Yacht Club Membership Fees

[Kukri]

I would suggest that the first thing the RHYC needs to do is to be more welcoming to visitors... starting with the dockmaster.

That would now be the ex-dock master.

We can’t avoid specifying “Open to members and visiting yachtsmen” (yachtspeople?) because passing hikers do drop in and our licence does get checked up on.

 

[Poignard]

My biggest problem is those members who are forever moaning that ‘the club’ is not doing enough or is not run well, but challenge them to stand for election to the committee so they can do something about it and for some reason or another they are too busy.

Too true! :encouragement:

 

[maby]

Two suggestions for yacht clubs in general...

1. make an effort. If yacht clubs want more members they need to get out and sign them up... It’s not like it’s difficult to find potential members... walk out onto the pontoon and talk to the boat owners who aren’t. The nomination and seconding process makes it very difficult for folks who ain’t in the circle to join... as to join, in effect you already need to be in the circle. You need to tackle the inherent bias towards exclusiveness at most clubs head on by actually canvassing for new members...
.......

I don't think this would get very far without a significant reduction in membership fees in most cases. There really are only three reasons to join a yacht club :

1) to become eligible for a club owned mooring
2) to gain access to the racing calendar
3) to gain access to the club bar

Anyone on the pontoon who is not already a member cannot be particularly interested in 1 or 2. If the club has a decent bar and restaurant, then many will be interested in 3, but not if the membership fees are approaching £500 per year as is the case for a couple at many of the south coast clubs. We enquired at our local club - quite nice bar and restaurant, but right next door to the marina bar which also serves decent beer and food. Under those circumstances, a membership fee in excess of £300 per annum is pretty difficult to justify.

 

[Blue Sunray]

I don't think this would get very far without a significant reduction in membership fees in most cases. There really are only three reasons to join a yacht club :

1) to become eligible for a club owned mooring
2) to gain access to the racing calendar
3) to gain access to the club bar

Anyone on the pontoon who is not already a member cannot be particularly interested in 1 or 2. If the club has a decent bar and restaurant, then many will be interested in 3, but not if the membership fees are approaching £500 per year as is the case for a couple at many of the south coast clubs. We enquired at our local club - quite nice bar and restaurant, but right next door to the marina bar which also serves decent beer and food. Under those circumstances, a membership fee in excess of £300 per annum is pretty difficult to justify.

You missed one reason - to get to wear a different ensign, it may not (or indeed may) be a good reason but it does seem to be an attraction and is emphasised in a number of club's 'advertising'.

Royal Southampton is one that would fit your description and it is interesting to see the changes that they've made over the last year (close the Southampton clubhouse and AIUI substantially drop fees), I've no idea how it's going but I wish them luck.

 

[photodog]

I don't think this would get very far without a significant reduction in membership fees in most cases. There really are only three reasons to join a yacht club :

1) to become eligible for a club owned mooring
2) to gain access to the racing calendar
3) to gain access to the club bar

Anyone on the pontoon who is not already a member cannot be particularly interested in 1 or 2. If the club has a decent bar and restaurant, then many will be interested in 3, but not if the membership fees are approaching £500 per year as is the case for a couple at many of the south coast clubs. We enquired at our local club - quite nice bar and restaurant, but right next door to the marina bar which also serves decent beer and food. Under those circumstances, a membership fee in excess of £300 per annum is pretty difficult to justify.

You missed one reason - to get to wear a different ensign, it may not (or indeed may) be a good reason but it does seem to be an attraction and is emphasised in a number of club's 'advertising'.

Royal Southampton is one that would fit your description and it is interesting to see the changes that they've made over the last year (close the Southampton clubhouse and AIUI substantially drop fees), I've no idea how it's going but I wish them luck.

I think that these reasons are very negative... and I think if you look at the reasons people join the successful inland clubs and get involved In sailing, is that they want to meet people, do something fun, and gain a sense of community and belonging which is missing from so much of modern life.

And they want to do this as a family... do something active and outdoors.

To say that the membership fee is a barrier is imho not accurate. £40 a month is peanuts for the sort of folks who want to get involved... people expect to spend money for their leisure nowadays.. if a family member ship costs a £75 or so a month, that will be seen as peanuts compared to the cost of other family activities.

It’s about community and belonging, clubs can offer that. That’s the big selling point.

But only if clubs go out and sell themselves. If the club sits on its bottom and waits for people to come to them, then they are not actually selling themselves as a welcoming community.

