Membership Dues Increase

[ebrasmus21]

I’m going to vent/ask for opinions here, hopefully we can get some good discussion going. 
 

I’m a junior member at a private club.  I’ve been a member since 2017.  
 

When I joined we had around 300 members; we now have 500.  
 

During this time since 2017 they have not increased dues although they did assess a Covid fund to help the club out.  
 

We were told that maybe, at some point in the future the club would have to “look at the dues.” 
 

Well today it was announced that junior members will be subject to a dues increase of 22%.  There wasn’t detailed discussion of this in advance it was all “well we are going to look at dues at some point.”..... 

 

I’m finding myself pretty pissed off right now because 22% is a pretty healthy increase and this type of increase was not communicated.  
 

I’m in insurance, if I increased the pricing on an account and popped someone for an extra 22% without telling them ahead of time that wouldn’t go well for me.  It’s poor customer service at the very least.  
 

Can anyone else weigh in on this?  Is this just what private clubs do and I should stop complaining? 
 

The junior pricing is increasing a lot vs full members on a % basis.  Making this decision the way they did is telling me my club doesn’t want juniors anymore.  

[pinhigh27]

What was your initiation, like can you just leave worst case scenario? How long are you locked in for?

 

Why do you guys need to increase dues, 300 to 500 members seems like a big jump in revenue already. 

[Hawkeye77]

Seems like BS in the sense that if it was going to be considered and voted on by the Board (if that's the structure) it should have been communicated.  Maybe they "post", lol, an agenda but do they email one to members in advance? Obviously, that's minimum, but with dues and an increase that significant I'd sure expect a general heads up to the junior members would be given beyond the bare minimum.

 

Several ways to look at it, but it's probably accurate that increasing the juniors that much and taking account of the numbers that perhaps it allowed the regular members to avoid more of an increase in a significant way?  

 

Seems like on a % basis, it ought to be across the board unless there is a purpose to be served which seems to be "thanks juniors!" as they toast you with drinks they are kind of buying with your money.

 

Maybe all the above is too cynical, lol.

 

 

[jerebear21]

inflation.

[ebrasmus21]

26 minutes ago, pinhigh27 said:

What was your initiation, like can you just leave worst case scenario? How long are you locked in for?

 

Why do you guys need to increase dues, 300 to 500 members seems like a big jump in revenue already. 

We have a decent amount of debt on the books due to a 2m dollar irrigation system and a 2m dollar clubhouse renovation. 
 

Im not in too deep, if I have to walk away I can do that without much pain.  I don’t want to because I love the course and I love my game but I’m being kind of bitchie about the current situation 

[ebrasmus21]

17 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

Seems like BS in the sense that if it was going to be considered and voted on by the Board (if that's the structure) it should have been communicated.  Maybe they "post", lol, an agenda but do they email one to members in advance? Obviously, that's minimum, but with dues and an increase that significant I'd sure expect a general heads up to the junior members would be given beyond the bare minimum.

 

Several ways to look at it, but it's probably accurate that increasing the juniors that much and taking account of the numbers that perhaps it allowed the regular members to avoid more of an increase in a significant way?  

 

Seems like on a % basis, it ought to be across the board unless there is a purpose to be served which seems to be "thanks juniors!" as they toast you with drinks they are kind of buying with your money.

 

Maybe all the above is too cynical, lol.

 

 

It was voted on by the board.  I’m not sure that I’m so upset about the dollar increase as much as how they seem to be communicating this....

[theebdk]

Insurance and customer service, you have to be kidding me.  My insurance company increased my homeowners about 25% one year.  Sent me the invoice ahead of time without explanation, just the bill.  Went out and found a better rate than the original and dropped that company.  I do the same with auto insurance every couple of years, shop around.  I assume a fair amount of people are lazy and never shop around.

 

Club is not telling you they do not want junior members anymore.  They are telling you that they do not want members paying less than x. Covid has had a major impact on golf and pricing.  Demand is high now but I suspect it will roll back.

 

 

 

[mizuno player]

They are increasing because they can. You said they almost doubled their membership in three years or so. They know they have a product people want and will pay for. If you don't they don't care in a sense. They next guy will pay. 

