Membership to your local club

[BenBVDiscGolf]

up here in the bulkleyvalley in northwest bc, canada we have started a non-profit BVDGA to advance dg here and help it stay a while.

curious to what other clubs do when they set the fee to join?
what benifits do you offer members?

currently $25
$5 goes to the BCDS www.discbc.com/ for 1st registration a renew alis 10 so renewal would for bvdga $30
BCDS provide insurance to have the tournaments covered at the course along with grants,club programs and all that good stuff.

we run three tournaments up here a year so a discount to members on fee.
disc
bag tag
caddy guide for the courses in the valley

i would say that there is aprox 50-90 people that play more then 5 times a season(6 months)
there is a core of regulars maybe in the 20-25 of that 12-15 might want to be members.

i guess its really finding the line where you are able to put something in the bank so your not just shelling out your own money for keeping your club alive.
that and write as many grants as possible

thanks
ben.

 

[Lewis]

The club where I've been a member used to charge $25 for new members and $20 for annual renewals. Currently they charge $15 for all annual memberships. It sounds like you're in a reasonable range, but if you drop the cost of membership, you might end up getting more people to join, and ultimately have more revenue. If maximizing revenue from membership dues is not a primary goal, consider that local parks and rec. departments favor clubs with lots of members.

 

[DavidSauls]

I'm a little confused, but here's some thoughts from one club, now nearing its 20th year, for which I was a founding member and long-time treasurer:

Membership fees don't raise a whole lot of money. You need enough to cover the expenses of memberships (disc, etc.) and perhaps fixed expenses of the club (website). Symbolically, you want people to pay enough to have bought into the plan, but not charge enough to dissuade anyone from joining. Ours are $15 new, $10 renewal.

The club's coffers are filled with a small percentage of entries for local league (mostly doubles), and running tournaments. Among other things, this means collecting small amounts of money from club members and non-members alike, but it can add up.

I'm a firm believer that a club needs money in the bank---and transparency---in case an opportunity arises that requires it. If the local government says, "Here's some great parkland for a course, if YOU share the cost of the baskets", you'd like to be able to say "yes".

 

[scarpfish]

$10 for life.

Actually, that's not so much a membership fee, but a one time bag tag fee (albeit it comes with privileges like a better share of rollover ace fund and club prices on discs). We prefer to raise funds by taking $1 out of each league entry.

 

[JRW III]

Set your fees in line with what you want to spend club money on, and then be transparent on where the money will go. Determine what you will spend the money on, how much reserve you want then determine how many people you expect and that will give you your per person amount. As noted above, sometimes the lower the fee, the more you can get.

The club I am in is small, less than 20. We don't have any operating expenses (website, storage, etc..). We keep our fee simple and only charge it when we get new bag tags or new shirts and then figure out the per person cost.

 

[ToddL]

We've figured out that we don't really make any money from club memberships. All the money we charge for membership gets turned around and given back to the players in one way or another. All of our income comes from merchandise sales at tournaments.

We have two levels of membership (renewed every calendar year):

Basic Membership $10:
* Yearly bag tag - we also have random drawings every two months for a free disc from the club inventory after a bag tag check-in (one drawing for players having a tag from 1-10, one drawing for everyone else)
* Eligible for yearly bag tag champion - trophy at end of year for player with best average tag at check-ins
* Eligible to carry over merchandise vouchers from tournaments - all players' pack and payout merchandise vouchers must be spent the weekend of the tournament unless you are a club member and get them stamped. It's an advantage if you want to save your vouchers for a later date after I've restocked the inventory.

Premium Membership ($25):
* All the stuff from the basic, plus:
* $5 discount on PDGA membership through the Affiliate Club Program
* Yearly club t-shirt
* $5 discount on a few non-PDGA tournaments we hold
* Club mini for first-time members
* Free entry/food at end-of-year club party
* Eligible to spend tournament players' pack/payout merchandise vouchers on non-club, disc golf related merchandise. If you buy a bag or basket or shoes or some other disc-golf related gear with your own money and bring us the receipt along with merchandise vouchers from a tournament (with a 50% markup), we'll reimburse you the cost of the item. For example, if you buy a $100 pair of disc golf shoes, you can bring us the receipt for the shoes and $150 of merchandise vouchers and we'll give you $100 cash to reimburse you.


I think it's a pretty good deal, that is, if you have fun with bag tags and want to wear your t-shirt around. A lot of people don't care about tags or shirts and don't see the advantage of joining the club. Sometimes I don't have a good rebuttal for that. Even if you're not in the club, you can still come to doubles, you can still play in PDGAs, you can still play on all the courses in the area. The main reason I want you to join the club is so I can boast about membership numbers. If I have a meeting with the parks department, saying, "we have a great club with 80 active members who enjoy playing and helping out" comes off a lot better than, "well, we only have 20 club members, but I promise there are a lot of people out there who play who just don't want to join us."

