Anyone a member of a sailing club

[night0wl]

Hey All,

I'm a part of a sailing club in Fort Lauderdale...and this year we've had a rash of departures. People are selling their sailboats, retiring/moving on, or just aren't interested in the club anymore.

I'm looking for ideas. What do your local clubs do to get new members. How do they get old members back into the fold? How do you get members to become active?

Love the feedback...I'm willing to experiment to keep our 57 year old experiment alive!

[smackdaddy]

I belong to the esteemed "Fight Club for Sailors". Membership varies wildly (usually due to prison time), but we sure have a hell of a lot of fun busting each other up.

[blt2ski]

Clubs in general go thru highs and lows. You may be going thru a low do to economy etc. My local sailing club can go to hecko and a hand basket. Why bother belonging. cost is cheap, maybe too cheap. meanwhile, the BIGGER club both with members and they own the building, is growing by 2-4 folks a month! The other has lost 5-10 folks this year. Then again, one has 2-4 activities a month in the building, one to 2 cruises a month, depeding upon the time of the year..... vs for the most part, just racing, COW and awards dinners in Nov and Jan. Really not a lot to get excited about for the sailing club.

Marty

[night0wl]

Originally Posted by blt2ski

Clubs in general go thru highs and lows. You may be going thru a low do to economy etc. My local sailing club can go to hecko and a hand basket. Why bother belonging. cost is cheap, maybe too cheap. meanwhile, the BIGGER club both with members and they own the building, is growing by 2-4 folks a month! The other has lost 5-10 folks this year. Then again, one has 2-4 activities a month in the building, one to 2 cruises a month, depeding upon the time of the year..... vs for the most part, just racing, COW and awards dinners in Nov and Jan. Really not a lot to get excited about for the sailing club.

Marty

Yes the lack of a clubhouse is really hurting us. But in today's day and age and having a club in Florida, its just impossible to justify the financials of owning a clubhouse. Roofs go bad, liability insurance kills you....facilities break. It all adds up to dues that would be wwaaaaaay out of reach to align with our credo to expand sailing to the masses. Besides, our endowment isn't even close to being able to secure waterfront property. Perhaps fundraising will bring people closer to the club?

[blt2ski]

Depends upon the people in the club. IE the tales of my two clubs. At a meeting the other night, someone said something about getting advertising in the annual roster printed out, figured they would be lucky to get $15 per add. the other charges $80 and has about 20 or so. They have a news letter, also get charged $80 for the 9 newletters. Both cover and then some the cost of the printing. I'm personally not even sure I would spend $1 for an add in the sailing club roster. Most act like cheap SOB's, not sure I could sell my landscape services at all! Meanwhile, in 3 yrs, I have about 3-4 clients, including the clubs new building for maintenance work.

The sailing club folks, has a member with a 2 mil waterfront home paid for on puget sound, with a .5 mil remodel, he bitches about the dues being $65 vs 50 4 yrs ago. With 40-50 members, what, $3000 in dues to do something?!?! yeah right. Meanwhile, the non sailing club members, wonder how you could operate a club with any kind of social or equal opurtunities at $65, and they are $350, and one of the cheaper, if not cheapest asset clubs on puget sound. They had an auction that raised 18G for cruises and other events last weekend. Not sure what it is about some sailing club, they seem to be stuck in the 60's and 70's with ideas you can do something for nothing.......anyway, better get off my soap box.

I do wish you luck. For me any how, activities are the main key, ie good ones that folks can attend. Cost is not always a deal breaker. I went to the non sailing club labor day cruise, spent $500 or so including staying at the hotel, as my 30'r is not totally comfy for spouse, golf game etc. IIRC there were over 100 members, and 50 0f 125 boats at the cruise. The sailing club had 4 maybe 5 boats out of 50. The cruise I was on, had 5 of 16 sailboat members. That club had as many sailors as the other, but 1/3 the total folks. One couple did not show up, as she just found out she had BC, and was having surgery soon after that week.

One has to have fun events, figure out how to meet somewhere some how so people know who are members etc. The one club gets some $10K a month in rentals. along with an upper floor that is rented out for about the cost of the payment. the rentals pay the taxes/insurance......

It can be done both ways. but it takes some effort from the board and other members. if it is JUST the 4-6 officers and board members, good luck. I've had offers from more of the nonsailing sailors for some weekend race to and from cruises than I ever did from the 50 members of the sailing club.

Some of the original members from 1980, said the club has had ebbs and plus times.

Marty

[chef2sail]

We belong to a Yacht Club ( not a snooty blue blood one with blazers, but one which has which has a clubhouse, pool, and 115 resident slips. There are social members as well. The 115 resident memebers are divided into about 45 sailboatser in the sail fleet and 65 powerheads. Oour sail fellet ( sailing club) does races,, have two one week cruises a year of the Chesapeake where sometimes as many as 20 boats have participated. Some of us lead "expeditions" like we do where we plan 2.5 weeks in New England and the LI Sound every year and usually 4 or 5 boats accompany ( we usually split up and go to different places once up there but the truip together up and back and sometimes the same place is kind of nice.

Our creek has Wednesday night racing in which some boats participate. The slip fees are reasonable. For instance I have a 60X 15.5 for $2200.

