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Author: John

Master Greenkeeper John Quinn is the author of Performance Bowling Greens, and several other titles on Greenkeeping, Club and Business Management.

How to Increase your Prices without Losing Members

Many bowls clubs struggle with the concept of increasing their prices whether it is for the actual membership fee or bar prices.

The fact is that members are used to price increases in every aspect of their lives outside of the club and giving the impression that the club is somewhat insulated from market forces is a dangerous one.

Here are 7 things you can do to increase your prices painlesslessly:

  1. Take the improvement of your facilities very seriously, especially the green.
  2. Make regular adjustments to prices in line with other businesses and when required for the smooth running of the club.
  3. Increase membership fees every year without fail, so that it becomes accepted that this will happen.
  4. Take every opportunity to add value to being a member.
  5. Behave like a business that wants to delight its valued customers and attract many more through the word of mouth marketing this creates.
  6. Be transparent about club running costs.
  7. Involve members in creating the future direction of the club.
Bowling Club Membership retention and growth
Bowling Club Membership retention and growth
How do you increase club membership numbers in a time of economic turmoil? How do you retain members when there is a natural decline in bowling participation? This eBook sets out a plan for transforming any bowls club into the central hub of its community. FREE download for Academy Members more details
Price: £9.97

The shocking truth about bowls green maintenance

When traditions get hold they are somethimes hard to shift and this is no more true than in bowls green maintenance.

Over the past 3 or 4 decades bowls green maintenance has been transformed into a weird science that is designed to baffle greenkeepers into rejecting common sense and observation in favour of bottles and bags of ever more expensive fertilisers, pesticides and conditioners.

Bowls green keeping is essentially very simple and all of our actions and maintenance procedures can either add or detract from the performance of our bowls greens.

A detailed explanation of what has gone wrong is included here and a step by step process
for turning this situation around is included here.

Instant income for your bowls club

If you had to find instant income for your bowls club, hard cash to keep your club alive this week, where could you look?

Probably not right in front of your nose but that would be a mistake.

The successful bowling club of the future will be about a lot more than just bowling; it will be a centre for community involvement and readers of my eBook Bowling Club Survival and Turnaround will know that there are hundreds of ideas that can be applied to clubs to start the process of turning them into vibrant and thriving institutions.

Anyway, back to today’s quest: where can you look for immediate cash?

Pick up your local paper and turn to the clubs and organisations news section.

In my local paper this week, 20 different clubs and organisations had a report published and they included; Rotary, Probus, Horticultural Society, Speakers Club, various medical support groups, Inner Link, BNi, Ramblers, Wildlife Trust, Parent and Toddlers. Events were also publicised such as Whist, Bingo, Films, Quiz Nights, etc etc.

Have a look in your own local paper and invite the leader of each group along to get a free viewing of your facilities, coffee, meet the members. If one or two of these groups could change their meeting venue to your club this month, that is instant income.

Ok so you will (this is not a maybe) need to make changes to accommodate this, but view it as the start of something that will grow and the justification for the changes is much easier.

Pleasing Everybody when Saving Your Bowls Club

Not everyone will agree with your plan.

When trying to save your bowling club, it is easy to be put off or put down by people or comments from within the club.

The trouble is that you will never please everybody.

If you’ve read my Manifesto for a Successful Bowling Club you will know about the importance of making a club policy that locks in the direction you are going in at least until the consensus of opinion is changed.

If you’ve read my Bowling Club Survival and Turnaround eBook you will know about the 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle. This is a rule that turns out true for so many different areas of business and life in general that it’s hard to ignore it; simply put this principle says that 80% of the effect will be gained from 20% of the effort. It is also true that 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the people and of course that 80% of the moans, groans and negativity will come from 20% of your members.

If you set out to try to please everybody, your project will stall early.

Make sure you communicate your intentions well, and that the ideas you want to progress with are group decisions; then get them locked in to policy early on.

Communicate regularly and consistently on how progress is being made.

Expect that only 20% of the members will actively take part in the process.

Don’t be put off by the negative comments from the 20% that don’t agree with anything.

Just do your work, communicate it well and make sure to report on measurable changes frequently to show the progress you are making.

Don’t allow a clique to form, keep trying to get fresh input regardless of how hard it seems to do.

Above all keep going, it will all be worth it.

Club Turnaround Basics-Member Retention

With the continued contraction of overall membership of bowling clubs, it is clear that the clubs most likely to survive and turnaround their fortunes are the ones that have a clear strategy for membership growth and retention.

Growing bowling club membership is a big topic because it doesn’t just include getting more people in to bowl at your club as we might always have imagined. It is now vital that we not only have a clear picture of what a “member” looks like but also that we are very open minded as to what this could or should include. In Bowling Club Survival and Turnaround, I have clearly defined what I think the bowling club of the near future will look like and I go on to define what a member might be.

Anyway, back to retaining the members you already have and first a look at new members and the skill of engendering a feeling of belonging to your club. If a new member doesn’t feel that they belong to your club they will quickly leave and another subscription is lost. Building that feeling is, like it or not, the job of Read more