[CUCBC Captains] CamCons Fees Consultation

[JCBC President]

Dear all,

As Conor mentioned at the meeting, several of the Conservators are elected
councillors. I've highlighted them below, as well as their wards, and
student areas within the wards. Remember that, in local elections, students
can vote BOTH at their term time and out-of-term addresses. British, EU,
and Commonwealth citizens are all eligible to vote in local elections.

   - Mike Seargent (Labour, City Council) represents West Chesterfield.
   This is the area North of Jesus Green and Midsummer Common including
   Magdelene and Clare Colony.
   - Katie Thornburrow (Labour, City Council) represents Petersfield. This
   is the area North of the station up to around Grafton and West of the
   station around Botanic Gardens. It includes Hughes Hall, Caius Harvey Road,
   ARU, and Mill Road town side of the bridge.
   - Alan Cox (Lib Dem, City Council) represents Trumpington, popular for
   private accommodation.
   - Anna Bradnam (Lib Dem, County Council) represents Milton & Waterbeach.

Personally, I would be highlighting that rowing is beneficial for your
health and well-being, as well as having a much lower risk of coronavirus
transmission than many alternative student activities (eg: clubbing), and
how fee increases are likely to impact this.

Kind regards,

Josh

------

Joshua Blake
President & Coxing Captain 2021-22
Jesus College Boat Club


On Thu, 21 Oct 2021 at 02:02, Conor Burgess <conor at cucbc.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Following on from the Captains’ Meeting, please find attached the
> documents which John and Bill have put together based on their insights
> into the Conservancy. Additionally, I also include the Conservators recent
> announcement of their restructuring (only published last week, right
> towards the end of the consultation period) and an additional paper which
> explains their rationale for this restructure in greater detail. Whilst the
> fee increases and the restructuring are in theory separate, I’d be
> surprised if the timing and motivations behind them are not linked.
>
> Ultimately, the headline figure is that the Conservators income from
> rowing vessels, if the proposed fees are accepted by the Conservators, will
> increase by around 38% in a single year, and go on to increase further over
> subsequent years at a rate which will still exceed the likely increases in
> inflation / CPI.
>
> You can find the consultation documents here:
> https://www.camconservancy.org/about-1
>
> Please note that John’s document was written before the question numbers
> were fixed; what were Q11-13 are now Q10-12.
>
> For Q8 I’d suggest you consider only the costs they ask about; i.e. owning
> and operating your boats, and not your club’s expenses as a whole, or
> boathouse costs etc. The only other fees that you likely pay to own and
> operate your boats specifically are insurance and (if applicable) racking
> fees, so Cam Conservators License Fees may amount to a large proportion of
> the “overall cost of owning or operating your boats”.
>
> For Q9, you might mention other things that you’d have to cut back on to
> afford the increase, e.g. coaching or updating equipment etc.
>
> For Q11, a large proportion of the Conservators income is from commercial
> vessels (and in particular commercial punts) - these vessels generate
> income and thus you could argue that charging them more is entirely fair
> and appropriate, rather than increasing the fees applied to people who are
> trying to use the river to keep fit and healthy.
>
> For the final question, you might like to mention who your response
> represents, as I don’t see how they’ll know who’s responded otherwise. This
> is where you can put together your impassioned arguments about how the
> proposed fee increases will reduce accessibility to the river for health
> and wellbeing purposes, or the crippling impact of a potentially 60%
> increase in costs (if you register mostly eights) when your budgets for the
> year have likely been set and agreed already (or will be soon), or even
> question why the Conservancy aren’t doing more to source funding from other
> avenues, such as the City and County Councils etc.
>
> As a final reminder, the consultation is only open until the 25th October,
> so please do take 10-15 minutes to respond this week.
>
> Best wishes,
> Conor
>
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> captains at lists.cucbc.org
>
> List Manager: webmaster at cucbc.org
>
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