hovis
Tour Winner
If only this thing called "common sense " would catch on
Joining fees
- Thread starter stevek1969
- Start date
If only this thing called "common sense " would catch on
Hacker Khan
Yurt Dwelling, Yoghurt Knitter
I'd argue this is a good business model for clubs but may be it is not in the interests of the game in general. As if you have very little opportunity to join a (the good) clubs and it costs a fair whack to do so, then that will not grow the game really. But then of course you can't expect the clubs to drop joining fees if they can get away with them and rely on them.
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
Lad I played yesterday joined 18months ago when the joining fee was still in place - it no longer is. Think this was about £1000. Is he bitter? No - he says he was happy with and accepted the deal as it was presented to him then and joined. The fact that 18months later he could have joined avoiding the joining fee is rather neither here nor there for him - said he to me with a wry smile.
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
My club uses Fairway Credit and so do I. Without it I could never have afforded this years renewal. I spoke with our Chairman about whether the club could do it's own financial packages and payment schemes with members - just too complex and compliance with FCA too difficult and onerous.
JCW
Journeyman Pro
£2250 joining fee , payable over 3 years if needed , but there is a waiting list almost a year long at present
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
'Mostly rich mans' sport I disagree with. I am not a 'rich man' (I am certainly not a poor man) but I have sufficient disposable income to fund something. And for me it is membership of a golf club.
But for me to be a member (and I had to pay a £1000 joining fee) I have had to make quite significant choices in other aspects of 'lifestyle' - so no fancy car; no super-dooper home audio-visual technology; no fancy two week holidays in nice resorts; no ski holiday; pretty make do on the clothing and shoe front and one suit; don't go out for meals, cinema, theatre etc very often. And so on.
We worry and complain that golf is portrayed and viewed by many as a 'rich mans sport' - but then we ourselves perpetuate that myth.
stevek1969
Money List Winner
I use fairway credit at my club and it costs 6% to use it, I've done it now for over 10 years and don't miss the £650 payout in one at the end of February. To be honest i don't think i could afford to play golf if i stayed down south as some of the numbers mentioned sound horrific to say the least and I've got a decent job in the oil sector. To be honest I've thought about leaving my place a few times but the thought of paying another joining fee which at most clubs in the area has put me of, i think IMO it breeds a sense of loyalty to the club your a member of. Some good replies on the pros and cons of clubs who have them its been an interesting read.
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
One of the things I was suggesting to the Chairman was if there was some way of part or all of the joining fee - let's say it's £1000 - being an up front payment all or part of which will be fed on to the members food/drink discount card on an annual basis. So let's split it £250 joining and £750 card. Each year of continuous membership for 5 yrs the club puts £150 of his £750 onto his card. If he leaves before 5 years is up he loses what is left of the £750.
Anotheer idea was club offers memberships as financial packages like mortgages. So a member can for instance sign up for a 10yr membership at a fixed amount per annum - that fixed amount being lower than that for a one year, 2 year or 5 year membership rate. But if you sign-up for the ten year rate you incur a leaving 'penalty' if you don't want to continue membership. The penalty covering 'loss' of income to date to club based upon the one year rate - plus admin charge.
Too complex and would need club to be FCA compliant etc etc
GB72
Money List Winner
I am sort of struggling with the whole rationale behind the joining fee. If it is an essential part of the club's finances then all well and good but, if that is the case, how to clubs who have abandoned it fund themselves and how to you account for a course of income that is totally dependent on an unknown number of future new members.
So, is it a set of handcuffs designed to keep members at the club. Surely not a great idea to have a number of disaffected members who may want to leave but cannot afford to. Not great for club spirit and atmosphere. Furthermore, should the club not be relying on the quality of gofing experience that it provides to make people want to stay rather than financial penalties.
Maybe its' a way of moderating membership. We only want people with sufficient financial standing to apply. That may have been the case in the past but I doubt that now (though it my be just a residual thing from the old days that may never have been cancelled). It may even be a presitige thing for the club 'we must be a cgood club as people pay to join us'.
