BCRA > Newsletter > Newsletter 9

Newsletter 9, May 2008. PDF format. 250K

BCRA Membership Renewal: Special Offer to ex-members

Membership and Subscription Renewals for 2008

For most of our members and subscribers, your membership/subscription expired with Cave & Karst Science 33(3) which was shipped in January 2008. UK members should have received a membership renewal notice from BCA in December 2007. All other members and subscribers should have received renewal documents with the mailing of newsletter 9 (see below for further information). To continue to receive C&KS you have the options to ...

• Join BCA and pay a supplement to join BCRA. You will receive BCA and BCRA newsletters, Speleology magazine and Cave & Karst Science.
• Subscribe to C&KS without joining BCRA. The only publication you will receive is Cave & Karst Science. This may be the cheaper option if you live overseas or do not need other benefits of membership

For 2008, BCRA is offering a lower membership fee to members who do not wish to receive Cave & Karst Science on paper. All members will have access to C&KS online from the time when C&KS 34(1) is published. From volume 34, the paper version of C&KS will be printed with some inside pages in colour.

Renewal documents
Newsletter 9 was shipped with a bundle of documents for membership and subscription renewals. These comprised...

• A Cover Note (PDF), explaining the options available, together with...
• Document D1 - Membership Fees and Benefits
• Form M1 - Application form for Individual / Joint Membership
• Form M4 - Application form for subscriptions to periodicals (includes information on Cave & Karst Science Online)
• Document D2 - BCA's Public Liability Insurance Scheme
• Form P1 - Order form for non-subscription publications sales

See also Membership Fees and Benefits

Administrative Notices
Payments by Credit Card: see below. Standing Order Payments: see below

Cave & Karst Science Online
A report of BCRA's plans. For further information, follow the links on our publications page

Bryan Ellis and Arthur Butcher Awards

The BCRA Library Heritage project
See Newsletter 9

BCRA's Journal Exchange Programme
You can read this information in our information sheet, document D3.

Cave Science Field Meeting
Wednesday 2 July, Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire. A walk led by Prof. John Gunn and Dr. Paul Wood. See BCRA diary.

Payments by Credit Card

This facility has been withdrawn in favour of online payments. Neither BCRA nor BCA can now accept postal or telephone payments by credit card. If you wish to use a credit card, please consider using the online facilities at PayPal – further details are at caves.org.uk/payments/BCA, or ask the membership office for document D1. The reasons for withdrawing the credit card facility are because the fees charged to us are too high and the new data security requirements are too onerous for a small volunteer- based organisation. It is better to let PayPal handle credit cards on our behalf.

Standing Order Payments to BCRA

BCRA has not accepted standing orders as a valid method of paying membership since 2006. This was stated in our newsletters and renewal notices, where we announced that standing orders that continued to be paid in 2006 would be treated as donations to the Association, without granting entitlement to any benefits of membership. However, some standing orders continue to be paid to BCRA. Unfortunately, because of the nature of standing order payments we are unable to cancel these payments ourselves, nor are we able to trace them via the issuing bank. Therefore, unless you specifically wish to continue to make a donation to BCRA, we should be grateful if any members who are still paying a standing order would contact their bank to arrange for its cancellation. For the further avoidance of doubt, please note that if you wish to join BCRA or to subscribe to Cave & Karst Science you must make a payment to the British Caving Association (BCA). Any standing order payment that you continue to make to BCRA cannot be used to pay for your BCRA membership or services and it will be treated as purely a donation to the Association.

This is the text of a letter that was sent out in May 2008 to BCRA members who had not renewed their membership in 2008.

Since you were a BCRA member in 2007, you will understand that membership is now implemented as a supplement to membership of BCA. The entire package of membership benefits now costs BCRA members £38 to £49, plus a surcharge of £6 to £12 for overseas postage of periodicals. Generally, people can subscribe to BCRA periodicals without being a member; and this may be the cheaper option if you live overseas or do not need other benefits of membership. However, a further option is open to you - as a 2007 BCRA member - which is that if you do not wish to renew your BCRA membership we will enrol you free of any further charge as a subscriber to Cave & Karst Science vol. 34, due to be published in 2008.

The reason we are able to make this offer to you is that, as you know, Cave & Karst Science is running about a year late in production, so the issues that should have been published in 2007 have not yet appeared. Since you were a member of BCRA in 2007, you would have been expecting to receive those issues last year. We are more than willing to send you the 2007 issues of C&KS, as and when they are published, provided that you inform us that you would like to receive them by signing and returning this letter or emailing to d.gibson[at]bcra...etc.. If you do not do this, and you do not renew your BCRA membership then we will assume that you are no longer interested in receiving C&KS.

Please note that, if you take up this offer you will not be a member of BCRA, but a subscriber to Cave & Karst Science. You will receive the three issues of volume 34 as and when they are published. As a non-member of BCRA, you will not receive the BCRA or BCA newsletters and you will not be entitled to any of the membership benefits of BCRA or BCA (which includes cover under the public liability insurance policy). If you wish to re-join BCRA, please use the application form enclosed with BCRA newsletter 9 or go to our web site for further information.