Concessionary membership & membership deals - How does your club manage these ?

[Junior]

We have a 7 day, 6 day and 5 day membership options with a sliding scale in fee's upto mid 30's. We have also recently launched as a trial, a "flexible (points based) membership category" which is capped at 35 members. I think a lot of other clubs offer similar. However, what is causing quite a stir is the increase in "concessionary memberships" outside of these 'rules'. I'm interesting to understand :-

1. What does your club do in the advent of a person, usually, but not exclusively elderly, approaching the committee and advising them that due to ill health, they can only play a few holes at a time. Such a person may have been a member for a long time but wouldn't qualify for life membership. Would your club offer them a bespoke deal ?

2. In general, does your club do bespoke membership deals....ie, if a group of 10 join at once, would they give discount ? Or, if someone wanted to play golf in Summer or Winter only, would they give a discount etc.

3. Do you have a "life membership" category and what are the qualifications for it.

I'm conscious of the need to attract and retain members, but at a members owned club like ours, the above is causing quite the debate.

 

[Bunkermagnet]

1) you can have your membership suspended due to ill health, but that means no playing
2)group deals, doubt it as we got stung a few years ago with one.
No summer or winter only specials, our membership runs from July1st to June 30th. Full year or nothing.
3) Don’t have life memberships, just members who have been members for a very long time.

 

[Coffey]

I cant answer all of your questions but we have introduced a life membership this year.

It is £15k and you need to be over 40 and have been a member for 15 years or more.

To be honest if you are in a certain scenario this is a bargain but doesnt suit everyone. 5 people took it on in its first year. If I met the criteria and had the funds sitting there I would do it as our yearly subscription is £1100.

I do think it is quite short sighted by the club but it did give the club £60k of cash so I am sure this is helpful. One thing I do not know is what happens with inflation etc, say in 20 years the cost of subscription is now 5k, the person with the life membership literally got a bargain. But I guess this is a risk the club have decided to take.

Also a nearby club closed recently and a rumour started (not sure if true) that our club were offering the members of the closed club a membership for £650 for the first year. This caused quite a stir but it never materialised to anything as they all ended up moving to another club but kept the club names separate and just played out of their course

 

[GB72]

Not aware of any deal, concessions or life memberships at my club. That does not mean that they do not exist but never heard them spoken about. There are age concessions and the option to join for a month on a trial membership before becoming a full member but otherwise there is one membership fee. There is not even the option for 5 day membership anymore. Keeps it simple and debate free.

 

[NWJocko]

Sounds like a nightmare to administer having so many different categories!? We don't have 5 day etc memberships at all.

1. Suspect not however don't really know for sure
2. No
3. Yes, think it's 50 years membership

 

[Deleted member 21258]

At home club, quite a few options :-

1) They offer 5 day,7 days, 9 hole, young age related, country & PM memberships etc last time I checked, so loads of choices for such people

2) Don't know, proprietor run

3) No


At a couple of the away clubs;-

1) One I don't think offers anything other than 5 day, 7 day, restricted and county memberships and has a waiting list for full membership(the only deal they were/are(?) doing was no joining fee for ladies). Think they do offer honorary membership to certain people(not normal members,).

The other clubs I am a member of, don't really know enough to say.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Proprietary club so no hard and fast rule, the manager makes it up on each basis. The club did have a life membership for a fee but the club went into adminstration a few years ago and a number of people got burnt as the new owner did not honour the agreement, new company emerged to take over so past agreements were void. The new owner does not offer this now, not that anyone would take it. They do not offer free life membership.

One previous club offered free life membership to anyone with 20 consecutive years of membership. Sounds a good idea until you looked at the demographic of the club and how many people were due to qualify in the coming years. They lost a lot of money with that rule. Sounds good in theory, reward long standing member, but can hit clubs hard.

 

[jim8flog]

We only offer a winter only deal and not a summer only one and it is onetime only offer to attract new members

Last we time we had a life time membership offer it came we a fairly large price tag (I reckoned it would take about 15 years to break even). We still have few lifetime members, given for service to the club.

We stopped doing senior discounts about 15 years ago.

As to players not being able to play the 18 hole course they can switch membership to our 9 hole course.

We have a range of memberships 7 day, 6 day restricted (Saturdays restricted to the 9 hole course) (no longer offered as an option), 5 day, reduced annual fee and pay as you play and corporate.

 

[Junior]

Thanks for the replied so far.......keep them coming. Interesting that at most clubs a long standing member who could only play a few holes at a time due to ill health would still be charged full fee's.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Thanks for the replied so far.......keep them coming. Interesting that at most clubs a long standing member who could only play a few holes at a time due to ill health would still be charged full fee's.

