At the 2018 YCA AGM, it was decided the Committee should look at what could be done about the fact that the Association has been losing money recently due to the successes of the county teams in progressing into the ECF stages. Accordingly, the Committee met on 25/04/2019.

The main single element contributing to losses was perceived to be money paid out in petrol expenses. The present “official” system involves an annually set match fee, but as the number and cost of ECF-stage matches balanced against those in the NCCU stage cannot be known in advance, calculating the right standard match fee for the season cannot be done. Accordingly, it was decided to recommend to the AGM a system like that currently being operated by the Open and U-160 captains which involves petrol costs of a car-driver being shared between those in that particular car. The system recommended, for both NCCU and ECF‑stage matches, is as follows:

1) petrol costs of a car-driver are shared between those in that particular car, discontinuing the “petrol allowance” as such;

2) a fixed match fee is charged to cover room-hire and refreshments;

3) the treasurer has discretion to pay for or subsidise from Association funds exceptional and/or unusual items not otherwise adequately catered for, such as arbiter costs at finals.

This system would be somewhat experimental.

The Committee decided to recommend to the AGM that the match fee be set at £4 as standard rate, with £2 for “concessions” (scope of “concessions” left to captains' discretion), though consideration was given to £5 and £2.50.

Additionally the Committee decided to recommend to the AGM that the Affiliation Fee in 4b of the Constitution and Rule A8 (long known as the Registration Fee) be set at £1 rather than the present £-zero, the latter rate having been introduced when income was higher than necessary. The aim is in part to rebuild lost reserves, an appropriate level being thought to be about £5,000.

(Present fees, for comparison, can be seen here.)