Bus Underwriting Policy [20kb]

For safety and environment reasons, the ARA wishes to ensure that associations hosting Australian Championships organise and publicise coach transport to and from the event. In particular, many competitors will have little or no sleep during a 24 hour event, making it extremely dangerous to drive even for short distances afterwards. To encourage people to travel to the Championships without driving the ARA must underwrite coaches publicised in pre-event information to guarantee they will operate.

To achieve this goal the ARA will underwrite 100% of any loss made by the hosting state association that organises coach(es) advertised in pre-event information. Where associations provide a subsidy for each seat on the bus, the loss will be calculated on the advertised (ie. subsidised) cost of each empty seat.

To be eligible for the underwriting, hosting states must publicise details of coaches travelling to and from the nearest towns and capital cities in their pre-event information.

The ARA will not pay any additional costs incurred by state associations for the hire of vehicles used to transport competitors to Australian Championships. This includes things such as damage to self-hire buses. States hiring their own vehicles are encouraged to take out insurance.

Note: Non-hosting states who wish to organise a bus to the Australian Championships, but who do not believe they sufficient finances to underwrite this, can apply for a grant from the ARA . This must be done by the guidelines in the Grant Application Policy in the year prior to the Championships. In addition, the details of the bus must be provided to the hosting state in sufficient time to be included in their pre-event publicity.

(adopted on 03/08/2001 at the 2001 ARA AGM)