How do we stay afloat financiallly and keep our fees down...Well the resident members are the owers and shareholders. We do have a commadore and bridge ( other commadores vice , rear in kind of a ceramoneal role, but the rest of us volunteer our expertise to run the grounds, basin and fuel dock, and restaurant at the club by being on oversight boards. We have a professional chef and general manager who is hotel trained This is how we defer the costs. We are right on the water with a great view. We have weddings on Saturdays 30 weeks of the year, sometimes an morning and eveing one. We do banquets for the Chamber of Commerce, Elks, Moose,,,and lots of organizations, Womens teas etc.

There money coursing through the restuarant with our oversight defers the cost of everything including funding capitol projects.

We run it as a business, and have a sailing club to boot. Maryland Yacht Club is the olderst club on the Chesapeake at 103 years ol Great place...just stay out of the politics and just volunteer. is the way to go. By the way plenty of us also just go our own way one weekends or when ever wew choose, but the is always a mini- vous where a group of sailboats get together at some small creek every weekend foir cocktais and hor devourves.

We have made friends with a few of the sailnetters also in the area and have begun meeting them also. We also hold a sailnet rondevous every yearif we can at the club.

Chesapeake Bay Boating and Sailing Clubs ~ Maryland Yacht Club

Dave

[BubbleheadMd]

Originally Posted by night0wl

Hey All,

I'm a part of a sailing club in Fort Lauderdale...and this year we've had a rash of departures. People are selling their sailboats, retiring/moving on, or just aren't interested in the club anymore.

I'm looking for ideas. What do your local clubs do to get new members. How do they get old members back into the fold? How do you get members to become active? Love the feedback...I'm willing to experiment to keep our 57 year old experiment alive!

You've asked 3 good questions:

New members: You have to find out what people want, and then offer it. If tastes are changing (example, people are more excited about dinghy racing vs. cruising) then you have to offer that. Perhaps a youth program?

Old members: Have an "exit interview" with them. Tell them to be completely candid, and make them comfortable, so that they feel free to be honest with you. Once you know why they're leaving, maybe you can make adjustments that will keep them around.

Inactive members: Give them something to do. Again, the youth program comes to mind. Racing also. Some people just thrive on being the comittee boat, or doing the administrivia that comes with running a racing program. Those who don't, will race.

Do you plan/offer "group" cruises? The "Type-A's" will enjoy planning the cruise, and the rest will enjoy sailing together and touring the area.

I realize that you don't have a building or waterfront, and that's ok. If you can scrounge some old Lasers or Buccaneers for your youth program, you can trailer them to the nearest public boat ramp.

Be inclusive. Go after people who may have never thought about sailing before. Have you seen fuel prices lately? Whew! This is going to be another season where stinkpotters rarely leave the dock. Meanwhile, I'll be sailing like it's any other year!

I like the idea of "member ownership" that was suggested also.

Hope this helps!

[EJO]

Dave (Chef2Sail) I wish I was in your area as I immediately would become a member and get a slip. $2,200 is a fantastic price, especially where you are as the season is longer than here in West Michigan on Lake Michigan. A 30 x 13 or 35 x 15 slip here goes on average for $2,600 and that is without restaurant, fuel dock, etc., it does include H2O and electric, but still you have a hell of a deal. Love those old yacht clubs that had property B-4 WWII.
For all others, just become a member of the PMYC, (Poor Mans Yacht Club) with membership all over the world and create your own fun.

[captbillc]

i belong to the duluth sail & power squadron . we are up here on the western end of lake superior. members keep their boats at various marinas . the ds&ps leases a large dock in superior bay that members can use , but cannot leave the unattended boat there. it is big enough so all the members can tie up for large gatherings during the summer. during the winter we hold boating classes for the public and seamanship, piloting, advanced piloting , celestial & many others for members. our members teach the classes and the only charge is for the books.

[Faster]

We belong to a couple of clubs.. one with facilities, but since we've moved away we're 'associate' members - we keep the membership for old times' sake, and some residual reciprocal rights.

The other is what is nowadays called a 'virtual' yacht club. We have no facilities, rent a monthly meeting place (Sept to June) and sponsor weekend rendezvous' throughout the year, incl New Years Eve, plus a loosely organized summer flotilla cruise in Desolation Sound.

The lack of financial obligations (no assets!) removes most of the political aspects of the club's organization making it a low stress - easygoing gathering of like minded people. Boat sizes range from 25 to 45/50 feet generally and we have members both sides of the border.

Membership rolls have been hovering at the 100 memberships recently, with a turnover of about 5%/year. We do struggle with attracting newer younger members. There are still quite a few charter members from its inception in 1965 (they were very young and all had homebuilt 20 footers at the time!) and I suppose we are seen as an 'older' club. I'd imagine the median age is over 50.

Clubs that offer moorage are more attractive, of course, but you then run into an (often considerable number of) members who are there solely for the moorage, and don't care to contribute to the social, executive and maintenance aspects of the club. Mandatory work parties (to maintain moorage rights) help but often the work is done grudgingly and this detracts from the other benefits of associating with fellow sailors/boaters.

And then, today places like Sailnet have become yet another version of a virtual sailing club. All in favour???