BMFA - Member, or Not?

I'm not in any sense an active member of the BMFA and its sidekick, the British Drone Flyers element. For a start, I don't see an awful lot of lobbying going on to secure better privileges for BDF members in an increasingly drone-hostile regulatory environment, led by the CAA.

But I am, nevertheless, a paid-up member of BMFA/BDF because, like so many, I find the £25 million public liability insurance provided in exchange for the £49 annual membership a reasonable offering.

So, as a member, the BDF newsletter came through to my inbox a couple of days ago. It had little content beyond some pretty drone images and competition results in the same vein. 

At the end of the newsletter - which I would reasonably think is only sent to current members - a link was provided for anyone who wanted to submit up to three images for inclusion in a future newsletter and entry into the next competition.

So, I did just that. Not that I take such things seriously.

Mountain dam and access road in north Wales. One of my submissions to the BMFA/BDF competition that didn't quite work out as it was meant to. (C) This blog's author.

 

A few minutes later, my inbox pinged that I had a new email from the BMFA. It thanked me for my submission and reminded me that I had permitted, via the submission process, the  BMFA to use my images in, essentially, PR material, as indeed I had.

I was then told that my images couldn't be entered into the competition because I am not a member! Which is all very odd, because I have an email receipt and membership confirmation from March 28th this year - less than two months ago.

I suppose this merely indicates that the process of data updating within BMFA isn't very efficient. Even so, this assertion that BMFA could use my images as a non-member for their own purposes, yet not allow my entry into their competition, wasn't exactly my recollection of the agreement made at the point of submission. That agreement was on the basis of an offer and thus the attendant expectations surrounding entry into a competition as a member - which I am.

Quite why the BMFA system doesn't simply check entrants' membership number before proceeding to the entry stage for the competition is anyone's guess. Accepting the images and only later rejecting entry is a very arse-about-face way to go about things and doesn't foster good relations.