Pandora's box. Ideally you would like to think someone could have a quiet word and it could be sorted but how do you decide how many holes they can play, what if they play more, what if they improve 3/4 of the way through the year? If you offer them a 9 hole membership at a reduced fee what about the person who would like that as well, healthy but don't want to play 18 holes? What if you have only been a member for 5 yrs, do you have the same right to a reduced fee? Your initial point seems so simple to answer but then it starts to get more complicated.

 

[Junior]

Pandora's box. Ideally you would like to think someone could have a quiet word and it could be sorted but how do you decide how many holes they can play, what if they play more, what if they improve 3/4 of the way through the year? If you offer them a 9 hole membership at a reduced fee what about the person who would like that as well, healthy but don't want to play 18 holes? What if you have only been a member for 5 yrs, do you have the same right to a reduced fee? Your initial point seems so simple to answer but then it starts to get more complicated.

You're exactly right mate. Things appear to have been handled on a case by case basis and reviewed each year. However, it appears more and more requests are coming in, which you would expect. The sentimental side of me feels sorry for the man, woman who has played at the club for 30 years, and now just wants to hit a few balls to get out of the house.......but there is a part of me that they should fall into one of the membership categories from a fairness perspective.

 

[duncan mackie]

You are doing the right thing - by considering the implications of all and any such categories. There are quite a few who didn't and even clubs that will fail as a direct result of the past!

It's far to easy to look at today's issues and consider that you will deal with fall out tomorrow.

We aren't a members club, but have an excellent relationship with the owners and management. I believe there are 2 life members; one associated with the original acquisition and the second, more recently, has been on the committees since the original club started and currently falls in the category of extremely rare to even play a few holes...

There are also a number of related issues associated with the rights, or otherwise, of membership categories which really don't get the air time at the right time - but there's universal right or wrong approach.

 

[Blue in Munich]

How ill are they? The reason I ask is that at renewal time (we were calendar year) we had a spate of the "elderly and allegedly infirm" claiming that their lumbago/arthriits/whatever was playing up and they couldn't play so they'd go social. Lo & behold when the weather warmed up & the sun came out they rose like Lazarus, paid pro rata for the rest of the year and were efectively getting their golf at 2/3's the price of the rest of us but getting the best part of the year. Club has now moved the subs year to May, and introduced a bye-law that if you change category you are liable for the entire year's subs in that category regardless of when you change. Seems to have sorted the issue.

I'm with you, I'm sympathetic to the genuine cases but there also needs to be fairness.

 

[GB72]

We had a, now closed, loophole where those paying monthly were not tied in for the whole year. Reports of a few quitting their membership in October and rejoining in May saw that finally closed off

 

[chrisd]

I spoke to my club today as my son and 3 of his mates are looking to join a club and I'd rather it be mine. Earlier in the year they did a 15 months for the annual fee and I've asked what they may do to attract these lads to join as there are cheaper clubs nearby.

 

[Deleted member 25172]

I joined my club through a winter deal offer, where I paid £349 for 1st November - 31st May. When becoming a full member after that, the club took my annual fee -£349 (the winter deal) for the first year. Great deal for me.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

I am not aware that my club considers or offers any of the options listed in the OP. They might do - but they are most certainly not advertised - and I know not of any. I suspect that there may be consideration and concessions as a result of serious ill health.

 

[fundy]

In the past when Ive had serious injuries one club refused to do anything to help me and I ended up paying a 4 figure membership for one game of golf. Another allowed me to put my membership on hold for 9 months before I resumed playing again. The former club never got another penny from me, the latter another 5 years of membership plus a lot of money over the bar before we moved area!

Sadly less and less clubs seem to be prepared to make concessions like this, partly due to the selfish nature of those who try to abuse the situation. I think most clubs will not publicise what they are prepared to do but make a case by case judgement up to the point where it gets abused at which point they put firm rules in place or stop offering any concessions

 

[williamalex1]

We have 5 gents categories , junior, under 30s, full , 5 day with limited weekend times, and senior concessionary members.
I don't know the junior fees.
Under 30s are approx 50%
5 day limited members pay approx 50%
To meet the concessionary requirements you need a minimum 25 years continuous full membership and be over 65 when the fees are due.
Those who qualify get 10% discount for the 1st 2 years then 20%, increasing each year to a max discount of 50% .

 

[TreeSeeker]

1 - Likely yes there would be a bespoke deal, without a doubt that member wouldn't be left feeling hard done by, couldn't find it but i think we have/had a special "9 hole" rate for long standing members only??...
2 - I believe that we recently did a bespoke deal for a group joining on the closure of another course, not aware of the details but i think it was on the joining fee.
3 - Yes life membership, as decided by the committee, not sure how many life members we have but not a huge number based on the financials.

Biggest focus of the club seems to be on shifting the age demographic of the membership towards younger members, great academy train going, lots of benefits for juniors etc. either way, alot of the unable to play members end up just joining as social regardless.