MEMBERSHIP & HOW TO JOIN US

WHAT WE EXPECT OUR MEMBERS TO DO

Although our group initially accepted members who only wanted to walk about at events, we must now insist that any new members must be prepared to help out with a static display when asked. Please accept that it is unfair for some of our members to always put on displays and stay with them all day whilst others come along only to go off shopping, browsing and riding the trains for free.  For this reason, we are no longer able to accept new members who simply want to walk around at events and "do their own thing".

We are particularly interested in new members who have collections to show off at our events, and are recruiting people who are interested in the following:-

• British Airborne/Sherwood Foresters/Royal Norfolks or other similar considered

• Home Guard, ARP and any of the civil defence forces

• RAF personnel

• Luftwaffe pilots and groundcrew

• German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe ground troops

• American (101st Airborne)

• Royal Navy

• Russian Snipers & Reconnaissance

• Kriegsmarine

• French Resistance and French civilians to help with our "Occupied France" scenario

• Womens Land Army

• British Civilians - including evacuees

Since the wearing of SS uniforms often causes offence to members of the public, none of our group are interested in having SS re-enactors within our organisation.  Neither do we welcome anyone who holds extreme political views. 

Believe it or not, re-enactment groups even receive enquiries from very silly people who say they just want to come along to get involved in a battle and to "have a good fight with someone - for real".  If this is you, you need professional help which we aren't qualified to give.  Re-enactors don't actually "fight" anyone.  Those who take part in battles pretend to "shoot" at each other.  But the majority of our members are not even into battling.  They're far too friendly to each other for that.

HOW MANY EVENTS SHOULD YOU ATTEND?

Our group is very flexible over attendance.  Although our events diary is very full with at least one event almost every week between April and October, it is up to you to decide how many or how few events you wish to come to with us.

There are, however, a few exceptions.  There are some events which pay us a fee to attend.  The event which pays the largest amount we usually use to offset the cost of our insurance (see below) and keep our membership fees lower than many other groups.  For other events which pay, we divide the money between those of our members attending the event as part payment towards their petrol costs for making the effort to come.  We think this is the fairest way.  Members are free to either keep the money or donate it to their favourite charities.

Therefore, all we ask is that for events which are paying us, our members make every effort to attend these.  This is usually no more than 4 or 5 events per year.  These events are marked in blue in our events diary.

Members are free to choose how many of the other events they wish to come to. Your choice may depend on how far you wish to travel, how much money you have left to spend in that month, etc.  All we ask is that - as soon as possible - you tell us which events in the year you wish to attend.  Many event organisers want to know how many of our members will be attending MANY MONTHS IN ADVANCE.  It is impractical for you to decide just 2 weeks before an event that you wish to attend unless you are prepared to pay to get in as a member of the public.  For this reason, all members must be able to plan which events they wish to attend at a very early stage in the year (usually January) ....which is not always easy for those working on flexible shift working patterns.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO FIRST?

If you have never belonged to a re-enactment group before and would like to give it - and us - a try, there are two ways to get to know us and enquire about joining our group.

Email us: send an email to northernforties@gmail.com stating what it is that you would like to do in our group.  Depending on your stated preference, Mark will forward your email to one of the relevant sub-section organisers who will subsequently contact you. Alternatively, you can contact the sub-section organisers directly - they are listed on the last page of the New Members Handbook shown at the top right of this page.
 

Come and see us at an event: Alternatively, we suggest you come along to an event (as a member of the public) to see us BEFORE you join or pay membership.  You will need to meet one of our members, get to talk to them; you can ask them questions about the group and they will ask about you and what you want to do in the group.  Give them your contact details and we will contact you. 

MEMBERSHIP:

Membership is now open for this season.  If you are interested in joining, please send us an email to northernforties@gmail.com to register your interest. We will need to speak to you, and will only issue a membership form for you to fill in if we think you you will get along with us and us with you.  When we send you the membership form, you will need to return it with your membership fee to us.

PUBLIC LIABILITY INSURANCE:

Your membership fee goes towards paying for the group's public liability insurance, and part payment towards our costs of contacting people to sort out which events we are all going to.

Nearly all event organisers request that re-enactment groups and ALL their members attending their event MUST have public liability insurance.  This covers each of our members incase they cause any injury to any member of the public, or any damage to any member of the public's property.  Obvious when you take part in a battle, but even if you don't, you need to be covered if someone trips over your tent guy rope, or even walks into your (even inadvertently) poorly parked caravan.  Our members' names need to be on the insurance, or else event organisers can refuse them entry whether they battle or not.

Therefore, if you object to paying our membership fee because YOU think you don't need to be covered by OUR insurance policy, then please don't bother trying to join our group and cause an argument about it (some silly, argumentative people have done so in the past!).  We politely suggest you look elsewhere.

Public liability insurance does not cover YOU, as a re-enactor, if you get injured at an event or your property damaged, lost or stolen whilst with us.  For that, we recommend you take out your own personal insurance.