What?
No Bogbeagle I am not going to justify my school with you or anyone else. The buck stops with me. How I run my school is my business and no one elses. Having said that I pay my instructors pretty much the going rate to most, perhaps a bit more than some other clubs and bit less than others. I also have instructors who do not need the money and are long standing associates and friends and who have the well being and success of the club at heart. I'm also sure that my paid Instructors do also. All of them have been with me for a number of years. Other members have over time done much to help keep the club alive and support me whenever they can and without payment. That maybe electrical work or something else. I would hope that they would all agree that whenever i can I recipricate those favours.
I note that you have signed yourself 'Sherburn Aero club' which I know well. Indeed i worked there myself 15 years or so ago part time/full time for almost two years. Sherburn is a big club with over 500 members with a considerable income from Membership fees/hangarage/Landing fees/rents from other users and fuel sales. The club is non-profit making and is owned by the members and administered in the main by its UNPAID directors. The club being owned by the members and non-profit making is able to be vat exempt from charging vat for most of its services subject to the Sporting and Recreation VAT exemption rules. Most years, the directors tell me, the club makes a loss on the flying training elements but this is offset by the other income. Sherburn is a smashing club and a flagship.
If you are employed as an instructor at Sherburn then you surely understand you are only paid and have the work because so many others work for nothing (unpaid directors for instance) and because of the dedication of many of its members. At one point in the clubs history during the 1980's the club faced bankruptcy. A number of individuals came forward with interest free loans worked for nothing and saved the club - that is called philanthropy and owing to that the club survived and is what it is today.
So you see, while of course I do not support exploitaion and I hope cannot be accused of it, but some will, I have been around long enough to value the contributions without pay that so many have over the years given to clubs such as mine and yours.
My reasons for contributing on this thread is to balance the argument 'that no one should work for nothing because it undermines the earnings of others'. But so many are only earning today because of the free time and philanthropy of many in the past and currently. If you work for Sherburn as an Instructor you are indeed a beneficiary of such philanthropy. There may indeed be an argument that when some who can give their services for free do so others can be paid when otherwise there simply wouldn't be the cash to do so.
Another qoute, 'those that know the price of everything but the value of nothing', Oscar Wilde.