Bluebell Railway General Discussion

I think there is another point about life membership, which is that the CCBS structure is about providing a community benefit, and that makes it difficult to have tiers of membership that have different benefits. So for example you can have members and those members can get benefits, such as discounted travel - but you can't have some members who get discounted travel, and others who get free travel.

So the workaround for that seems to be that the CCBS will just have one form of member (with whatever benefits package is agreed); and for existing BRPS life members, they will separately get a kind of non-transferrable "privilege card" to reflect their former privileges.

That is then where the concept of a "liability" comes in, because the CCBS will in effect have a liability to provide travel for a group of people who have been given that privilege; but the liability will decrease over time as existing life members die but no new ones are being created.

So I think the term is being used in a formal accountancy sense, but there is no sense that people who have - perhaps many years ago - paid a life membership are in some way a drain, and there is a clear recognition that in many cases they represent people who are deeply committed to the railway and have - as @Spamcan81 says - often subsequently provided additional support, either in donations or volunteering or both.

Tom

 

And the wider, non monetary, debt owed to them is one of the factors lost by some in previous discussions on this theme

 

A few years back at an AGM I was discussing with another life member whether a nominal £5 payment should be made for things like galas. Very much in favour but I get the sense it's all or nothing with this approach, which probably a lot easier to manage.

I'm the same as @Spamcan81 - always take plenty of cash for the donation boxes and buy stuff from the supporter group stands plus the railway shop when at a gala, as well as on a normal running day. Life membership is a sense of commitment to the health and future of the railway but that's no reason not to back that up with financial support.

Regards,

Dan

 

As part of that assessment, here's something I wonder about - but I have no idea if the Bluebell has done it. Does anyone have any idea?

Look at the legacies that come in each year, and divide them into i) legacies that come in from life members, and ii) all the rest. The sum of the amounts in i), divided by the number of life members (either the total number, or the number that have been lost that year - I don't know which is more appropriate to use for this) gives a number for a major part of the 'value' of life members, that year.

The concept is that 'life members' likely feel a stronger bond to the railway, and are thus more likely to leave a bequest to the line. That's probably true - but it would be nice to confirm that with real numbers.

Noel

 

6 months according to another site