I know many clubs charge it and have a waiting list so good on them, they are clearly in demand and can do what they want. It still does not really help me understand why they have or still exist as the idea of paying someone to allow me to then pay them more money every year is an alien one despite the fact that I have paid them and had to pay them as everyone charged them
So, is it a set of handcuffs designed to keep members at the club. Surely not a great idea to have a number of disaffected members who may want to leave but cannot afford to. Not great for club spirit and atmosphere. Furthermore, should the club not be relying on the quality of gofing experience that it provides to make people want to stay rather than financial penalties.
Maybe its' a way of moderating membership. We only want people with sufficient financial standing to apply. That may have been the case in the past but I doubt that now (though it my be just a residual thing from the old days that may never have been cancelled). It may even be a presitige thing for the club 'we must be a cgood club as people pay to join us'.
I know many clubs charge it and have a waiting list so good on them, they are clearly in demand and can do what they want. It still does not really help me understand why they have or still exist as the idea of paying someone to allow me to then pay them more money every year is an alien one despite the fact that I have paid them and had to pay them as everyone charged them
Tarkus1212
Challenge Tour Pro
I've only paid a joining fee once. I guess I saw it as a "bond" between me and the club in that I was committing to the club for the foreseeable future (which I was happy to do) and in return I knew that nothing fundamental could change about the club or the courses without me having my say on it. Having been badly bitten as a member of proprietary clubs I was fed up being treated as a commodity at best and a hindrance at worst (and a certain female owner in East Anglia knows exactly what I mean). I think the club generally has a settled membership, we don't have a huge churn in members and thus they are able to budget pretty accurately year on year.
Hacker Khan
Yurt Dwelling, Yoghurt Knitter
Fair play to you for doing all that, but I doubt there's many people willing to not spend in other areas you have listed (clothes, eating out, going to the cinema, decent/fancy holiday once a year) to play a hobby which takes so much time up and has so many real and perceived barriers to entry to begin with.
If you look around the car park of most decent courses then you'll see that there are probably more new Audi's and BMWs than 8 year old Fiestas. I know this is a generalisation and there will always be examples of members that are not relatively rich (which of course is very subjective I suppose), but if you asked people to list the major participation sports in order of how much money you need to play them then I suspect golf would come out on top.
hovis
Tour Winner
I think that sums it up pretty well
NWJocko
Tour Winner
Obviously clubs that are struggling now for cash would be silly not to at least look at dropping joining fees. If they went under with one still in place they'd be daft.
I'm not advocating joining fees, I wish they weren't around as it would have saved me over a grand!! Just saying I can see why clubs that can justify having one in place (waiting lists etc) can use them to their benefit or why clubs might consider having one in place
If they work in retaining members (that's just my guess, never looked into it) then the risk of having a membership exodus out of the blue one year is reduced.
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SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
Don't disagree - and I don't do without in the areas I've mentioned - but I certainly do with a lot less - and whilst I can understand the 'perceived' barriers to playing golf I'm still not clear what the 'real' barriers are. Cost is relative. What else I'm not sure.
Roops
Head Pro
This discussion rears it's head at almost every SGM/AGM we have, when membership is up for discussion. We have a joining fee and the reason is normally given to try and reduce transient membership. Ours is a members club and the fees comprise a significant part of the annual budget for course/club improvements. Without a solid membership, it is almost impossible for the club to budget for long term projects, so it makes sense to make every effort to try and retain your membership.
I can see the attraction of a essentially a years golf at a reduced cost, but surely at some point, we will see price wars between adjacent clubs and transient members will vote with their feet. The upshot of this situation is clubs could be left with little guaranteed income making course maintenance/improvements impossible. Once that happens, that club is pretty much doomed, little income, deteriorating course etc etc.
I can see the attraction of a essentially a years golf at a reduced cost, but surely at some point, we will see price wars between adjacent clubs and transient members will vote with their feet. The upshot of this situation is clubs could be left with little guaranteed income making course maintenance/improvements impossible. Once that happens, that club is pretty much doomed, little income, deteriorating course etc etc.
