ACA - Out of touch?

Before we get into this thread, I would like to start by saying I 100% belive in, and support the ACA.
I'm writing this having just returned from my clubs AGM. The treasurer raised a point about the cost of the club membership to the ACA - its increased nearly 50% in 2 years. Having just renewed my membership I'm also aware of the increasing costs. Looking into it, since my dad became a life member about 8 or 9 years ago the cost has gone from around ?80 to ?250 - over 12% increase a year!
Our club has been a member for a number of years, but this is the first time there has been a vote on weather to renew or not. I argued long for the case and we will renew for another year. This may not happen if the increases continue?
Concerningly these are some of the questions asked:
Who are the ACA?
What do they do?
Why the increase?
The last question raiased an intersting response - "Bob James is taking them to court, this is to cover the costs" - From the same member who asked "what do they do?"
To me (a member) can anyone out there tell me why the ACA cant get its good work across to the angling public - when at the same time they seem to know the bad press. And at the same time justify the price increases?

I'm like you Mark, a simple member.

However, we (Graham Marsden, others and I) tried to find out as much as possible at the time the Jameses left. Sadly, that is a closed door, all information is confidential and the case closed.

There were some costs incurred at the time as a severance payment, but even that we will never find out. The reason for recent costs though is probably due to that severance payment.

What do they do? You should receive each year their annual report and in it there is always a run down of cases of pollution that they're fighting. That, primarily, is what they do, fight the polluters and hopefully many will pay up before they get to court.

Some members would like them to become involved in more (legal advice in running clubs and fishery licence disputes), but for that they need more individual members and clubs. Sadly the membership dropped slightly in recent years probably through people dying, but also because of the James case.

I hope they do start to peg the increases. The only thing for individuals is, if the club you're a member of is a member of the ACA then your individual membership is discounted too.

You will notice on some FM pages there is a large advert for the ACA. This is freely given as a donation by FM in return, one hopes, for more press releases in future. Graham has promised to publish whatever they issue.

The ACA is an anglers cooperative - clubs and anglers pay a subscription, and are given legal advice if they need to tackle people/businesses who are polluting fisheries.

If you like, it's a legal expenses insurance scheme.

I'm a member. It's essentially angling clubs that benefit from membership of the ACA - not many individual anglers own/lease and run their own fisheries. Individual anglers contribute in order to benefit indirectly.

There's an ACA website if you use Google.

I think the management of the ACA has improved afte the Bob James affair.

I know what they are and the good that they do. More concerned that most of the members of the club I fish dont. It cant be good if the only time they here about the aca is when its bad press, or other members complaing of price increase? I dont think they are reaching enough people with the right info. Also, more price increases, with little justification may put off some of its exsisting members/clubs.

I couldn't agree more.

They are bad - poor - completley incompetant at PR. Or have been inthe past.

This site (I'm speaking for Graham here because I know his thinking) is open to anything (legal) they wish to publish.

Whilst the ACA were poor at PR, since spring 2005 Mark Lloyd has ensured that regular press releases have been going out, and they have been appearing on here, other fishing websites, and in the regular press - At and AM etc. I am on the email list for the releases so know what is being sent out.

It was true that up to 18 months ago press releases were non-existent, and the only press was over the situation of the James's, but today it is totally different and I think this thread does them an injustice.

So - yes once they were poor; no, now they are excellent. As for the costs; it is just a reality check to be viable. I think the fees will settle down again soon enough.

Mark H,

The main activity of the ACA to to defend anglers and clubs in cases involving pollution of our rivers, canals, lakes and waterways.
As such it inevitably leads to litigation which is neither cheap nor are the costs of litigation governed by any ceiling.

If we (anglers/clubs etc) want to continue to fight the polluters then Yes, it is going to cost more money every year - and it is the best INVESTMENT that we can make either as individuals or organisations.

My understanding is that ACA once had 16,000 members. Now that is down to about 9,000 but growing. The decline, apparently, was during the James's tenure.

Legal costs were or are outstripping income hence the need to put up subscriptions. Simple really, if you want it you need to pay for it. ACA is still the single most important organisation in fishing, we should all be members.

Mike

Very true Michael

As I noted above, we anglers should view joinging the ACA as an Investment not a cost.

