Contradiction

My Angling Trust membership is due for renewal and I have been looking at their site trying to make my mind up whether to rejoin or not

In the FAQ section there is a question about lower membership rates for disabled and OAPs, the reason given for not having a lower rate for them is that membership rates are set at a rate that will cover administration costs and allow them to carry out their work, nothing wrong with that I thought until I read that a new rate has been introduced for 18 to 21 year olds it is £10, so are administration costs less for that age group? does it cost less to carry out their work for that age group? are the Angling trust discriminating against disabled, OAP and anglers over 21?

I dont think I will be joining again!!!

Pay in monthly installments, they'll discriminate even more so, and charge you for it too.

It's everyone's choice to join, rejoin or not join. Your beef regarding pricing is nothing to do with anyone on here.. If you feel so strongly about it maybe you should write to the AT and let them explain...

peter crabtree said:

It's everyone's choice to join, rejoin or not join. Your beef regarding pricing is nothing to do with anyone on here.. If you feel so strongly about it maybe you should write to the AT and let them explain...

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Oh I really am most awfully sorry for putting something on here, ITS A FORUM, and I thought the idea was to start discussion, yes I have a "beef about pricing" that is discriminatory and the way I will deal with it is for me to choose, I CHOOSE not to give them any more money.

peter crabtree said:

It's everyone's choice to join, rejoin or not join. Your beef regarding pricing is nothing to do with anyone on here.. If you feel so strongly about it maybe you should write to the AT and let them explain...

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I don't actually agree with what Blanker says but it is an angling based subject, as such he is perfectly right to want too discuss it on here.

If you don't like that; don't participate!

the blanker said:

, ITS A FORUM, and I thought the idea was to start discussion, .

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I have..........

I thought I could find an answer for you, Blanker, but the site doesn't explain what the difference is for under 21s and why under 18s are free, I'd like to know where they got their age limits from and why not the same as the rod licence. Are there differences in the insurance levels although it would surely be cheaper to insure someone older and more experienced than someone young and more likely to cause injury.

However, I think it unfair of you to reject renewal without giving them ample chance to explain, which may help others if you publish their response on here.

As for the £2.50 per month as per steph's remark, they have explained on their site that the extra £5 will cover the extra admin charges for organising the monthly direct debit. Banks give nothing away these days so hardly a fault of the Angling Trust.

loggerhead said:

I thought I could find an answer for you, Blanker, but the site doesn't explain what the difference is for under 21s and why under 18s are free, I'd like to know where they got their age limits from and why not the same as the rod licence. Are there differences in the insurance levels although it would surely be cheaper to insure someone older and more experienced than someone young and more likely to cause injury.

However, I think it unfair of you to reject renewal without giving them ample chance to explain, which may help others if you publish their response on here.

As for the £2.50 per month as per steph's remark, they have explained on their site that the extra £5 will cover the extra admin charges for organising the monthly direct debit. Banks give nothing away these days so hardly a fault of the Angling Trust.

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Thank you for your sensible answer, I have e mailed the trust asking the question, the mail recipient is out of his office until the 20th so I will wait for an explanation although I really don't think that the difference can be justified. if/when I get a reply I will post it on here.

As for the DD method of joining I thought that the trust were a little underhand not telling anglers that may of used this method of joining that there would be a £5 surcharge.

To be honest I'm in the same quandary as Blanker....

Absolutely nothing to do with money but more in trying to decide the 'what it does for angling/ what it does for me' issue. I receive all the usual stuff from them as a member and I read it, or most of it, just to keep in touch really. Much of it has nothing to do with fishing per se but more to do with fishing issues and, if I really think about it, I suppose that is what it's for and why I joined in the first place - to look after the sport to some lesser or greater degree.........

As you can see I'm thinking allowed around this but it doesn't help me as whether I should continue to support it...and I don't know why...

the blanker said:

As for the DD method of joining I thought that the trust were a little underhand not telling anglers that may of used this method of joining that there would be a £5 surcharge.

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I agree. I was part way through joining when I realised this & decided that I wouldn't pay the extra fiver on principle. I then got an e-mail asking why I'd abandoned my membership renewal....I told them very plainly that I thought the extra fiver was out of order. The reply said they'd pass my comments on to the Membership Secretary [or whatever].

