Hello fellow SCBBBC,

I am writing expressing my concern about membership. To my understanding, the amount of people making to the TOC depends upon how many paid members we have. I think it's only fair to say that if you fish more than two tournaments in our club that you should paid to be a member. I don't think it's fair for some people to work really hard to find out that if certain individual paid their membership they would have made. I know I came close but what would have made the difference not just for me, but for someone who is even closer like in 11 or 12 place to have come so close. Only to be disappointed because we had several people who have fish all or most of our tourney and did not paid their membership.
I don't know about everyone, but we should make it mandatory to become a member. I know that my membership will help the people who have worked so hard to make it to the TOC. They deserve to be there and so does everyone. Let's not let one membership fee keep someone who should have gone and couldn't because that person didn't pay.
Thanks,
Binh

I agree with you 100%. When I first read your post I had to go and review the SCBBBC Rules. Then I went and reviewed the BNT rules.

I thought somewhere I heard that you could fish one event without being a member in the year but a second time you needed to join or the second time it was more expensive to participate.

YES, things were very close this year. So far it appears that four anglers fished more than once with us and did not pay their Membership (which helps our club). Bummer.

But, I did not see anything about this in either Clubs Rules. So, I have added it to my list of things to be discussed and voted on that I am going to present at the next Club Meeting.

Currently the SCBBBC President is reviewing that list and I plan to post it in the next day or two. I hope that others would also let me and the club know of other concerns, ideas, suggestions and info that we can include in our meeting.

Just my two cents!

John Stangle
(Mr. Zero)
18th Place his first year :7

That's a good point, Binh. I'm surprised to hear that some people fished several tournaments without joining, since in the long run, it's cheaper to join rather than pay the extra $5 or whatever the cost is now. Also, the membership fees help pay for BASS affiliation, which pays for the liability insurance. Not only does that allow the club to get permits at many of the lakes it fishes, but it's also important for protecting the interests of everyone in the club, especially those who have families, jobs & homes they're responsible for.

On the other hand, you don't want to discourage casual tubers who just want to give the club a try. If they're still on the fence after fishing a tournament, they may back off fishing another one if it's going to cost them an extra $40+. Also, guys who start fishing at the tail end of a season would have to join even though they don't have a realistic shot at making the TOC. Finally, the club has members who fish few, if any, tournaments, which kind of inflates the number of TOC qualifiers.

It wouldn't solve the issue you're bringing up, but maybe a compromise would be to charge a higher fee to non-members after they've fished their 1st tournament - at the current $5, someone could fish 7 tournaments & still come out slightly ahead. Maybe it should be increased to $10 or $15 to reduce the "free rider" issue.

Thanks for posting on this.

This is what BNT has done in the past. You can fish 1 event as a non-member. No extra cost or anything to fish this event, but you only get 1. If they decide to come back and fish the next event and its late in the year Paul and I would discuss whats fair for the new member to pay for there dues. If there is only 1 or 2 events sometimes it doenst make sense to charge the BASS Fed. stuff or add them to the list. We were just sure to make it clear to the member what exactly they were getting or not.

Binh I agree with you dude. If you're gonna fish with the club, pay your dues or else kick down the extra $5 bucks. There were some people this year that fished more than 2 club tournaments without paying. But from what Stangle says, there is an un-written rule about paying an additional 5 dollars after your first two tournaments with the club, and I don't believe some of the newbies knew about that, nor did club officials regulate on it. So I think it's an issue that should be discussed at the next meeting, but mandatory club enrollment is a whole different bag of worms.

Dave P.

Thank you Binh,,
Speaking as the defending T.O.C. Champ, I am very dissapointed with the paid membership issue, and I will leave it at that for now. I think we have a few issues we have to deal with as a club, and I plan on keeping that in house. Congrats to all who made the T.O.C., I will see you at the weigh in Sat. Good luck this weekend guys!

Scott