Membership and Subscriptions

This page gives the fees for membership of the British Cave Research Asociation (BCRA). For information, the table also lists – in the right-hand shaded column – the fees for individual membership of the British Caving Association (BCA) without any additional membership of BCRA.

Membership of BCRA is open to all individuals and organisations world-wide. We are affiliated to the British Caving Association (BCA). Individual members of BCRA must pay a small fee for additional membership of the British Caving Assocation, which can be as low as £6. (To find out why, scroll down to Why do I need to join BCA as well?)

If you have a problem paying a membership fee or a subscription, please contact us as follows...

Join or Renew: Click here for Individual Membership of BCRA

BCRA offers three classes of membership, Individual, Group, and Associate.

Subscriptions to Cave & Karst Science are now handled under the Associate Member category. Subscriptions to the CREG journal (ISSN 1361-4800) continue to be available to non-members, see our subscription form

Click/Tap a link or scroll on down.

Classes of BCRA Membership and their benefits

Individual members are full members of BCRA and receive voting rights at our general meetings, a discount of 20% on most of our publications, and several other benefits as listed below. Group members receive a broadly similar range of benefits. Associate members do not receive any membership benefits. (This category is what we used to refer to as a subscriber). Student  membership is implemented as a type of Associate Membership. Students pay a small fee to receive C&KS on paper, but pay nothing if they do not wish to receive C&KS on paper.

All members of BCRA, in whatever category, have free access to all of BCRA's online content. Non-members can obtain free monthly access to Cave & Karst Science only, via the C&KS downloads pages. This Open Access allows BCRA to meet its obligations where papers submitted to C&KS have been publicly-funded - see RCUK Policy on Open Access.

These are the membership fees for 2024.
(The right-hand column lists the fees for individual membership of BCA without BCRA membership)

Category — Individual Group Associate Individual - BCA only
Applicable to: individuals, world-wide UK and Éire-based caving clubs only organisations; also students individuals, world-wide
Benefits —        
Fees: £48 — caving member
£34 — non-caving or overseas member
£28 £50 — General rate
£8 — Student rate
Caving £20, student £8, non-caving £6
Fee reductions: deduct £12 if C&KS on paper is not required Under-18s are free
BCA Membership: Fee includes membership of British Caving Association Membership of British Caving Association is not required for BCRA Group or Associate members (please contact us for details, because the online form currently still requires you to pay a BCA fee).  
Free online UserID: Online applicants only n/a
IP-based online access: On request n/a
Discounts on publications: Yes Yes
Using group's online ID
No n/a
Eligibility for BCRA grants and bursaries: Yes No No n/a
Free copy of BCRA Review: No Yes
if C&KS supplied on paper
No n/a
Voting rights at BCRA AGM: Yes Yes
Group receives one vote
No n/a
Voting rights at BCA AGM: Yes No No Yes
BCA's PL insurance: Yes Yes
if group is a BCA member
No Yes

 

Postage and Part-Year Discounts

Postage for Cave & Karst Science is now free, world-wide, so you pay just the fee listed above.

There is a part-year discount for Individual members who join part-way throughout the year. You will only be sent issues of C&KS that are published after your joining date, unless you ask - on the membership form - to back-date your membership to the start of the current year. Discounts are 25% after 1 April, 50% after 1 June and 75% after 1 September. If you join after 1 September you can also opt to join for the whole of the following year, and you pay only a single annual fee.

There is no part-year discount for Group or Associate members. You should contact us to make sure you receive any back-issues of C&KS that are owed to you.

How to Join BCRA

At present, the different classes of membership are handled in different ways. During 2024 we hope to be consolidating our various online forms but, for now, the arrangements are as described below.

Individual Membership

Individuals should join by using Form M1 on the British Caving Association's web site; and should specify the option to join BCRA.

The fee for Individual membership of BCRA includes a fee to enrol you in the British Caving Association (BCA). If you do not intend to go caving in the UK then you can join BCA as a non-caving member for just £6 (included in the fees listed above). This fee helps to support BCA in the work it does to promote caving and protect access to UK caves. The British Caving Association will send you a BCA membership card, and also your BCRA card.

Group Membership

Groups in the UK and Éire should join by following the instructions for group membership on the British Caving Association's web site; and should specify the option to join BCRA.