He then mailed me explaining what the extra fiver was for. I replied saying that most organisations offered a reduction for d/d and I wouldn't be "fined" a fiver for the privilege of paying monthly thank you so much....and before anybody starts I care not what you think about that...its what I think that matters. Then...a day or so later I get another e-mail saying I can rejoin for £15.

Now I dont know whether this "£15 renewal" is a general thing available to all former members or whether its because I made a fuss or whether its only available if you ask or whether its only for renewals. It reeks of desperation to me. The pricing has gone from £25 take it or leave it to what looks like a shambles.

Anyway....I copped the ar$e and haven't renewed yet largely because I feel I'm being co-erced into doing so and THAT I will not tolerate.

the blanker said:

As for the DD method of joining I thought that the trust were a little underhand not telling anglers that may of used this method of joining that there would be a £5 surcharge.

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Having just renewed my car insurance, the quotation stated that I could pay a one-off cost of £XXX or could pay 10 monthly payments of £XX with a balance of £YY meaning I would pay £XXX + £YY, but they didn't tell me the extra would be a 'surcharge'. It's just what is expected when you pay on the drip. I pay the one-off cost every time, I may be lucky, but I also begrudge paying interest on anything!

On another case, energy bills, we do pay on monthly direct debit, but this doesn't affect the final price of the energy we consume. However, they recently advised that we would need to pay more as the present amounts would not cover the predicted energy we would consume. Fair play, but they put the DD up by 121% and more than twice the value of energy they predicted we would use. Is that fair? I have written to them, but no answer yet even though they promised one within 24 hours more than a week ago.

When it comes to fair dealings, I don't think the Trust is all bad. Not yet...

loggerhead said:

Having just renewed my car insurance, the quotation stated that I could pay a one-off cost of £XXX or could pay 10 monthly payments of £XX with a balance of £YY meaning I would pay £XXX + £YY, but they didn't tell me the extra would be a 'surcharge'. It's just what is expected when you pay on the drip. I pay the one-off cost every time, I may be lucky, but I also begrudge paying interest on anything!

On another case, energy bills, we do pay on monthly direct debit, but this doesn't affect the final price of the energy we consume. However, they recently advised that we would need to pay more as the present amounts would not cover the predicted energy we would consume. Fair play, but they put the DD up by 121% and more than twice the value of energy they predicted we would use. Is that fair? I have written to them, but no answer yet even though they promised one within 24 hours more than a week ago.

When it comes to fair dealings, I don't think the Trust is all bad. Not yet...

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I am afraid that picking the two examples were probably the worst ones you could have chosen as for me both industries are guilty of legalised theft.

I just think it would have been better to be more up front on announcing the DD method.

The 15 quid offer is for all lapsed members I believe Skippy as I know other lapsed members have had that offer. There's obviously a lot of fine tuning still to be done and the OAP discount is a good example. I'll mention it when I next speak to them.

I'm a little confused here.

Lapsed members can pay £15.00p (is that offer open to all lapsed members)
If they wanted to rejoin at £15.00p but spread the payments by direct debit, presumeably they still pay the £5.00p charge. that's only £20.00p

Existing and New members pay £25.00p or £30.00p if paying by Direct Debit, unless they are aged between 18 and 21 where they pay less.
If under 18 they don't pay at all?

It seems to me that this is all a little bit of a mess. You can't seriously ask people to pay more for the same privilage as others.

geoffmaynard said:

The 15 quid offer is for all lapsed members I believe Skippy as I know other lapsed members have had that offer. There's obviously a lot of fine tuning still to be done and the OAP discount is a good example. I'll mention it when I next speak to them.

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Geoff...I've been called many things in my time but "lapsed member" is a first for me !

15 sovs is the sort of amount I think membership should be so I will probably re-join but they really do need to be a bit more open about the pricing structure.

God awful site too...I always get this odd feeling that there is something on there I'm not supposed to find. Just naturally suspicious I guess.

The blanker......Yes, Scottish Power tried that one with me (more than double!) so I sent them a real stinker, and I mean a real stinker, of an email with just about everything in it, including the fact that I'm a pensioner blah, blah AND a detailed calculation of energy consumption for the last 3 years which proved that OVER A YEAR I was paying the correct amount.
However, I had to accept that on some occasions (obviously during winter months!) I was 'in debt' with the monthly amount and this, I totally agreed, was wrong.

