ukara - counting games whilst under 18 years old

[sawdayzero]

I have a friend that at the moment is 17 whos trying to get his ukara. and he was wondering if the games he played when he was 17 will count towards his 3 games he needs for when he turns 18. would he be able to apply for his ukara right away when he turns 18 or will he have to play 3 more games ? 

[Guest DrAlexanderTobacco]

7 minutes ago, sawdayzero said:

I have a friend that at the moment is 17 whos trying to get his ukara. and he was wondering if the games he played when he was 17 will count towards his 3 games he needs for when he turns 18. would he be able to apply for his ukara right away when he turns 18 or will he have to play 3 more games ? 

It's a good question and my hunch is that under the letter of the law, it's OK.

 

However the Site, or UKARA themselves might disagree. Better to not worry about this, ask when it's time, and just crack on some more if it's not.

[EDcase]

Its really at the discretion of the site.

If he can keep a record of the game dates he can ask them once he's done the three.

Its supposed to be with a 3 month period but that will likely be ignored because of the covid thing.

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by EDcase

[Steveocee]

I don't see why the site couldn't give him a membership and then when he turns 18 issue a UKARA number. Their discretion though, crazy idea, why doesn't your friend ask the site?

[Tommikka]

3 hours ago, sawdayzero said:

I have a friend that at the moment is 17 whos trying to get his ukara. and he was wondering if the games he played when he was 17 will count towards his 3 games he needs for when he turns 18. would he be able to apply for his ukara right away when he turns 18 or will he have to play 3 more games ? 

This is technically possible as the UKARA scheme runs on top of site membership.

 

Its up to the site though as to whether they will endorse the pre 18 games and finalise on the final game

 

If he plans to play those games anyway then there’s no loss and he could gain earlier UKARA status, if he can’t ‘risk’ the cost of playing pre 18 games and possibly having to do 3 post 18 games then he should ask for reassurance at the site 

[Rogerborg]

Yup, the moment he turns 18, he's automatically legal to buy and be sold an IF.  He's also legal to buy and be sold a RIF as long as the purpose is for use at an insured airsoft site (and one way of demonstrating that is site membership or a UKARA number).  If the site won't even start his membership qualification until he turns 18, then in practice the minimum age for getting a membership or UKARA defence rises to 18.15384615384615384615384615384615 (I discount leap years here for the sake of simplicity).

 

 

15 hours ago, EDcase said:

If he can keep a record of the game dates he can ask them once he's done the three.

Its supposed to be with a 3 month period

 

That may be a specific site's policy regarding membership, but it's not part of the UKARA scheme - that's a minimum of 3 games over a minimum of 8 weeks.  There's no maximum mentioned in the scheme itself ( http://ukara.org.uk/  ), and indeed it doesn't even mention expiry or renewal although there seems to be a policy of expiring after a year.

 

Although even at that, I wouldn't be convinced by the scheme runners' competency to do any such thing, or that retailers or Border Farce actually bother checking anyway as long as the number looks legit.

 

Try it and see.

[EDcase]

Yeah, I was a bit rough with the minimum time for doing the 3 games but at the two sites I obtained and renewed my UKARA it was at their discretion.

I do wonder if border farce actually check them properly or just look for a common format.

[Rogerborg]

1 hour ago, EDcase said:

I do wonder if border farce actually check them properly or just look for a common format.

 

When I FOI'd them a few years back, they didn't even have records of how many times (or even if) they'd checked UKARA numbers.

 

That doesn't mean that they don't, and they may have cracked down now, mind.

[EDcase]

I think someone on the forum posted that they had a problem with an import because one digit of the UKARA was wrong so I guess they do check at least sometimes 🤔

[BigStew]

7 minutes ago, EDcase said:

I think someone on the forum posted that they had a problem with an import because one digit of the UKARA was wrong so I guess they do check at least sometimes 🤔

I knew of a guy who was trying to start up a shop. Everything he tried to import got stopped by customs. He gave up because he couldn't get stock in time. After that he found out the reason everything was getting stop was because the UKARA number he was given by the site he played at didn't exist.

[Tommikka]

14 minutes ago, BigStew said:

I knew of a guy who was trying to start up a shop. Everything he tried to import got stopped by customs. He gave up because he couldn't get stock in time. After that he found out the reason everything was getting stop was because the UKARA number he was given by the site he played at didn't exist.

If he was importing stock for a shop then he wouldn’t need a UKARA number 

 

[Rogerborg]

5 hours ago, Tommikka said:

If he was importing stock for a shop then he wouldn’t need a UKARA number

 

Indeed, he should be a paying member of UKARA, or equivalent, or at a minimum have a company with liability insurance covering airsoft sales.

 

Trying to sneak masses of RIFs in by abusing a site membership scheme for players, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.