England Athletics Associated – Action Required
1st April sees the start of the New Year for England Athletics and your committee have agreed that our club will affiliate again for this 2017/18 year. Whilst many people associate England Athletics and, by association UK Athletics, with Track and Field events, it does cover cross country, trail and road running races as well.
There are two sections to membership. Firstly Tuff Fitty pay a core fee to affiliate our club; for the coming year, which importantly helps with public liability insurance. The next step, and main purpose of this article, is to let our members know that registration opened again on the 1st April for those members who wish to join the organisation individually.
People can only affiliate if they are members of an affiliated club, which you will see from the above paragraph that Tuff Fitty are. The cost for individual members to join is £14 to run from 1st April to 31st March 2018.
The benefits of registration are listed on the England Athletics page. These benefits include money off offers at Sweatshop, New Balance and Intercontinental Hotels. The most visible benefit is that members will be able to click on the “affiliated athlete” box when entering races. This can save £2 on each race (*) so over the year if you are looking at just a few events like Brighton, Bognor and Worthing 10k’s you could be well on the way to recovering your affiliation fee. (*Please note West Sussex Fun Run league races are low key events that do not provide a reduction for affiliated members) There is the potential for Tuff Fitty to get one guaranteed slot to the London Marathon each year which is offered to affiliated members first.
One other very useful benefit is that once affiliated, members get access to “The Power of 10” this provides a link to many of their race results. Examples seen include Park Run results, and also the Brooks Sussex Cross Country League as well as many of our local races (not Fun Run league however). There is at least one Tuff who is a member simply for this access to their own results. Interestingly Brighton Half isn’t shown this year, although it was last year; is this because if was short!
Your committee are committed to this affiliation as the ability to take up individual registration is another great benefit of being a member of our club. It is important to state that some people do still select ‘Affiliated Club’ despite not paying their own individual registration on entering races. We have been warned that England Athletics are increasing spot checks to ensure compliance. Indeed many race entry links will not permit this discounted fee during online entry without entering a correct URN.
Affiliated members will receive a URN – Unique Registration Number. Do you wish to affiliate? If you are taking part in several run races the case for joining is compelling. You will need to pay £14 across to our Chairman – Clive Harvey. He can set your details up on England Athletics portal and respond with your URN quickly. Please pass money over or ask for bank details in order that the transfer may be completed. Existing affiliated athletes retain the same URN. Any questions please contact Clive at clive.harvey@tinyworld.co.uk. The quicker you join the quicker savings can be made on selected race entries.
Please note the membership portal does not open for the year until 1st April, so any payments made before then will be held until the system is live. Any questions, please contact Clive
