Geoffrey Richmond told Notts County MAD why the 5% discount for season tickets to lifeline members was scrapped for this season
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When asked by the Editor, Mark Stevenson "Will the 5% discount be allowed to Lifeline Members as it has been in the past 15 years?
Richmond answered: No there will be no lifeline discount going forward. The reason for that is this: Lifeline has currently an annual income from its members of about £160,000. That’s £104 per annum paid by approximately 1600 members. So it has a total income of around £160,000. It pays out in prize money cars and holidays a sum of £127,000. In addition to that it needs a full time member of staff to run it. And over and above that there are various other costs: credit card charges from the bank, stationary, advertising, postages etc.
So lifeline’s present level of membership is profitable but as seen from the figures above the profit is very narrow. If we were to give 5% discount as in the past fifteen years where for the vast majority of that fifteen years the membership has been something over 2,000, we would infact be losing money on lifeline.
Now I have spoken to many lifeline members and they have told me that there principal motivation to be a member of lifeline is A) to help the club, there secondary motivation is that there is some chance to win a cash prize or a car and it comes way down the list does the 5% discount on season tickets. 
We have however, retained the 10% discount on selected items in the shop. One very positive way in which supporters can help the club going forward is supporters who are not lifeline members to join. As each additional member at the present membership level put £104 profit onto lifeline. So each hundred members puts £10,000 profit onto lifeline. An extra 1,000 members would produce £100,000 extra profit for lifeline, which would make a real difference to the club going forward. The prize money remains the same and the administration of lifeline and all the other expenses remain the same. So what is crucial to the club going forward is an increased membership on lifeline.
