Blog

Silent Flight league events – minimum entry fees, contributions.
From the Silent Flight Technical Committee

For 2022:

• Usual £10 minimum entry fee for the results of a competition to be eligible for BMFA Silent Flight Leagues will be treated as a recommendation but not a requirement  – results will be accepted for the Leagues even where a £10 entry fee has not been charged.
• Organisers of League competitions are requested to make a £2 per pilot minimum contribution to national expenditure on silent flight.
  Contributions should be made, please, by bank transfer:

  BMFA
  Sort  code 20-49-11
  Account 80203785

  Please reference the payment ‘SFTC F5J’ [or ‘SFTC F3F’ etc for competitions in other classes. (Please  make payments after each competition rather than wait till the end of the season. And – belt and braces – please email SFTC Treasurer, Alan Flockhart, to let him know when a payment has been made – alan@alandf.co.uk )

The main change here is dropping the £10 minimum entry fee as a requirement for league eligibility. It’s been pointed out that for various reasons it is sometimes not possible to charge a £10 entry fee though the competition meets all the other requirements for inclusion in a League (notice, minimum number of pilots and so on) and should not be excluded just because of  the money.

The other change is the request to make at least a £2 per pilot contribution to national expenditure. It seems entirely reasonable that, where competition scores are entered in a national SF League, there should be at least a modest contribution to national SF expenditure.  This does not affect local competitions (whether to FAI or BMFA rules or not) where results are not going to be entered for a BMFA SF League. And, like the £10 minimum entry fee, the £2 contribution is not a requirement for League entry – it’s appreciated that there will be some circumstances in which the organisers cannot make such a contribution.  Many organisers already contribute substantially more than £2 to their specialist body or to the BMFA – please continue to do so!  ‘National expenditure’ includes  Training and Excellence events, trophies for national competitions and team travel funds.  Reason for referencing the payment ‘SFTC’ is to make sure the money is spent on Silent Flight. Reason for adding the competition class is to allow the SFTC Treasurer to know how much is coming in from each class. Expenditure will not be ring-fenced for each class but will be roughly proportionate over time.
For 2023 and forwards:

• SFTC will be looking again at the whole business of competition fees and contributions and will welcome everyone’s views.