  • BCA membership may not be appropriate for some caving clubs where the club's members are not all indivdual members of BCA. If this affects you, caving clubs can join BCRA without joining BCA, but we do not yet have an online form for this. Please contact us.
  • BCRA and BCA use the same critieria to define what is meant by a caving club
Student Membership

At the moment students should join by using Form M1 on the British Caving Association's web site; and should specify the option to join BCRA.

  • During 2024 we hope to be phasing in our own student membership form to replace the current requirement of joining via BCA.
  • Students are defined as under-18s or full-time undergraduates.
Associate Membership

Associate Membership is intended for organisations such as libraries and universities for which individual membership would not be appropriate. We used to refer to this as a subscription. At the moment, you should continue to join using our subscription form.

  • There is no agency discount
  • An online user-id is only issued if payment is made online. If you pay by bank transfer or cheque please contact us to arrange for a user-id to be issued.
  • You should contact us if you wish IP access to be enabled for you.
  • This class of membership allows you to specify a separate delivery and billing address (which might be your agency's address).

 

Subscriptions to our Periodicals

See Price Information for Subscription Agencies | Publishing and Despatch Schedules.

Subscriptions to Cave & Karst Science are due to be handled under the Associate Member category. At the moment, you should continue to join using our subscription form

Subscriptions to the CREG journal (ISSN 1361-4800) continue to be available to non-members, see our subscription form

Why do I need to join BCA as well?

The British Cave Research Association (BCRA) and the British Caving Association (BCA) are independent bodies – we each run our own operations, set our own membership fees, and so on – but there is, nevertheless, a close relationship. BCRA is affiliated to BCA and has a seat at its governing Council; likewise, we offer BCA a seat at our own Council meetings. Additionally, BCRA limits its membership to members of BCA – that is, you have to join BCA in order to be able to join BCRA. A commonly asked question is why?!.

As the representative body for UK caving, the British Caving Association is responsible for much behind-the-scenes work, such as bolting programmes, caver training, negotiating land access agreements and much else. Additionally, a significant function of BCA is the provision of third-party public liability insurance for its members, which is often a requirement for private land-owners to let cavers on their land. BCRA believes that we need to support BCA's work so that cavers can continue to go caving in the UK – to the benefit of all people who have an interest in caves and karst. We show this support by requiring all our members to be members of BCA.

It is clear that some members of BCRA will be not necessarily be active cavers, but will be cave or karst scientists. But even if you have no intention of ever going caving, it is likely that your studies will benefit from other people having undertaken some underground exploration – perhaps producing maps and surveys or taking photos; or maybe somebody has collected some underground samples for you? It is also likely that you will benefit from the vast knowledge of caves that has been gathered by cavers over the years and which has been published in the caving literature and perhaps stored in the British Caving Library. Or, if none of that applies, perhaps you have been allowed on to private land only because the landowner knows that you have public liability insurance provided by BCA?

In recognition of the fact that not all members are active cavers, BCA weights its membership so that caving members pay more than non-caving members. The 2024 BCA membership fees which also appear in the table above) are as follows.

Students

For students (defined as under-18s or full-time undergraduates) membership of BCRA is free, but you still need to pay the BCA fee listed above. An additional option would be to simply to follow BCRA on Facebook, and to register for a free monthly log-in whenever you need to access Cave & Karst Science on-line. Note, though, that to apply for a BCRA research grant, you need to be a member of BCRA.

Group and Associate Members

Although individual members of BCRA need to be members of BCA, this is not true of Group members of BCRA (i.e. Clubs and Associations) nor Associate Members of BCRA – as set out in the table above. In addition to BCRA's stance on membership, set out above, there is an additional reason why BCRA's individual members need to be members of BCA, which is to do with the public liability insurance provided by BCA. BCA's policy extends to cover BCRA, as an affiliated body, in much the same way as it extends to cover member clubs of BCA. However, it has been established that such cover is only valid if all the members of a member club are also individual members of BCA. So, in the same way that member clubs have to ensure this, BCRA has to do likewise.

Additional Benefits of BCRA's relationship with BCA



British Cave Research Association (UK registered charity 267828). Registered Office: Old Methodist Chapel, Great Hucklow, BUXTON, SK17 8RG
Access keys: ALT + 0 Top   1 Home Page   2 Summary Information   3 Publications,   4 Contact Us   7 Accessibility, Copyright & Policy Info

This page, http://bcra.org.uk/detail/fees.html was last modified on Sun, 10 Mar 2024 11:45:30 +0000