What is our membership fee for?

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True JVB, but if you had membership but no red pennant would you still get the same level of service?

As all the Caravan Club's individual services are charged to members as and when they use them they are likely to be self financing over time, and each contribute proportionally to the Head Office costs. Some sites are bound to be loss making and if the business is run properly this is recouped through the profitable ones. The cost of administering "membership" is obviously far less than the fee charged, so what are we buying with the rest of our money?

An obvious service the Club provides is running the CL network. And here I need some help with the figures, as I need to know how many CL exist and how often they are visited by a paid officer of the club, and what is involved in adding and removing a CL from the network in terms of paid officer time. If someone can supply that information I think we will find that is where the ballance of the membership fee is spent.

The magazine is something of a red herring as most of the cover price of any magazine in the high street is distributer costs and profit, so a plastic sleeve and a printed address is almost insignificant - leaving only the editorial and printing costs to be recouped.

True JVB, but if you had membership but no red pennant would you still get the same level of service?

...And no membership no double journey with Mayday(green flag)

 

we also have insurance with cc and when awning damaged in storm got replacement by courier following day

To answer a few of the points raised:

To those who ask why we are still members, I can say that there are plenty of organisations that we stay with but that doesn't stop us questioning the price. Not questioning it will invariably mean that the price will continue to go up beyond inflation. And frankly, having a team of well paid 'executives' in HO does nothing to enhance our caravanning experience.

Buying cars - a lot of dealers (like Volvo) offer big discounts from time to time. Organisation latch on to these and offer them to their members (my own professional organisation offer similar discounts) but you would be able to do at least as good a deal yourself - we saved well over £5,000 when we bought our Volvo.

Running the CL network - I can see that this is a popular reason for staying with the CC. But we also join the ACSI scheme which list far more sites and charge about a quarter of CC membership. And the sites are cheaper. And they provide a handbook with prices.

I raised this as a genuine question, because it seems to me that in many cases, we are simply paying a fee to be able to buy something from the CC, at a profit to them. Would you pay a fee to join the 'Tesco Club' to enable you to buy your groceries there?

Refer to thread entitled A Big thanks to CC and P&O. Maybe that will explain the purpose of belonging to CC.

With Red Pennant that is the service you get, nothing to do with your membership fee

and for which you pay handsomely.  RP, like CC site fees, are generally higher than other avaiulable services. I too am a member for the CL network.

Red Pennant is run by a commercial insurance company - just look where any claim has to be sent. 

Red Pennant is run by a commercial insurance company - just look where any claim has to be sent. 

...Most insurances are run by other companies than the company  that advertises them, but its what has been negotiated for the insured that you get,its the same with mayday

Refer to thread entitled A Big thanks to CC and P&O. Maybe that will explain the purpose of belonging to CC.

If you move your account to Nationwide and take up the Flexplus cover which costs £10 a month, you get the same cover as Red Pennant included and breakdown is included.  That is about the third of the price that RP charge and it cvoers you for the UK also!  Mayday costs us £109 annually for premium cover and then over and above you have the cost of RP breakdown cover for continent touring.

So in fact no necessity to be a CC member for better options or discounts however as we prefer CLs we remain members even though we do not really see any other benefits.  BTW any one can open a CL, they do not have to belong to a club like the CC or C & CC!

True Surfer, both CC and CandCC, along with local authorities offer opportunities for small site set up. Hoops and conditions to jump through with each one, no doubt, and talking to some small site owners all three have both pro's and con's. I doubt very much that a vast percentage of this Club's income is dedicated to the CL network. Two, three inspectors (now there's a retirement job!), one maybe two staff at HQ, contributing to administration, marketing, IT updates (!), etc....

Vast majority of input and expenditure for a CL is down to owners.