For the avoidance of doubt, yes, it's £30. But they are designed to be cost netural over a series of them, some gain money, and some lose money. For example, in areas where we get high turnout, they will make a surplus, and in areas where we get a low turnout, we don't. That's deliberate, it means that if we want to run an arbiters' course in a fairly remote location that we don't expect many people to turn up for, we can still run it. Otherwise we'd be forever holding them in big cities.Hok Yin Stephen Chiu wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:35 pmI'm confused? Potential arbiters always have had to pay, its £30 to take the Level 1 course?J T Melsom wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:31 pmWell if you want to further diminish the value of the ECF to members by claiming potential arbiters pay their way then ok But is the increased number of courses not an ECF initiative or is it an idea of somebody who happens to be a Director? As somebody said in another context with a relatively small number of volunteers ,they wear many hats and its not always clear which hat is in the lead.
But there's no money from the membership fees that go into them directly. You could argue that because they're on the ECF website, there are some membership fees going into it in that the webmaster, who is salaried as part of his job in the Office, has to spend time putting the courses on the website to advertise.