[dave k]

Has anyone got liability insurance at their club or private bouldering wall? I could really do with an approximate annual  price covering 20 adult members.

Cheers

[neil h]

you dont need it if its a private club as long as you dont charge, you can always have a disclamer, If not get personal liability, I have that to run ofsite events, you can run comps and shit under this, phone up jardin loyd thompson

[dave k]

All members pay a fixed fee per month and £100 joining fee. Would this make a difference? This covers bills and there is therefore no profit.

Are disclaimer really the answer. One of our members spoke to a solicitor who said that they are not much use when it comes to personal injury claims. All our current members have signed a disclaimer when we started the wall 3 years back and all new members have to sign one too.

Are we worrying over nothing?

Does anyone have a copy of a good (water tight) disclaimer than we could copy?

[neil h]

Disclaimers are shit, dont bother, its just more to say that you conform to the rules

our local wall is being taken to coart at the mo, a guy fell off landed badly and broke his ankle, but insurance and disclaimer doesnt count for anything apperently.


See if you run it as a private club, it doesnt matter if you make money or none profit, the fact you are charging puts you in all sorts of complications.

Also as soon as you start doing direct debits and money transferring through the bank that you cant account for, thats when you are liable, you are then charging people to use your wall. So you will then need all the paper work to go with building a wall.

I set one up not so long ago, the deal with that was, every one chipped in to start the wall, I rented the premises, which was ran as my office for work, then to get the money out of the guys using it I had a t and coffee fund, that every donated to.

Also there was a gentlemans agreament that if anyone wanted to join the gave me a one off lump of dosh.

Do you see what i mean.


you could always stick a pool table in there, or some chess boards and run a chess club,

[Monolith]

Chess can be a dangerous game neil, especially when you start involving top-flite Russian mafia masterminds.

I think neil's hit the nail on the head there. Try to eschew any 'official' financial affiliations to your 'club'. Also, do you know all the members well? I might be being a bit blase about this, but in my mind it stands to reason that all collective members should be well acquainted friends who all know the score. By taking on anyone outside of this fraternity, you may run the risk of them sustaining an injury and deciding that compensation culture is an attractive option.

[dave k]

Interesting stuff cheers- and we may have to keep things unofficial I guess.

I get that disclaimers don`t count for anything, but insurance? Surely that pays for your legal costs, when you get sued.

I am still hopeful that things can be kept official. Partly because our business rates will be £200, not £1100 (on the CASC scheme)and we will have insurance costing apparently £180 per year (as affiliates of the BMC).

Sure there will be hurdles to jump over, but I am optimistic.

[Paul B]

I think neil's hit the nail on the head there. Try to eschew any 'official' financial affiliations to your 'club'. Also, do you know all the members well? I might be being a bit blase about this, but in my mind it stands to reason that all collective members should be well acquainted friends who all know the score.

Couldn't agree more with this.... When I was looking to build a woodie (when the edge board closed) I got extremely worried by a handful of people who turned up to meetings and seemed obsessed by insurance, needless to say they weren't going to be top of the membership list.