Increasing price of seminars

I'm getting a little concerned by the vastly increasing cost of the annual summer seminar. Last one was increased to £25 with no consession for attending both days, the next one it seems is going to cost £40 per day with no consession. Do people realize that on top of the course fee many people have travel and lodging expenses which makes for a very expensive weekend. Of the people I've spoken to in two dojo's noone is going to attend.

From the roshukai website:
"Some years ago, a group of like minded people in the UK began to organize regular seminars to advance the knowledge and understanding of the classical Iai of the Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu. It soon became clear that in order to do this, funds would have to be raised to finance visits from Japanese instructors. However, in raising funds the philosophy of the group is still to provide, at the cheapest possible costs to students, regular seminars with UK instructors of very high calibre. The annual membership is kept very low at just £25.00 per year, with the cost of seminars at only £10.00. This value for money approach is deliberate in order to encourage as many students as possible to join and attend as many seminars as possible."

Has the philosophy of the group changed so vastly? Who's setting the price so high and what's the reasoning behind it?

The main problem is the massive increase in hall costs in relation to numbers attending... Also note this time we are trying to get Japanese sensei to attend. If this happens, the costs rise further for hotel bills and flights. Japan to UK costs a lot more than us going there for some reason, so we usually estimate on £1000 for the fare/travel to airport, plus hotel bills for a week per sensei. Prior seminars without Japanese sensei cost us in the order of £500 per day for the hall, so a 4 day seminar plus fares etc for 3 is ten grand....scary eh? Hence a rise this year... however if no sensei are coming, the price will drop.
I am lucky in that my hall is free of charge, but difficult to book in advance for events unfortunately...If I could guarantee we could use this, we save £2000+ and could pass this on to the members.
£10,000 between, say, 100 members, so the club bank doesn't go broke...thats £100 each. The question is, would everyone turn up, so we could discount this further? If 50 turn up, should we charge them £200 or take the cash out of the bank? Usually we hit the bank... :-)
If only 20 turn up for a 2 day seminar that costs £1000+, what do we do?

The thing is we have built up funds over the last 4 years that there have been no japanese teachers here so why should the membership now have to pay a premium?
4 x £500 (hall rental for a 4 day seminar) £2k
3 x £1.5k teacher flights + accommodation (which seems a fair estimate?) £4.5k
Total £6.5k

Which is a lot less than we have in the kitty.

It's a given that a seminar such as this is never going to pay for itself which is why we pay a membership fee and there are other seminars througout the year (or last 4 years in this case) to build up the funds for these events?

£500 per day seems expensive for hall rental, there must be other venue options? Be nice to have a summer seminar some place other than Leeds for a change.

I'm just worried that the extra interest (and numbers on the seminar) that you would normally get from having japanese sensei here will be negated by the jump in costs. We are in the middle of a recession after all.

Personally what I'd do is keep the price sensible which should see a lot of people turn up and maybe breathe some ethusiasm back into the group as a whole which hopefully will make people more likely to attend other seminars throughout the year. Then put on more seminars to give people more opportunity to go on them. I missed a number I'd have really liked to have been on last year and this because of date clashes with Japan trips. But that's just my 2¢, hopefully others will have an oppinion and suggestions too.

ian
the price of the bka summer seminar was vastly more expensive than the roshukai ones
this is with more people in attendance and with the bka fund
but lets not get into politics there

roshukai seminar fees are to cover costs for hall and japanese sensei only
maybe the refreshments too
but ive got a feeling that the seniors put more than their share into these things in both money and time, unlike in other organisations

i am happy to travel anywhere for a seminar
but if you know of a big cheap hall then why not organising something yourself?
;p

Thing is Debs we're not the bka, if you choose to join the bka and attend their seminars then you choose to pay those prices. I didn't join the bka ...

I started this topic when prices were being quoted as £40 - £50 per day which I thought a bit extreme based on previous seminars especially with no concession for attending multiple days which there always had been previously. As it turned out the fees were £30 per day with a concession for doing all 3 so it was far more reasonable than originally anticipated.

I really enjoyed the 5 days training I managed to get in. Thanks to everyone that helped to organize it, as you rightly say our seniors put in a lot of time and effort in for the group as a whole. Special thanks to Tim for organizing the hotel and the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday training which was simply brilliant!

I know of decent sized halls that are available and much cheaper than the one in Leeds but in Norfolk where I live, which is not the easiest place for people get to. We have had a couple of single day seminars here in the past but only for people who live and train here. If others would be happy to travel then I'll try to organize something. I'm sure there must be other people in more central locations that can get access to a more reasonably priced hall for summer seminars though, £500 a day is pretty extortionate don't you think?