Why does KYSPA charge a membership fee?

As a charitable organisation, KYSPA is committed to being affordable for its members. Our weekly fee is quite low and we charge a reduced rate for additional members from the same family.

However, there are certain annual costs that make it necessary for us to charge an annual membership fee.

The first of these is insurance.

• We have to insure ourselves against accidents occurring to our members whilst they are in our care.
• We insure against our members causing damage or injury to other people or property
• We insure our leaders against injury and litigation
• We have a basic level of injury insurance for both leaders and members

The next set of expenses relate to training. Any organisation has to take "reasonable care" as far as risk assessment is concerned to protect its staff and members. This includes maintaining a certain level of skills for our leaders such as:

• First Aid (a legal requirement)
• Minibus Driver Training (for trips and residential visits)
• Child Protection
• Health and safety

Finally, we have running costs to cover such as:

• CRB Checks for our leaders
• Consumables such as paper, printer cartiridges, pens, costumes etc.
• YHA Membership for residentials

Beyond these expenses we also try to build a slight pool of money to subsidise the cost of trips and activities, again to keep KYSPA as affordable as possible. Although the "minibus incident" was a blow to our finances, we had built a reserve to cover the cost. (In future, by the by, minibus will be hired WITHOUT an insurance excess!)

In the coming year we will be looking to develop our main website and this, too, will require money.

Overall, KYSPA does offer a great deal for the lowest possible annual fee. As stated on the membership information sheet, if we can generate more money through successful stage productions and events, we may in future be able to reduce the membership fee to a nominal ammount. However, the Trustees do feel that a degree of financial support and commitment by our members is not unreasonable, given the ammount of free time that is generously given by all involved to keep ther Society going.

Kyspa's "year" for which the membership fee covers our members runs in sync with our insurance premium falling due, rather than the financial or calendar year. Therefore fees paid this month will cover members until November 2008.