 

[Praxinoscope]

I think that these reasons are very negative... and I think if you look at the reasons people join the successful inland clubs and get involved In sailing, is that they want to meet people, do something fun, and gain a sense of community and belonging which is missing from so much of modern life.

And they want to do this as a family... do something active and outdoors.

To say that the membership fee is a barrier is imho not accurate. £40 a month is peanuts for the sort of folks who want to get involved... people expect to spend money for their leisure nowadays.. if a family member ship costs a £75 or so a month, that will be seen as peanuts compared to the cost of other family activities.

It’s about community and belonging, clubs can offer that. That’s the big selling point.

But only if clubs go out and sell themselves. If the club sits on its bottom and waits for people to come to them, then they are not actually selling themselves as a welcoming community.

£40 a month club membership, I’m sorry but you obviously live in different world to a lot of us.

 

[lw395]

Two suggestions for yacht clubs in general...

1. make an effort. If yacht clubs want more members they need to get out and sign them up... It’s not like it’s difficult to find potential members... walk out onto the pontoon and talk to the boat owners who aren’t. The nomination and seconding process makes it very difficult for folks who ain’t in the circle to join... as to join, in effect you already need to be in the circle. You need to tackle the inherent bias towards exclusiveness at most clubs head on by actually canvassing for new members...
2. This is more specific... join together with successful inland clubs. I was gobsmacked recently to spend some time at the Nottingham Sailing club... and it appears to be thriving with a membership decades younger than at the clubs on the coast i have experienced.. I think this is about costs.. it’s a lot cheaper to knock around in a second hand dingy, and it’s a lot cheaper to just pop to your local reservoirs. And as a consequence... younger families who are both cash and time constrained are getting involved... I can’t help but think that these clubs could be used as a feeder system to get people to engage with the coastal clubs and the bigger boats as they get more ambitious. Or have longer holidays... there are lots of points of symbiosis that could be exploited....

Few points here.
1) Don't think all is sweetness and light at inland dinghy clubs. Have a look at endless threads on the Y&Y forum.
2) Don't assume all clubs want more members. They may want more of the right members, but mostly what is lacking is participation. Some clubs have plenty of members, but too many are passive, don't get involved in the club's activity.
3) A club is 'its members'. There fore it has no duty to the outside world, only to its members and its first priority is often to look after the existing membership.

4) Anyone who thinks they know better about how a yacht club should be run is entirely free to start their own, You won't be the first and some upstarts have been successful. If you do that, I genuinely wish you luck!

 

[photodog]

£40 a month club membership, I’m sorry but you obviously live in different world to a lot of us.

Your obviously not the right sort of member then....

 

[photodog]

Few points here.
1) Don't think all is sweetness and light at inland dinghy clubs. Have a look at endless threads on the Y&Y forum.
2) Don't assume all clubs want more members. They may want more of the right members, but mostly what is lacking is participation. Some clubs have plenty of members, but too many are passive, don't get involved in the club's activity.
3) A club is 'its members'. There fore it has no duty to the outside world, only to its members and its first priority is often to look after the existing membership.

4) Anyone who thinks they know better about how a yacht club should be run is entirely free to start their own, You won't be the first and some upstarts have been successful. If you do that, I genuinely wish you luck!

And yet.... the clubs are dieing on their feet.

Seems to me, the folks running em, may not be so good at it after all....



But by all means, clubs can keep on doin what they’ve been doin... just don’t be surprised if the result don’t change.

Family leisure activities are booming... and most cost a lot more than £40 a month to do. If clubs can’t tap into that market, and apparently most are not, then they should die.

 

[maby]

I think that these reasons are very negative... and I think if you look at the reasons people join the successful inland clubs and get involved In sailing, is that they want to meet people, do something fun, and gain a sense of community and belonging which is missing from so much of modern life.

And they want to do this as a family... do something active and outdoors.

....

I'm not sure that you can meaningfully compare inland and coastal sailing clubs in this way. Inland clubs tend to have a monopoly on the areas of water that are suitable to sail on - I've been a dinghy sailor in the Greater London area and virtually all the areas of water large enough to be worth launching a dinghy on are under the management of a club. The same is not true of coastal sailing - the OP who triggered this particular part of this thread was suggesting that a sailing club could easily recruit new members simply by promoting along pontoons - presumably in a marina. My experience of marina life - which is quite extensive - is that it effectively replaces the yacht club. There is a social life in the marina which fulfills the same function - "pontoon parties", informal races, Christmas parties, mutual help to solve problems on boats etc.

