As membership secretary, in these difficult times for us all, I have been considering how the Society could further support all our members balanced with the fact that the largest proportion of our income from your membership subscriptions is spent on managing and maintaining our fisheries for us all. Any reduction in that income could adversely affect this ability to manage and maintain our fisheries therefore any support needed to be reasonable and measured to protect and maintain the financial strength of the Society. 

The General Committee has now reviewed my proposal resulting from these considerations which they have approved:

Coronavirus and membership subscriptions

We are asking all members who are in a position to do so to support us during this difficult time by renewing your membership for next season sooner rather than later thereby helping to support our Society to remain strong.

To support and help our members we have already announced that the Late Entry Fee for all 2019-20 season members is suspended for next season, i.e. for any member who is unable to renew their membership by 1^st July 2020 there will be no late entry fee payment required for renewal applications received after that date at any time during the season.

Now, following the government relaxation of the lockdown rules that allowed fishing to restart within those rules, we reopened some of our waters on 13^th May. However the relaxed lockdown rules will be tightened again if there is an escalation in transmission of the virus from person to person with the associated increase in the number of cases. If that were to happen we may have to close our waters again (and maybe more than once) over the coming months. Therefore we are pleased to offer further help and a degree of certainty for our current 2019-20 season members (and for new members joining for the 2020-21 season) regarding membership fees: 

• we will continue to accept and process both renewal and new membership applications.
• if all of our waters are closed for any consecutive 30 day period from the 1st July start of the 2020-21 season specifically because of coronavirus, and you have renewed before any such period of closure, we will reduce the following 2021-22 season annual membership fee for senior, senior citizen, senior disabled and young adult members by one twelfth for up to a maximum of 3 such periods of closure. Please note that:
  • Johnson’s night permit fees, junior fees, donations and entry fees are not included.
  • senior citizen and other members who currently receive a complimentary (no fee) renewal membership will continue to do so.
  • the 2021-22 renewal forms sent out to members in March 2021 will include:
    • any reduced amount for each of the annual renewal fees.
    • a coronavirus donation option for any member who is able and willing to return any fee reduction as a contribution to the Society.

We do believe this provides proportionate, consistent, fair and equitable help to all members including those who have already paid their renewal or new member fees for next season (approaching 500 so far) for which we thank you. It is worth repeating that we urge as many members who are in a position to do so to renew for next season sooner rather than later. We would also request that renewal or new membership payments be made online by BACS bank transfer wherever possible as paying in the number of cheques we receive into a bank has been challenging.

However we also recognise that some members who wish to renew may be facing financial hardship. If you find yourself in that situation please contact me in confidence to discuss a way forward and I will do my best to agree with you a plan of what, when and how you would be able to pay the fees.

Thank you all and stay safe.