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
In my part of the world a price war would only be to the detriment of the courses which are in general of a high quality. Most clubs (Hankley Common is the local exception I believe) have done away with joining fees - we have done so and are putting a big effort into getting new members and more society and green fee golf. That said I don't believe there would 'ever' be a price war in Surrey/Hants as there are more than plenty of folk who can afford to pay the subs at the level they are - we just got to attract them to our club - the joining fee maybe being one thing that put off prospective members given they might not be sure about any 'long term' commitment to the club or indeed whether they had a real desire to play regular golf
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Hacker Khan
Yurt Dwelling, Yoghurt Knitter
I suppose if you take out cost which I agree is relative but I'd always argue is a barrier to entry, I'd say time spent to play and how hard the game is to master. Yes you could argue that is also relative, but then again you could make an argument to say just about anything is, I'm comparing it to the norms of society and to other sports/pass times competing for peoples time and money.
Roops
Head Pro
What's the general feeling at your place with more Green Fees and Societies ? I know there is a massive ground swell of opinion against using both of those to supplement income at our place, we have no tee booking, so you can turn up pretty much any time and walk onto the course, a feature many members feel will be a thing of the past if we fill the course with GF's and Societies.
richart
Major Champion
When I joined Blackmoor there was no joining fee, but you had to make a loan of £250 to the Club. Loan was repaid when you left. It was an historical practice that dated back to when the Club bought the course in the late 70's. All the then members loaned the Club £250, and all subsequent members did the same.
When I joined the Club I hadn't played for years, and when I looked around the private Clubs in the area, Blackmoor was the only one without a joining fee. If they had had one I wouldn't have joined, as it was too big an expense to risk on something I might not enjoy. When I left my previous Club years earlier I had absolutely no love for the game, and much preferred to play tennis. I was also a lot better at tennis.
Practice was stopped a year after I joined and a joining fee introduced. I was lucky to get in when I did, and if I had waited another year I would never have taken the stupid game up again, and met so many strange people on here. This fee varies depending on how desperate we are for members. We do a lot of open days to get members, and the joining fee is waived if you join after such a day.
The loans were a big liability to the Club, so they asked members to waive them, in favour of some free green fees. A lot of us did that, and I seem to remember some forumers benefited.:thup:
Seems to me that if a Club has a waiting list, joining fees are a great way of raising money. If they are struggling for members it is probably putting people off. Horses for courses. Why would a Club that has a joining fee, and has a waiting list withdraw the fee ? Clubs are trying to make money for reinvestment back into the course, facilities etc, so seems to make good economic sense to carry on the practice. I would also mention that there are a lot of Clubs in my area that do have waiting lists, including North Hants where we played the H4H day.
When I joined the Club I hadn't played for years, and when I looked around the private Clubs in the area, Blackmoor was the only one without a joining fee. If they had had one I wouldn't have joined, as it was too big an expense to risk on something I might not enjoy. When I left my previous Club years earlier I had absolutely no love for the game, and much preferred to play tennis. I was also a lot better at tennis.
Practice was stopped a year after I joined and a joining fee introduced. I was lucky to get in when I did, and if I had waited another year I would never have taken the stupid game up again, and met so many strange people on here.
This fee varies depending on how desperate we are for members. We do a lot of open days to get members, and the joining fee is waived if you join after such a day. The loans were a big liability to the Club, so they asked members to waive them, in favour of some free green fees. A lot of us did that, and I seem to remember some forumers benefited.:thup:
Seems to me that if a Club has a waiting list, joining fees are a great way of raising money. If they are struggling for members it is probably putting people off. Horses for courses. Why would a Club that has a joining fee, and has a waiting list withdraw the fee ? Clubs are trying to make money for reinvestment back into the course, facilities etc, so seems to make good economic sense to carry on the practice. I would also mention that there are a lot of Clubs in my area that do have waiting lists, including North Hants where we played the H4H day.
SAPCOR1
Journeyman Pro
That would only apply if a credit facility was being offered. If the annual fee was split into regular DD payments then all the club would have to do is basically issue a letter or email with the details of the amounts and payment intervals along with the DD mandate and a copy of the DD Guarentee.
