Saving the world on a Sunday afternoon
Nothing in life, as they say, comes free and, alas, we do need to ask that our members pay some small fees to be put toward the running and upkeep of the club. It is the aim of the committee to keep the size of these as small as possible, with all money collected being put towards insurance costs, the cost of obtaining and maintaining props and equipment or other running costs of our events.
All new members, regardless of their time of joining, are permitted to attend 3 games before they are required to pay membership or player fees.
For the year 01/10/2017 – 30/09/2018, the membership fee will be £5 with a reduced rate of £3 for members of the University of Bath live roleplay society, BLADES, and anyone intending to attend 3 or less events (not counting IC meals).
Payment of these fees grants the rights associated with membership according to the constitution.
Non-payment of fees by the end of October will lead to cessation of membership, which includes suspension from the mailing list and the website.
There is also a free option available to anyone who has been a member of the club for at least a year previously; this grants read-only access to the boards and event calendar and write access to personal data only, and does not include any member rights. This must be renewed every year as a response to the membership renewal email.
Anyone attending one of our regular, Sunday afternoon TL games as a Player (that is, playing their own Player Character and earning character points) is required to pay a player fee of £2.
You can pre-pay your player fees in a lump sum to the Treasurer, which will be recorded in the accounts book; your play fees will then be counted off against your account, with a warning when you are close to running out.
At our residential events, it is our custom to split the site fee amongst everyone who attends, be they Player, Monster or Game Master, hence we usually can’t say exactly how much it will be in advance as it depends on the site and how many people show up. We do our best to limit this cost to £30 – £40/head, with a hard limit of £50. To keep our events accessible to as many as possible, we do maintain a fund to provide discounts for those who cant afford the full cost of site fees (see details below)
In order to make it possible for people to pre-pay and to make it possible to pay for sites, once we have a site booked we work out the per-head cost on an assumption of 30 attending; people can then choose to pay this price in advance. You can pre-pay either in cash to the Treasurer or by bank transfer (email the Committee for the details).
If it turns out on the weekend that we have more than 30 people attending we will work out a new per-head cost, and the difference can either be:
If the refund amount is less than 50p the default will be that it goes to the DFF; if greater, the default is that it will go to your pre-pay account. If we have fewer than 30 people attending we will ask for the remainder to be paid at the event. If you find after you have pre-paid that you cannot attend we will refund you in full after the event.
As we want everyone to have the chance to come and larp at residentials, we have the Discounted Fees Fund for those who need it. Once we know what the pre-pay cost is going to be we will also set a discounted price that can be applied for on request by email to the committee. This works on the honour system (only apply if you really need it) and is available to anyone, not just students. This can be pre-paid or can be paid at the event; you are still eligible for a full refund if you pre-pay then find you cannot attend, but will only be eligible for the more-than-30-people discount if the full site cost drops below the discount cost.
As the DFF is paid for entirely from donations from other members, we cannot guarantee that we will always have sufficient money for everyone who applies to have the discount. If this happens, we will split what’s available between everyone who applies, but be aware that we may not be able to provide a discount and you will need to pay full price to attend.
Over recent years it has become normal for one or more of our members to offer mass catering at residential events to ease the pressure on the site kitchen and make meal times run as smoothly as possible. Anyone partaking of these services is expected to notify the chef by whatever deadline they nominate and sort out remuneration directly with them.
Any other events organised by or in association with BathLARP may invoke participation fees which will be kept As Low As Reasonably Practical and advertised in advance of any such event.
We are aware that running a campaign or a residential can be quite an expensive business for a GM in terms of props and consumables. There is a budget available to GMs to cover consumables used on games and reusable props that can be given to the club after the campaign/event is finished.
The budget for the year 2019 – 2020 is as follows:
1 This is additional to the campaign budget.
In order to claim money from the budget, please provide receipts to the Treasurer. Props will be evaluated by the Committee for their reusability before money will be transferred.