That said, I really think that the ACA could and should do a lot more w.r.t. advertising and making it easier to join on-line rather than by post or fax.

It's time you were a life member Peter.

The numbers drop is because the ACA were still counting long deceased/lapsed members rather than active paying. The number over the decades has varied from about 15000 down to current 9000.

"I think this thread does them an injustice."

I'm trying to defend them Mark, but still I don't think they issue enough PRs. It doesn't necesarily mean they have to update us on every issue of prosecution, maybe it's how they were received at a show or someone has donated an exceedingly large amount of money.

ANYTHING to keep them to the front of people's thoughts.

This thread has been drawn to my attention by a couple of people, and so as the ACA Exec Director I'd like to offer some response to people's concerns about the increase in subscription rates and the public profile of the ACA. First however, may I say how much I appreciate everyone's concern for the future of the organisation and the general support of our work expressed in these posts.

With regard to the subscription rates, these were reviewed in January for the first time in 18 months. Individual membership has increased from ?17 to ?20, which I think is very reasonable. Life membership was dramatically increased from ?125 to ?250 because we wanted to ensure that this form of membership better reflected the equivalent cost of being an individual member for 10 years (and including an element for inflation). There is more information about ACA subscriptions on our download page at: http://www.a-c-a.org/acainformation.html

We do not expect future increases to be much greater than inflation and our financial position is now much better than it has been for the last decade or so (more detail to follow).

With regard to our public relations work, we have been issuing a lot of press releases and will happily send them to anyone who wants them. We don't have much control over where they get printed. This site has been very helpful in posting them. If you would like to see the history of our releases, then please go to: http://www.a-c-a.org/whatsnew.php Two releases are currently being drafted about recent successfully settled cases and will be posted next week.

We are appointing a marketing officer at the beginning of July who will be responsible for increasing the profile of the organisation and also organising the many benefit matches, events and shows related to the ACA. We realise that we need to ensure that all anglers know about our work before we can expect them to part with their ?20 notes...

I have cut and paste in my next post an extract from our Spring update which will be sent to all our members in the next three weeks. I hope you will see from this list that the ACA is steaming ahead and that the issues of 2004 and early 2005 are now behind us.

cont'd

These are some of the highlights of the last year:

? The 2005 financial performance has shown a dramatic improvement on 2004. Operating costs have been slashed, allowing the ACA to increase the legal department?s budget;
? The Committee has agreed a budget for 2006 which will generate a small annual surplus for the first time this century. We are well ahead of this budget at the end of the first quarter;
? The legal department has been expanded with the recruitment of Dr. Justin Neal as Assistant Solicitor in March;
? We have already successfully settled more legal cases in the last six months than in 2004 & 2005 put together;
? The licence to market cypermethrin sheep dip has been suspended, in the face of legal pressure by the ACA on both government agencies and manufacturers;
? The number of ACA members has already increased by 10% this year and with your help we can get close to our ambitious target of doubling our numbers by the end of 2006;
? The Law Society has granted us a waiver of key rules which will allow us to reclaim our costs more efficiently from defendants in our pollution cases;
? Free ACA leaflet dispensers have been sent to 500 tackle shops around the country;
? We will be recruiting a Marketing Officer in July to help promote the organisation and make sure that our success is more widely reported in the press;
? More than 50% of our members now pay by Direct Debit, which helps us cut costs and means we can spend more on fighting pollution;
? 110 supporters attended our first fundraising dinner in February at the Fishmongers? Hall and raised ?10,000 for the ACA fighting fund;
? Finally, the office is buzzing with new staff and new challenges?

If anyone would like any more information about the ACA, then please feel free to contact me at mark@a-c-a.org or reply to this post and I will respond publicly.

Thanks again for your concern about the ACA. It is in my (albeit biased) view the most important non-governmental organisation in angling and I look forward to the day when we have 100,000 members. For now, we aim to double our membership from a low of 8,000 to 16,000 this year. If you can help us achieve that, then please be in touch.

Best wishes and tight lines to all,
Mark

Mark Lloyd
Executive Director, ACA

All excellent positive stuff keep up the good work )

That's more like it.
A positive response makes all the difference.Hopefully it will encourage a few more to become members.

I'll consider rejoining when Stephen Marsh resigns.

Mark, does the ACA help sea angling in any way?