 

[kenjiac]

My club sell memberships for $25 that gets you that years club item (disc, or hat, or shirt or whatever we've ordered that year), a innova calendar, and a sticker, a vote for the Board of directors and $2 discount on anything over $5 in our club store. We also sell bag tags for $25 that gets you annual bag tag. We get a nice size branch from one of the local courses cut it into 1/4" think coins, sand them have the laser etched with our logo a # and the year and the polyurethane them. You can purchase a bag tag and membership together for $40. We've been established 5 years now and we sold about 50 memberships last year and 70 something tags. We grow each year. We are a 501(3)(c) not for profit and do about 20k in business ach year.

 

[esdubya]

Awesome discussion on here. Looking at how we are going to setup our club next year. First permanent course in the city/area is going in now in Windsor and Essex County, ON.

Will post more when we all figure out exactly what we want to do, but these posts are all really informative.

:thmbup: search feature :thmbup:

 

[esdubya]

I am also curious about how successful clubs are setup as far as positions (president, league guy, etc), term limits, and succession plans. I've seen so many clubs fizzle when the main guy has a kid. I feel this is something we can do better on, as a whole community.

How do you do it?

 

[BenBVDiscGolf]

I totally forgot about this thread. Good discussion and ideas.
We have it set out as $15 for membership which breaks down as:
$5 for tag
$5 for tag finale prizes
$5 for society
10 members this year.

Ben

 

[da Crippler]

Having been involved with two clubs with boards that deteriorated into crony cliques, I would say keep it simple, open and transparent. Most of all, keep the members informed of board decisions and have open meetings, no secret board meetings. Have a competent and responsible treasurer. Make it fun.

 

[stun]

We've figured out that we don't really make any money from club memberships. All the money we charge for membership gets turned around and given back to the players in one way or another. All of our income comes from merchandise sales at tournaments.

We have two levels of membership (renewed every calendar year):

Basic Membership $10:
* Yearly bag tag - we also have random drawings every two months for a free disc from the club inventory after a bag tag check-in (one drawing for players having a tag from 1-10, one drawing for everyone else)
* Eligible for yearly bag tag champion - trophy at end of year for player with best average tag at check-ins
* Eligible to carry over merchandise vouchers from tournaments - all players' pack and payout merchandise vouchers must be spent the weekend of the tournament unless you are a club member and get them stamped. It's an advantage if you want to save your vouchers for a later date after I've restocked the inventory.

Premium Membership ($25):
* All the stuff from the basic, plus:
* $5 discount on PDGA membership through the Affiliate Club Program
* Yearly club t-shirt
* $5 discount on a few non-PDGA tournaments we hold
* Club mini for first-time members
* Free entry/food at end-of-year club party
* Eligible to spend tournament players' pack/payout merchandise vouchers on non-club, disc golf related merchandise. If you buy a bag or basket or shoes or some other disc-golf related gear with your own money and bring us the receipt along with merchandise vouchers from a tournament (with a 50% markup), we'll reimburse you the cost of the item. For example, if you buy a $100 pair of disc golf shoes, you can bring us the receipt for the shoes and $150 of merchandise vouchers and we'll give you $100 cash to reimburse you.


I think it's a pretty good deal, that is, if you have fun with bag tags and want to wear your t-shirt around. A lot of people don't care about tags or shirts and don't see the advantage of joining the club. Sometimes I don't have a good rebuttal for that. Even if you're not in the club, you can still come to doubles, you can still play in PDGAs, you can still play on all the courses in the area. The main reason I want you to join the club is so I can boast about membership numbers. If I have a meeting with the parks department, saying, "we have a great club with 80 active members who enjoy playing and helping out" comes off a lot better than, "well, we only have 20 club members, but I promise there are a lot of people out there who play who just don't want to join us."

I still can't believe people won't join even when we offer all of this...

 

[esdubya]

What makes you want to join your local club?

Discs and special merch?
A feeling of belonging?
Supporting your clubs mission statement?
Helping to get new courses installed?
Discounts on leagues and events?

I recently joined a local bike advocacy group because I want to see more bike lanes in my city. The only thing I received for joining was a membership card and a number.

Are we disc golfers expecting too much or are the clubs not making membership attractive enough?

I'm convinced there are clubs "out there" that have memberships in the 100+. What are they doing right to attract members?

 

[rd.bittle]

ToddL has 80+ in his...

 

[VictorB]

curious to what other clubs do when they set the fee to join?
what benifits do you offer members?

CDGC is $25. This gets you -
Club logo gateway putter
Bag tag
access to traveling ace pot(s)
discount at local pro shop

We run several tournaments a year: Club and doubles league championships, the Mid-America Open, 2 weekly summer league nights, monthly 2 round minis, and winter league.