Dudley Rifle Club - Covid-19 Update: 30/04/2020

30 April 2020

With the inability to use our range, the committee recently received the question of whether we are to be offering a rebate for the time not able to use the club facilities. This was discussed amongst the committee and decided that there will not be any rebate offered to our members at this time, here are the reasons we came to this decision;

Dudley Rifle Club operates slightly differently to other local clubs, such as WNSC or Stourport RPC for example, whereby we have an annual membership cost which is relatively low (in comparison) and a range fee for each visit to the range.

If our members are not using the range, they are not paying range donation, and consequently saving money, compared to other clubs who charge a higher overall membership, but not charge to use the range.

DRC is facing a massive reduction of income due to the closure, whilst shooting is down however we are still required to pay the clubs annual memberships to associations, insurances, building maintenance, alarm system monitoring subscriptions, home office approval and lease amongst other bills.
We have not received any form of rebate from any of these sources.
We do not have a sliding scale of membership throughout the year, there is no precedent set in the constitution for partial year fee’s so it is not something we are going to look into at this time.

With this in mind, the club is currently in a relatively sound financial position as we are and have been working towards expanding the club facilities by working with architects/planners, the local council as well as applying for grants based on these plans, which requires having money in the bank.

Great strides have been made in terms of moving forwards with these plans which include adding an additional 4-lane 25 yard range alongside our current 25 yard range amongst other upgrades (although this has been halted as an effect of the lockdown).

We have no idea how long this lockdown will last, and we are sure that the members would like to see the club come out of this government imposed lockdown financially in the black, ready to build on the foundations that have been put in place so far - this can only happen with the support of our membership.

That said, any members situation is so dire that the cost of membership could be the difference between something to eat this month, or having the bailiffs round, please do not to hesitate to get in touch with the committee as I’m sure we could come to some sort of arrangement, however in the clubs best interest we cannot offer rebates/reductions at this time en-masse.

If anyone has any further queries regarding this or any other matter, please contact us at drc@dudleyrifleclub.co.uk .

Source: Dudley Rifle Club

<< News