally, the use of exception orders became defunct in 2011 so RAFAC basically tries to recycle existing numbers to avoid the inevitable requirement for squadron registration. I would expect Wing charities to be registered a their annual income exceeds the current £5k limit.
But that again brings us around to where that income is received from -
Totally correct. At the point of giving, two charities may co-operate but need to declare the detail.
They are - this is legally confirmed and acknowledged. Charitable independence is a pre-requisite.
Probably should be to be correct, but I cannot say that every squadron does. However, again you have the detail of who siphons off what. If Wing receive said charitable monies from all squadrons, but only choose to spend it on say five (special events/projects etc.), then technically those charitable funds are not being used for the purpose they were being given for. Parents/carers can appreciate the sense that a portion goes to the organisation (which means ATCHQ) but that would need to be a direct payment from individual to GPF rather than through two charities - the second not particularly active in fundraising itself and merely a processing device.
Essentially what exists is a woefully out-of-date structure that doesn’t hold water if challenged and people have the conviction and good reason to do so. The original structure wasn’t great but sufficiently fluid to allow breathing space and common sense. Since 2006 the charity law has been tightened considerably to address fraud and accountability. The effect on the charitable sector has been considerable and the wind now blows in a different direction. But RAFAC has been found wanting and has chosen to address the issue with further controls which are inappropriate. It should really overhaul the whole funding structure, but has neither the interest, will or resource to do so.
My RBL and RAFA membership fee goes to the respective head office.
We pay an additional £3 a year for admin. From the discussions over the years at meetings the RBL seems to dislike branches spending money on themselves, setting quite as far as I can make tight restrictions and if they could do it the RBL wants it all. Which given something the secretary sent, is what they are doing. When we do events we have a poppy bit and then do other bits and pieces the money from which we use for the branch.
Maybe in the ATC we should have local subs as we do and every year squadrons pay the money direct to the GPF as say a fixed membership fee and not per capita. This stops people ‘holding’ cadets for the numbers game. It would mean possibly local subs could be reduced, as the amount of the money grab is known and unrelated to squadron size.
If for instance the membership fee was £1000pa, that would equate to around £900K going into the GPF. Then Wings (scrap the Region fund) bid for money from the GPF and any spare gets put into a national pot that squadrons can bid for. This would stop as I suspect has happened GPF being diverted to other things. If a squadron had say been getting the money for an SOV and hit a brick wall, they could apply for funding as long at it didn’t exceed say 25% of the initial cost.
i could accept this if it was by Class of Squadron, the A-F(?) scale?
that was a Squadron which bobs along at 15-20 Cadets doesn’t struggle versus those with 120.
use the Class D Squadron for instance as a £1000 marker and go up/down from there to suit.
If you charge £10/month subs, that’s £120 pa per cadet, so the 15-20 squadron will get £1800 - £2400 pa in subs, so more than cover say a £1000 pa membership fee.
If you have a lot more cadets either reduce the subs or have plenty of extra to pay for things.
The squadron class gets into council tax land and we all know what a cluster that’s been.
A bit like council tax?
I like the idea, but it depends on how accurate the reporting figures are, and how often the classifications are reviewed - I know of a fair few squadrons that have remained as an E Type squadron, despite parading numbers more befitting of a DF for several years.
This is why have it as a flat rate.
The money is going to the GPF based on the number of squadrons NOT the number of cadets, which we all know is completely arbitrary at all levels. Less squadrons = less money.
By making Wings bid it is just for equipment etc not paying for fanciful Wing events which mean sod all to everyone except some Wing Staff. If Wing want an event, they raise the money independently, if there is a cost.
once again quoting me based on what you read rather than the meaning behind the words.
whether it is £1000, £2000 or £50 smaller Squadrons will seen a larger burden than the bigger units.
a flat fee is not proportional
i agree with @Moist_Van_Lipwig but we already get reporting errors on based on per individual. if the numbers were based to the nearest 20 Cadets then any massaging of numbers would be lost or at least less defined given an accurate reporting Squadron could be +/- 10 Cadets one side of the band
That is very true! Saying that, the reporting errors are entirely in the hands of the sqn staff, and can be rectified almost instantly by dismissing someone from the SMS. Reclassification takes 12 months minimum.
You’d be pretty miffed if you ran, for example, a C type (61 - 80 cadets) squadron that had experienced a large loss of cadets, and ended up paying C type bills for 12 months for a squadron with E Type numbers (30 - 45 cadets).
While I get what you said, the fact remains it would be affordable and might just mean the squadron does more local fund-raising, but probably no more than it does already.
If you have lots and lots of cadets then it’s a bonus. But basing it on squadron strength gets into the same BS as we have now.
I don’t know of any other organisations when I speak to people, where numbers are used so much. We need to sack a few people in HQAC and so on, if all they’ve got to worry about is volunteer numbers. Based on the ATC model, 99% of older Scout groups would have been got rid of years ago.
£1000 is affordable yes but make it £2000 flat fee and it isn’t.
it either needs to be readily affordable and worked up, or proportional.
I am not sure how “more local funding = the same as they do” > more is an increase.
That’s why the figure of a £1000.
Make it say £2K and immediately it becomes more burdensome and some squadrons would fold.
For every cadet that is lost, IIRC they take £2.50/cadet/11 months that’s a loss of £27.50. As the document above mentioned the MOD is cutting down on its provision and the ATC itself is gap filling as we all know.
That would do the opposite - paying for non-existent cadets (who of course won’t be paying subs) helps to stop people from artificially inflating their numbers.
I’m not sure what problem your flat-rate scheme is meant to fix.
Like so many things what we do subs wise is a “we’ve always done it like that”, well not always, but for sometime.
What a fixed rate does is provide certainty and makes planning easier. We paid a fixed amount by standing order for our mortgage and we do the same for gas and electrtic, so we know what those outgoings are . We paid the mortgage off several years ago and are just in credit (c.£10/qtr) with the gas/electric.
So if HQAC knows that year on year it will get ‘x’ based on the number of squadrons as opposed to the ‘y’ of a figure based on fluid cadet numbers, that has to be better for planning. The membership can be paid monthly, so it’s not a single or 6 monthly hit. This provides squadron with an assured knowledge that each month (based on £1k/pa) £83.33 goes and doesn’t get missed.