Membership and Subscriptions
Membership of BCRA is open to all individuals and organisations world-wide. We are
affiliated to the British Caving Association. Individual and Group members of BCRA
must pay a small fee for additional membership of the British Caving Assocation, which can be as
low as £8. (To find out why, scroll down to Why
do I need to join BCA as well?).
Associate Member is a "subscription" class of membership
Non-Member Subscriber is an additional non-membership class –
Associate Members
Non-Member Subscribers receive no membership benefits and do not pay for
additional membership of the British Caving Assocation.
Join or Renew here: To join BCRA please use BCA's form, here
, and specify the option to join BCRA.
If you have a problem paying a membership fee or a subscription, please contact us as
follows...
- For BCRA membership and Publications Sales, please look at our contacts list under
General_Enquiries.
- For BCA membership (British Caving Association), please look at our contacts list
under BCA_Enquiries.
Click/Tap a link or scroll on down.
Classes of BCRA Membership and their benefits
BCRA offers
three
two classes of membership – Individual and Group.
and Associate
We also have a Non-Member Subscriber class that allows you to subscribe to
our periodicals without actually becoming a member. (See Subscriptions to BCRA Periodicals).
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
Non-Member Subscribers do not receive any membership benefits.
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.
Members of BCRA have free access to all of BCRA's online content. Non-members can
obtain free monthly access to Cave & Karst Science, 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 and subscription fees for 2025.
| Category — |
Individual |
Group |
Non-Member
Subscribers |
| Applicable to: |
individuals, world-wide |
UK and Éire-based caving clubs only |
academic organisations, libraries etc |
| Benefits — |
|
|
|
| Fees: |
£54 —
caving member
£42 — non-caving or overseas
member
£10 ♦
— undergraduate students
£0 ♦ —
Under-18s
♦ – without C&KS on paper, unless it is requested |
Basic BCRA fee – £30
Additional (and optional) BCA Group membership – £36
|
£50
—general rate
£8 —Student rate |
| Fee reductions: |
deduct £12 if C&KS on paper is not
required |
— |
| BCA Membership: |
Fee includes membership of British Caving Association |
Membership of British Caving Association is not required for Group members
or Subscribers. |
| Free online UserID: |
Online applicants only
From July 2024 an Online ID is available only on application, see
Obtaining an Online ID. |
| IP-based online access: |
On request |
| Discounts on publications: |
Yes |
Yes
Using group's online ID |
No |
| Eligibility for BCRA grants and bursaries: |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Free copy of BCRA Review: |
No |
Yes
if C&KS supplied on paper |
No |
| Voting rights at BCRA AGM: |
Yes |
Yes
Group receives one vote |
No |
| Voting rights at BCA AGM: |
Yes |
No |
No |
| BCA's PL insurance: |
Yes |
Yes
if group is a BCA member |
No |
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 Groups or
Associate members
Subscribers. You should contact us to make sure you receive any back-issues of C&KS
that are owed to you.
How to Join BCRA
| Individual Membership |
Indivuals should join by using BCA's Form; 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
using BCA's Form.
- 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 |
Students should join by using BCA's Form and should specify the option to join
BCRA.
- Students are defined as under-18s or full-time undergraduates.
|
Subscriptions to our Periodicals
Non-Member Subscriptions are intended for organisations such as libraries and
universities for which individual membership would not be appropriate. Please refer to
Subscriptions to BCRA Periodicals. Please note
- There is no agency discount
- Online user-ids are now issued only on request; formerly this was an automatic procedure if
you paid online
- You should contact us if you wish IP access to be enabled for you.
- You can specify separate delivery and billing addresses (e.g. the latter might be your
agency's address).
Also see Price Information for Subscription Agencies |
Publishing and Despatch Schedules.
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.
- Caving members – £24
- Student members (caving or non-caving) – £10
(plus free membership of BCRA
if required)
- Non-caving members – £8
- Under-18 members – £0 (plus free membership of BCRA
if required)
Students
and under-18s
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.
This is a "paperless" subscription, so if you would like to receive Cave & Karst Science
on paper (free of charge), you need to request this.
An additional option for students 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
- BCRA's membership administration is handled by a member of BCA staff. BCRA does not pay BCA
for this service, although it does make a contribution to staff costs for other activities carried
out by BCA staff on behalf of BCRA. See Employees and
Associates.
- BCA makes a large contribution (currently some £12,000 per year) towards BCRA's
maintenance of the National Caving Library.
- BCRA's field meetings are covered by BCA's third-party public liability insurance. See
Insurance (BCRA Meetings).
- BCA's insurance extends to providing contents insurance for the Caving Library and
directors and officers insurance for BCRA officers.
Data Table
Intended for staff use, here is a list of the basic, 'atomic', fee elements...
Array
(
[Fee Year] => 2025
[Basic DIM fee] => 24
[DIM non-caving] => 8
[Basic BCRA fee] => 18
[CKS on paper] => 12
[BCA Student fee] => 10
[BCRA Subscriber] => 50
[BCA Under-18] => 0
[BCRA student/u18 upgrade] => 0
[BCA Group fee] => 36
)
