Surge of New Members

[mikejohnchapman]

We have had 10 new people sign-up this week for membership at the club in advance of the return to play. Interestingly only 2 are transfers from elsewhere - the rest are casual golfers.

Looks like the surge in interest after lockdown 1 may continue.

 

[HeftyHacker]

Certainly seems that way.

Its a very limited sample size but one of my mates has just joined his local course, never been a member anywhere before. Another is considering rejoining the club he was a junior member at 14 years ago.

Thats just from our close friendship group.

 

[Billysboots]

Our place has a waiting list for the first time ever, and securing tee times has become a nightmare. Weekdays never used to be problematic - now the sheet is full every day.

We only have limited competition fields because we’re a proprietary club and visitors/societies are allowed at weekends, bringing in revenue. That is at odds with the huge increase in membership, with many wanting to play comps. Either the club free up more tee times, as we currently only get 7.30ish until 11.00ish for comps, or we have to accept that we simply won’t get into every event unless we are extremely adept at the BRS bun fight.

 

[nickjdavis]

Seems like from a post on the clubs FB page that we have had a number of new members join....we had a big surge last summer as well.

 

[2blue]

Our place has a waiting list for the first time ever, and securing tee times has become a nightmare. Weekdays never used to be problematic - now the sheet is full every day.

We only have limited competition fields because we’re a proprietary club and visitors/societies are allowed at weekends, bringing in revenue. That is at odds with the huge increase in membership, with many wanting to play comps. Either the club free up more tee times, as we currently only get 7.30ish until 11.00ish for comps, or we have to accept that we simply won’t get into every event unless we are extremely adept at the BRS bun fight.

We have similar issues so run our weekend Comps over both Sat & Sun. Not ideal but allows everyone a chance of playing at the time they prefer.
We also expect to have a great many new members.... we always do..... remains to be seen how many of last years newbies, we retain.
Current members have been given an extra month in lieu of the LDs & no increase in Subs provided payment is prompt. New members will face an increase.

 

[pendodave]

I misread the title of this as "scourge of the new members"...
Definitely a Freudian slip.

 

[Deleted member 18588]

We had a fairly large number of new members after Lockdown 1. So much so that we will currently only accept newbies as 5 day members.

However, our view is that there may be a fair turnover once furlough and WFH end or, in the latter case, gets tightened .

Also may well be a number of redundancies after furlough.

 

[full_throttle]

prices frozen at my club and a 'credit' equal to two months for renewing members,

also in the news letter we have had a decent number of new members join from the council owned golf course that ceased trading in the winter

 

[D-S]

It is a good time for clubs to either introduce, up or enforce a joining fee. That way new members are more likely to be genuine who are interested for the long term and not just because they’re not playing cricket,football, rugby or hockey this year. Bunches of members moving clubs looking for the best deals on offer every year are not the best way for clubs to develop a solid sustainable businesss and improve their infrastructure over time.

 

[jim8flog]

We had quite a few new members after lockdown 1 , I did wonder if this was because initially we were 2 balls only and no visitors were allowed.

 

[SammmeBee]

It is a good time for clubs to either introduce, up or enforce a joining fee. That way new members are more likely to be genuine who are interested for the long term and not just because they’re not playing cricket,football, rugby or hockey this year. Bunches of members moving clubs looking for the best deals on offer every year are not the best way for clubs to develop a solid sustainable businesss and improve their infrastructure over time.

Most places have already - no deals about any more to join, in fact you’ll be lucky to be able to join anywhere decent I would think now.....

 

[Deleted member 15344]

We have daily enquires for membership and people joining the waiting list - we are full currently but it’s good to hear people still looking to join

 

[HarrogateHacker]

I think we’re pretty full after lockdown1, nobody from the waiting list getting in this year. I do think they will allow the 6 day members to move to 7day which feels right but it’s going to be a battle to get tee times in a couple of weeks. Luckily plenty of learnings from LD1, less time between tee offs than last year so should hopefully be ok, just need the weather now, still flooding here whenever we get heavy rain (Atleast all the ground around me - I’ve not seen the course)

 

[richart]

I noticed a forumer had applied to join my club. Now where did I leave my black ball.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

I noticed a forumer had applied to join my club. Now where did I leave my black ball.

Depends on which forumer ?

 

[Golfnut1957]

Our fees were due on the 1st Jan and mid-Feb the club sent out an email stating that anyone that had not paid by the 28th would be deemed to have left. I assumed from the tone of the email that the hiatus had seen quite a few not renew.

Far from it. I checked our membership list this week and four guys that I know have gone to Seaton Carew are no longer there, so I figure that the list is current.

We currently have 505 male members with handicaps and 59 female members with one. Counting those with handicaps was easy. It was counting the members on the "members list" as appose to the handicap list that didn't have a handicap that surprised me.

This group, members without a handicap, comprise social members, a few older players who aren't interested in a handicap, and those which make up the biggest group I fancy, the post LD1 members who for various reasons, lack of opportunity being one, haven't got around to it yet. I went through the list and stopped counting at around 300 and halfway through the alphabet.

I'm staggered. Even if I am only half right this is an enormous number of members and while it bodes well for the finances it's going to make for an interesting summer on the course.

 

[D-S]

The surge in membership continues, we are just about full and we doubled our joining fee last year. Just had three people join and 2 of them have never played the course before but paid in full on the spot.

 

[Billysboots]

Our BRS bookings have been open now for nearly a week and every day is booked solid - it’s utter carnage trying to secure times.

I have fast broadband, and am ready and waiting the very second bookings go live, yet within a couple of seconds every tee time is locked by someone else. I simply cannot get a time.

How do people manage to get in so quickly? I’m really beginning to think there’s a BRS hack out there.

 

[Robster59]

We saw our membership surge last year. We took on 100 members from a club that closed plus other people joining. I was Captain only 4 years ago and I knew a lot of members then but there are so many new faces now I don't recognise. This is not a bad thing, in fact it's great for the club. The knock-on is that a number of the members who had previously left were non-playing whilst all the new members want to play. So the demand for tee-times, especially so far this year when only groups of two have been alllowed, has been high.
I was speaking to the Club Manager and he says that at our year end (February) we haven't had many leave either.
I would also agree about those people who band together to get the cheapest offer at any club. It's not something we have ever let ourselves be browbeaten by. We still do have a joining fee which I believe helps to tie people to the club more, and allows better budgeting rather than people who flit from one club to the other just looking for the best deal.

 

[Robster59]

Our BRS bookings have been open now for nearly a week and every day is booked solid - it’s utter carnage trying to secure times.

I have fast broadband, and am ready and waiting the very second bookings go live, yet within a couple of seconds every tee time is locked by someone else. I simply cannot get a time.

How do people manage to get in so quickly? I’m really beginning to think there’s a BRS hack out there.

Ours is a bit like that. I use BRS on my phone and have fingers poised for as soon as that days slots come available. It is a bunfight at the moment but I'm hoping that with longer days and now we're back to 4 balls that it will ease a little.