Most of the marinas that we have occupied had yacht clubs either on-site or close by and there have always been marina residents that were also club members - but almost always because they were active race competitors and needed to be club members in order to gain access to the race calendar. I think it would be very difficult to convince those that were not club members to join with membership fees of more than a few tens of pounds - access to the clubhouse and bar is simply not worth multiple hundreds of pounds per year.

 

[Praxinoscope]

Our clubs biggest loss of membership happened back in 1990-95 as. result of the vote to allow pubs to open on Sunday in Ceredigion, until that time half the town belonged to the club nd the other half belonged to the sports club, both of which were not covered by the dry Sunday laws.
Since that time we have managed to at least maintain a steady membership, partly from social members and partly from harbour users, but, we are constantly trying to increase our membership most of whom will be social members as we already have about 95% of the harbour users included in our membership.

 

[Balbas]

I think that these reasons are very negative... and I think if you look at the reasons people join the successful inland clubs and get involved In sailing, is that they want to meet people, do something fun, and gain a sense of community and belonging which is missing from so much of modern life.

And they want to do this as a family... do something active and outdoors.

To say that the membership fee is a barrier is imho not accurate. £40 a month is peanuts for the sort of folks who want to get involved... people expect to spend money for their leisure nowadays.. if a family member ship costs a £75 or so a month, that will be seen as peanuts compared to the cost of other family activities.

It’s about community and belonging, clubs can offer that. That’s the big selling point.

But only if clubs go out and sell themselves. If the club sits on its bottom and waits for people to come to them, then they are not actually selling themselves as a welcoming community.

I earn good money for where I live, as does the wife. Certainly we're doing alright compared to national (and especially local) averages. We have young kids. And so we have childcare costs, costs for after school activities (almost every flippin' night of the week!). We have a large mortgage, run two cars and I also run a boat. To give you an indication of how much of a difference having kids makes these days, I used to fly for fun before I had kids - certainly can't afford that now!

We might not be the type of people you'd like to see in a sailing club - not everyone likes kids, he'll even I wish they'd shut up sometimes - but if you want your sailing club to be sustainable, then we probably *are* the type of people you want, especially as with a bit of luck our kids might get into sailing too.

But I tell you what - £75/month is a chunk of change - and you simply wouldn't get me joining if those were the fees. I doubt I'd join at £40 /month. I think I pay in the region of £290/annum now.

 

[photodog]

I earn good money for where I live, as does the wife. Certainly we're doing alright compared to national (and especially local) averages. We have young kids. And so we have childcare costs, costs for after school activities (almost every flippin' night of the week!). We have a large mortgage, run two cars and I also run a boat.

We might not be the type of people you'd like to see in a sailing club - not everyone likes kids, he'll even I wish they'd shut up sometimes - but if you want your sailing club to be sustainable, then we probably *are* the type of people you want, especially as with a bit of luck our kids might get into sailing too.

But I tell you what - £75/month is a chunk of change - and you simply wouldn't get me joining if those were the fees.

You would join if the money bought something you valued...

How much do you spend on the licence fee, Netflix, amazon combo?

It’s about perceived value, and priorities.

You’ve prioritised other things... fair nuff. If they ain’t gonna sell it to you, then why should you make it your priority...

 

[Balbas]

You would join if the money bought something you valued...

How much do you spend on the licence fee, Netflix, amazon combo?

It’s about perceived value, and priorities.

Well given I could easily become a member of an exclusive club in the west end of London (I know that sounds absurd, me and exclusive in the same sentence) offering very sensible room rates and very easy access to the west end, all for £700/year, I'd want something pretty flippin' special from a yacht club for £200/annum more. And yes, priorities - I'd rather just have the mooring thanks and dispense with the club.

 

[photodog]

Well given I could easily become a member of an exclusive club in the west end of London (I know that sounds absurd, me and exclusive in the same sentence) offering very sensible room rates and very easy access to the west end, all for £700/year, I'd want something pretty flippin' special from a yacht club for £200/annum more. And yes, priorities - I'd rather just have the mooring thanks and dispense with the club.

Think of the children..... .

Anyways... I took this opportunity to check out the annual fee at the club near our boat... £180 for a family...

About the cost of the tv licence.

 

[maby]

You would join if the money bought something you valued...

How much do you spend on the licence fee, Netflix, amazon combo?

It’s about perceived value, and priorities.

You’ve prioritised other things... fair nuff. If they ain’t gonna sell it to you, then why should you make it your priority...

