Newsletter

Summer Newsletter 2021

To Participate or Not to Participate That Is The Question

Actually it’s not about participating or not but more about trying to take part in 12 club related activities during one membership year.
I bet you are wondering why we are so keen on all our members signing up to agreeing to try to participate.


The Club is a member of The Community Amateur Sports Clubs scheme which was introduced in April 2002.
It has enabled the club to register with HMRC and benefit from a range of tax reliefs. It also gives the club access to the most up to date information available about their tax obligations and any reliefs available to them.

MMBFC has enjoyed considerable tax benefits from being a member of CASC, on average over £6,000 a year.
The club has enjoyed these benefits for several years and we wish to ensure that we continue to comply with the CASC rules.


A new rule asks all clubs to ensure that their members attempt to or participate in at least 12 club related activities in a year. This includes fishing trips either in a boat or from the shore, attendance at club evenings, coaching or guidance to novice members, repairing or help with the maintenance of the club assets e.g. boats, equipment, chalet and mini-bus.


However, in addition it asks the club to keep adequate records of the levels of participation. Therefore, we need to record members participation in any of the above activities. We already have records for you on all boat trips you take part in and all beach trips we organise, but realise that many of you also participate in fishing outside of the Club and those trips can count as well. We don’t expect you to keep these additional records but we will need you, whenever you go fishing to please let the club secretary know by sending a text or an email or posting it on our facebook page. It is only when you go fishing that we need to know not where or what you catch. We need this information to start to come in as to
date I have had no information if you’ve been shore fishing, helped with cleaning up the Oystercat or attended a Thursday night social since July 1st All the above would count towards your participation score. Even if your trip is cancelled because of bad weather or skipper illness it still counts for these records. We need to show that at least 50% of our members have achieved 12 club related activities within a year.

 

Please help the club which in turn helps you as those tax benefits means that money stays in the Club Funds rather than paid in taxes.

You will be contacted by our Membership Secretary to sign up to the participation if you haven’t already.

 


So just using our boat records I have been able to show how our participation level would look if requested by CASC


Participation Level - 2019

111 individuals fished with the club
18 individuals fished 12 times or more times ( 16%)
20 individuals fished between 9 and 11 times (Add this to above 34%)
9 individuals between 12 and 20 times
5 individuals between 21 and 30 times
3 individuals fished over 31 times
1 individual reached 38 times
44 individuals fished less than 9 times


Participation Level - 2020
86 individuals fished with the club
12 individuals fished 12 or more times (13%)
10 individuals fished between 9 and 11 times (add to above 25%)
9 individuals fished between 12 and 20 times
1 individual fished between 21 and 30 times
1 individual fished between 31 and 40 times.
1 individual reached 42 times
52 individuals fished less than 9 times


Of course our levels were down because of the Covid restrictions. These are taken from boat records only and I am certain that the levels would have been much higher with shore trips, social night attendance and maintenance help included.

You can perhaps see now why it is important to let the club secretary know when you have gone fishing from the shore, in a river, lake or canal. When you helped with work on the Oystercat or Belle. When you attend the club social night. When you give advice to a novice angler or talk about the club to someone.

All these count towards those participation figures.
So text or email the club secretary or place on the Facebook page next time you do something related to club activities