My email, frank and to the point, but without resorting to threats asked that I speak to someone who could discuss this in a sensible manner and I eventually got to speak to a senior supervisor (one step down from God I think!!) who finally agreed a proper figure.

Al in all it was a good solution and the twerp who offered the original 'double' figure was led to the gallows from the way the boss spoke.......

I know this is off thread in some ways but the principal is similar in that if people would just discuss these things in a sensible manner (if one can get to chat about it!) MOST issues can be sorted........

Some time later they did try the same thing again, BUT another email copying the previous 'frank discussion' soon solved the problem!!

Never had a problem since, and after thorough checking we usually accept price hikes BUT, and a big BUT, we did go into great detail (or the wife did whilst I was away fishing(!) and we came up with a 'fixed deal' which takes us to 2015 I think. It does take a lot of time and I'm lucky my wife revels in such tasks................

IMHO power issues are well worth raking over with a fine tooth comb - good deals are around, but as I say it needs work!!

I guess I am yet another "lapsed member" as well then, but to be totally honest it has nothing to do with the price of membership, discounted prices for members who have re-thought their membership or some OTT pay-as-you-go scheme.

steph mckenzie said:

I'm a little confused here.

Lapsed members can pay £15.00p (is that offer open to all lapsed members)
If they wanted to rejoin at £15.00p but spread the payments by direct debit, presumeably they still pay the £5.00p charge. that's only £20.00p

Existing and New members pay £25.00p or £30.00p if paying by Direct Debit, unless they are aged between 18 and 21 where they pay less.
If under 18 they don't pay at all?

It seems to me that this is all a little bit of a mess. You can't seriously ask people to pay more for the same privilage as others.

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As far as I can see there are 5 joining rates

£0 for under 18

£ 10 for 18 to 21

£15 for lapsed members

£25 for members joining or renewing

£30 for joining using DD





Another example of being less than honest with members and prospective members and brings into question the admin costs reason for there being no reduction in fees for disabled/OAPs, just how many individual joining rates are there? I don't know how they expect anglers to trust them when the cannot be honest and open.

S-Kippy said:

Geoff...I've been called many things in my time but "lapsed member" is a first for me !

15 sovs is the sort of amount I think membership should be so I will probably re-join but they really do need to be a bit more open about the pricing structure.

God awful site too...I always get this odd feeling that there is something on there I'm not supposed to find. Just naturally suspicious I guess.

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I met up with a couple of the ATr guys on the bank today - on the Wye at Hereford for the big match. One fortunate guy walked off with a £10,000 prize! Anyway, I mentioned that there were disgruntled people complaining that there was no discount for OAPs but there was for youngsters. I was told that the reason is that so many members are of or around retirement age, the total number of discounts they would have to give would be too large a sum for them to be able to swallow. Easy to understand considering what the average age anglers are these days.

Re: No one wants to join.

I agree with S-Kippy, the AT website is rubbish and in no way attempts to inspire anyone to join the AT. Now a days, its possible to purchase dynamic themed websites for a few quid so there is no excuse for the AT in their failure to harness the power of the internet. Lord knows they have had long enough to get this crucial aspect right!?

The question for me is not the contradictions, because I see lots of those, nor whether the anti AT camp is right or the pro AT is right. Its a question of how many anglers actually join the AT and if not, why not?

I am a founding member of the SAA and know Mike Heylin fairly well. For years in the past I have been telling him that in order to win the hearts and minds of anglers you simply have to base any umbrella organisation on pure angling FIRST if you stand any chance of getting grass roots anglers to join. Have I been proven right after all these years? Of course simply because the majority of UK anglers still refuse to join the AT. And that alone is a damning testament of their outright failure to attract members.

Sites like FM and others actually inspire anglers to go fishing because they are creative, informative, and are successful at pulling all the angling churches and individuals together under the one roof. Sites like this one fully recognised the potential of using the internet for a platform to do business whilst giving the angling community what they wanted years ago. The AT only have limited platforms on which to work and the internet is their most valuable asset for PR purposes. Has the AT completely failed to harness the power of the internet?

Angling is a passion for many. Fishing for most does not revolve around the stiff and stuffy world of politics because the act of going fishing provides release from the grey worlds that many of us live and work within. The AT need to recognise the driving forces behind what makes anglers pick up a fishing rod in the first place. They also need to listen to anglers instead of telling them what they "think" it is they want to hear.

Regards,

Lee.