To object to paying for certificates at DD's sports clubs?

[ButtercupsBluebells]

My daughter has recently started an after-school gym club, at £6 per session. The children are given "awards" for various achievements, but these are easy to obtain and they get one most weeks! The parent is then encouraged to buy a certificate at £3 each, to be presented to the child at the next session. I think it's all a bit ridiculous, but DD is only 5 and seems to enjoy the clapping etc... so I feel bad if I don't order the certificate. Yes, I know, I don't need to buy the certificates. It just feels like a bit of a cheek that we are guilt tripped into buying these (very regularly) on top of the cost of the session. AIBU??

Same in our place. You pay £5 for their medal but only the kids who pay get the medal!

I don’t pay and my 7 yr old has been told she deserves the medal but isn’t getting it because her club are just using it to make money. She shrugs her shoulders about it. I get her her membership, gear, classes and pay competition fees etc. but not this!

That's cheeky, they could just laminate the one every week they give and then send you one to print out for 10p, definitely just a way to make money.... but £3 is probably worth the happiness of the success of earning a certificate. It's a catch22 situation you can't really opt out of....

Lots of these clubs are not particularly cash rich and everyone is feeling the pinch. It's a way of making money and those that can't afford it can opt out.

You could sort out your own certificate at home and print off with each achievement if you felt that strongly about it.

I do understand that for small kids it's tough when they feel left out though, it's difficult.

YANBU. My son goes to a drama club that, imo, costs a bloody fortune!! But he enjoys it and it’s helped with confidence etc so I’m willing to pay the fees. However, they then expect us to print out their hefty scripts ourselves! I think this should be included in the cost and is a sneaky way to save them money.

That's awful! I really object to "elitist" clubs that where a child misses out if you don't pay. I would be tempted to email them and point out they're not being very inclusive as £3 each time certainly adds up!

My kids used to do Matt Fiddes martial arts and it was the same. Everyone got tagged whether they could do the moves or not, but unless you paid (a LOT!) for a grading "exam" (where they passed anyone who paid) then your kids got stuck doing the same stuff. In the end we found a much better club where you don't constantly feel fleeced for money.

The club will be between a rock and a hard place, in trying to raise a bit of money in ways other than just increasing weekly fees.

Better to have optional costs like this than just making it more expensive for everyone.

Maybe explain they can have one a month and they can choose which one they want.

Yanbu - My kids do theatre classes and frequently come home with 'star of the week' certificates and we're never asked to pay any extras.

That seems excessive, at my son’s gym club (he’s 6) they only get them once or twice a year and they get a medal rather than just a certificate so it’s worth buying and only every so often!

Is it a club specific certificate or an accredited one?
That's the difference to me. I'd expect any club star or the week or club level 1 to be a piece of card they print out in the office.

If it's an award from a sporting body that does their official badges/medals/certificates then I don't object to a small cost, if the classes are otherwise reasonably priced. Some classes will cost more and provide the awards, but the cost is already factored into their prices.

Wow, that’s a complete pisstake! They’d be better of charging £7 a session, which is still cheap, and then rewarding the children based on merit rather than whose parents are most willing to pay for undeserved certificates.

Next time they tell you that your child deserves an award for xyz and they want to present it the following week, print out your own certificate and ask them to use that. Smile sweetly, tell them you want your child to be rewarded for their achievement but you don’t have a spare £3 and watch them squirm while they try and explain they only wanted your money in the first place.

I run a kids sports club and we only give end of season "prizes". (Everyone gets one so they're not really prizes I suppose, but you know what I mean.) The cost is taken into account when we set our subs for the year. We never make parents pay for anything else. Likewise when I organise competitions, prizes and goody bags for those who don't make the podium are factored into the overall event costs and covered by entry fees and sponsorship.
Based on what I spend myself on our certificates, medals etc I think £3 per certificate is ridiculous. Yes, printer ink is pricey these days but no way does it cost anything like £3 to produce a certificate.
I know only too well that it can be challenging to keep clubs afloat financially but I would be increasing subs, running fundraisers and approaching local companies for sponsorship before I added in another fairly regular expense for parents. It may be optional in theory but it would be hard for a parent to say no to a young child who seees all their friends getting a certificate. Yes, increasing subs might price some children out unfortunately but at least if the subs cover everything the parents are able to make an informed decision as to whether they can afford the activity or not. If you have a lower baseline but then throw in extra costs later it's going to be difficult for the parents who could only just afford the basic costs. There will always be the occasional "extra", like a trip for example, but I think anything that is really part of the core cost of the activity, and I would argue that these certificates are, should be included in the basic costs.

These clubs need to make clear, upfront when people see the prices, that certificates are £X and how often they are likely to be awarded. Transparency about costs is really important.

Swimming lessons often issue lots of badges. Theses are charged for too.

Brownies and Scouts issue badges. They are included in the (very reasonable) subscriptions.

They should include them in the price, or make them optional and no pressure ir guilting people into buying them. Some clubs do printable online certificates , ir offer them but far less public ally so those choosing g not to buy aren’t guilted by their kids.

It’s all about being transparent. Otherwise, you could be looking at tens of pounds of extra costs you hadn’t appreciated when joining. And that’s not on.

£6 a class is fairly cheap. I know this because I send my daughter to equally cheap swimming and dance lessons after shopping around!
Its good in the sense that they are keeping the fees down as it’s optional.
I think to be more inclusive they should put the fees up to say £7 or £8 a session and include the certificates. Then they will still make the money and no one will be left out.
They probably need the extra money to make the class viable

Vote with your feet. They are all businesses and its not a dirty word for them to want/need to make a profit. How they achieve it is the issue.

If parents stopped pandering to these setups they would either have to rethink their business model like others have suggested or they would go out of business to be replaced by someone who does it properly.

Nah, I wouldn’t be happy about that. My daughter is 5, has ballet classes and once a year has an exam and gets an award and certificate. We pay the exam fee as it’s an official thing, but it’s only once a year so it doesn’t bother me! She does also get “star of the week” type certificates sometimes but we were never charged for those and I think I’d laugh in their faces if they asked me for £3 to give her one 🫣

On the less positive side we do pay a small fortune in show tickets and show costumes for their annual show so still a blooming expensive hobby 🙄 thank goodness swimming doesn’t cost the same again 😂

Yanbu it used to be the same for a club I took my sons too and it used to grate

that all said I later ran my own kids activity club. It is extremely difficult to make any money out of it. Whoever the business owner is won’t be a charity- she or he will be trying to make a living.
£6 per session is fairly cheap. Certificates will be a way of making a small amount of extra income. They should optional though IMO.

I included certificates in my class fees but per year they cost me quite a lot of money.