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    ESR membership mandatory to play in the leagues - update

    Update - added second bullet point about costs for leisure centres

    A number of clubs have been asking about the costs and how they go about checking/joining/re-joining ESR and, as is unfortunately typical, it's not easy to find out/do on the ESR website. The good news is that ESR are working through an IT strategy to overhaul their website and get this sort of thing sorted. In the meantime... we email them.

    So for the details:

    • The costs for clubs are £55 per court for a maximum of 4 courts plus £7.50 per adult league player, £5 per junior league player
    • The costs for leisure centres are £55 flat fee plus £7.50 per adult league player, £5 per junior league player.
    • The person to contact at ESR is Steve Jones. Please email [email protected] directly with your details (name & address of club, contact name, contact details, number of courts & members). He will be expecting you!
    • I have a list from ESR of clubs and whether they are paid up or not. If you want to know what it says about your club please ask and I'll let you know directly
    • Try to get a list of player names for the club but it doesn't have to be exact and players will come and go anyway. The numbers need to be about right though - no cheating please - the ESR list does include the numbers
    • There are log-ons for each club to manage your account. That's a follow-up I have yet to have but when I know more I'll pass it on.
    • Please let me know if/when you contact Steve so (a) we are in the loop and (b) we can help with any confusion. I've been emailing Steve quite a bit so he knows what's going on.

    Obviously if your club is all paid up and joined (which most are) then this is just for information - you don't need to do anything.

    Note that if you like to watch PSA Squash TV, there's a good discount available if you're a member of ESR. Please ask if you want to know more.

    That's it for now. Next update when I know about the log-ons.

    Thanks,

      Richard (on behalf of the committee)

    From the Avon and BAD squash committee.

    One of the actions we took from the AGM was to make a definitive decision about ESR membership – should it be mandatory or should we leave it as is with some clubs opting out.

    This was taken as a topic by the committee and the decision was clear and made very quickly:

    All players who participate in the Avon/BADsquash leagues, tournaments and coaching, must be members of ESR – England Squash and Racketball.

    There are a few reasons behind this:

    • ESR is the national governing body (NGB) and their role is to promote squash across the country and support the counties. Part of their funding comes from membership and we should be supporting that.
    • ESR provides funding to Avon which is used to support the leagues, tournaments, junior development squads, the inter-counties and coaching. Clubs and players taking advantage of these should be paying their way.
    • We can’t have a situation where some clubs pay their membership and some don’t as it’s not fair on those that do.
    • ESR are beginning to get their act together w.r.t. supporting counties. There are inter-county communities being set up for sharing best practice, tools and tips and an IT initiative that is bringing the counties closer together. Avon is part of that.

    It works out at about 50p per player per league match which isn’t a huge amount – especially if compared to the price of the post-match beers. If the club feels it’s too much to pay from its own budget, it could/should charge a match surcharge for league players to cover it.

    We also need to be clear of the situation if a club still decides to opt out of ESR membership – it’s still optional after all – and it’s simply that those clubs/players who aren’t members of ESR will not be able to participate in these organised events – including the leagues starting in October. Hopefully this gives enough time for clubs to decide which way they’d like to go – we’d obviously prefer all clubs to continue to play in the leagues but it’s their choice at the end of the day.

    Note that 97% of the clubs and players are already affiliated with ESR so this message is really only intended for the 3% that aren't.

        The Avon and BAD squash committee