Of course it is all about perceived value for money. I could afford £40 per month - and have done so in the past - but, as I said a long way up in this thread, the last time I sat in the bar of a yacht club of which I was a member, I paused to look at my pint of bitter and reflect on the fact that it had cost me something more than £10. I looked around the club house - nice enough, but not noticeably better than the saloon bar in the village pub a couple of hundred yards away. Then I cancelled the direct debit that would have paid next year's membership. Most of my sailing social life takes place on the pontoon in the marina or in the marina bar; I'm not a great fan of racing, but do occasionally take part in informal races organised between other marina residents; the yacht club does have swinging moorings that can be rented - but I'm paying the marina multiple thousands per year for a nice, comfortable, fully serviced pontoon from which I can walk onto my boat without all that mucking about with dinghies.

 

[Balbas]

Think of the children..... .

Anyways... I took this opportunity to check out the annual fee at the club near our boat... £180 for a family...

About the cost of the tv licence.

£180 good value I agree. I disagree with your idea that £40 or £75 / month fees would be considered good value by joining members.

Oh on the subject - has never happened to me with sailing (I tell a lie, I think I begrudgingly paid a small fee a ton my current club), but has happened elsewhere - joining fees. Eff right off. It costs a few quid to do the admin required for me to join. Which, if you want me to join, you'll suck up - not expect me to.

 

[photodog]

£180 good value I agree. I disagree with your idea that £40 or £75 / month fees would be considered good value by joining members.

Oh on the subject - has never happened to me with sailing (I tell a lie, I think I begrudgingly paid a small fee a ton my current club), but has happened elsewhere - joining fees. Eff right off. It costs a few quid to do the admin required for me to join. Which, if you want me to join, you'll suck up - not expect me to.

I note on the club I looked at, there doesn’t appear to be a separate joining fee.

Tbh, given their facility, web site, prices on meals etc.... I think that’s remarkable value.

 

[Kukri]

Few points here.
1) Don't think all is sweetness and light at inland dinghy clubs. Have a look at endless threads on the Y&Y forum.
2) Don't assume all clubs want more members. They may want more of the right members, but mostly what is lacking is participation. Some clubs have plenty of members, but too many are passive, don't get involved in the club's activity.
3) A club is 'its members'. There fore it has no duty to the outside world, only to its members and its first priority is often to look after the existing membership.

4) Anyone who thinks they know better about how a yacht club should be run is entirely free to start their own, You won't be the first and some upstarts have been successful. If you do that, I genuinely wish you luck!

I’m not sure about (3). A Club is its present members, who owe a duty to its past members and its future membership.

To illustrate, I am a member of the Hong Kong Club. Some years ago we, the living members, passed a resolution and amended the Articles of Association of the Club so that, if the club is ever wound up, any surplus must be applied to forming a new club in the same place with the same objects. This was done to stop us, the living members, pocketing the proceeds (and they would be huge!) of the hard work of our forebears, and to ensure that future generations still have a club.

I can stand in the Orwell Room of the RHYC and admire a pair of bronze starting cannons, on which you can just make out the words «*Presented to the RHYC by Peter S Bruff, Chairman of Committees*». Who was he? He was the son of Nelson’s sailing master, and he himself was «*the Brunel of the Eastern Counties*», building Ipswich Wet Dock, the railway from Colchester to Norwich, the Chappel viaduct, and so on, and an extremely keen yachtsman who, in fact, died on his boat, but who spent years doing all the unglamorous stuff involved in running a Club that was, in those days, both extremely «*snotty*» and chronically short of money! Who would I be to put an end to his legacy?

 

[RobbieW]

I don't think this would get very far without a significant reduction in membership fees in most cases. There really are only three reasons to join a yacht club :

1) to become eligible for a club owned mooring
2) to gain access to the racing calendar
3) to gain access to the club bar

Anyone on the pontoon who is not already a member cannot be particularly interested in 1 or 2. If the club has a decent bar and restaurant, then many will be interested in 3, but not if the membership fees are approaching £500 per year as is the case for a couple at many of the south coast clubs. We enquired at our local club - quite nice bar and restaurant, but right next door to the marina bar which also serves decent beer and food. Under those circumstances, a membership fee in excess of £300 per annum is pretty difficult to justify.

I'd offer you a fourth reason, certainly for the Hamble, which is access to your boat on a river mooring. Parking is a PITA, 2 of the 4 clubs can offer short/long term parking as part of membership; there is a river taxi but at £9/person/trip its not that cheap, 1 club offers space for tenders & outboards onsite (subject to availability), 3 offer launch services though with different operating hours and ranges. All in membership of the appropriate club is cost effective compared to the alternative arrangements with local marinas for parking and tender storage.