 

Check your contract and see if it mentions anything about dues increases and if or how they are supposed to notify. 

 

Is this a member owned club? Or corporate owned? 

 

My old club was corporate owned and they only had to notify us in our January statement. Dues increases suck but nature of the beast. 

[ebrasmus21]

16 minutes ago, theebdk said:

Insurance and customer service, you have to be kidding me.  My insurance company increased my homeowners about 25% one year.  Sent me the invoice ahead of time without explanation, just the bill.  Went out and found a better rate than the original and dropped that company.  I do the same with auto insurance every couple of years, shop around.  I assume a fair amount of people are lazy and never shop around.

 

Club is not telling you they do not want junior members anymore.  They are telling you that they do not want members paying less than x. Covid has had a major impact on golf and pricing.  Demand is high now but I suspect it will roll back.

 

 

 

Find yourself a better agent. 
 

Our club has more revenue coming in (pre dues hike) than it has for many years past.  Covid is not the problem 

[CAT GOLFER]

I have a feeling my club is doing something similar, they have absorbed some members from a few that closed and have been running a healthy “promotion” to net younger members.  It’s smart business.  But it is solely member dues driven, so people can walk right out the door with their money too.

[mizuno player]

43 minutes ago, ebrasmus21 said:

Find yourself a better agent. 
 

Our club has more revenue coming in (pre dues hike) than it has for many years past.  Covid is not the problem 

There isn't anything as too much revenue though. 

[Bonneville85308]

How many junior members are there compared to regular members? Has the number of juniors been increasing more than the regular members? 

 

Perhaps a lot of new junior members joined and the full-dues paying regular members are having a tougher time getting their favorite tee times or spots in events. So they figured they would jack up the junior member rate to discourage new ones from joining and maybe lose a few of the current ones. Since they raised the dues, they may end up with fewer junior members but the same or more revenue.

[PEI_Golfer]

You lost me at Junior and then said you work in the insurance industry.  I guess you have much different titles for membership categories than most places I've been to.

 

I'm more interested in know if you actually paid an initiation and your annuals.  Generally, Jr. memberships are pretty cheap, so the % increase means very little to me if you are paying like $500 a year where as a full member pays $5k

[ebrasmus21]

1 hour ago, Bonneville85308 said:

How many junior members are there compared to regular members? Has the number of juniors been increasing more than the regular members? 

 

Perhaps a lot of new junior members joined and the full-dues paying regular members are having a tougher time getting their favorite tee times or spots in events. So they figured they would jack up the junior member rate to discourage new ones from joining and maybe lose a few of the current ones. Since they raised the dues, they may end up with fewer junior members but the same or more revenue.

I suspect this is dead on.  I don’t know the exact numbers but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case

[ebrasmus21]

12 minutes ago, PEI_Golfer said:

You lost me at Junior and then said you work in the insurance industry.  I guess you have much different titles for membership categories than most places I've been to.

 

I'm more interested in know if you actually paid an initiation and your annuals.  Generally, Jr. memberships are pretty cheap, so the % increase means very little to me if you are paying like $500 a year where as a full member pays $5k

I pay 500/month let alone per year 

[PEI_Golfer]

2 minutes ago, ebrasmus21 said:

I pay 500/month let alone per year 

 

 

Then that has to be a hell of a club you are a member at at that rate.  Even some of the best courses in Canada have annuals in the $8k or under range for full members.

[Soloman1]

It's a non-profit club? That is a significant raise (40%) in revenue from new members. What is the membership limit according to the bylaws?

Edited April 30, 2021 by Soloman1

[llewol007]

Makes you probably realize that you arent as important a piece of that club as you would like to think. The club is going to do what it feels is in its best interest. Same can be said about a lot of other membership groups, clubs, teams, you name it. My question is to whether or not it is worth staying there as a club member. If it is than you weigh the pros and cons. Like you said, they have not increased dues for a couple of years but would at some point deal with the issue. Well, I am betting that the covid thing probably made them want to increase some things. Who knows, they might have more activities, awards, tournaments. At the end of the day, they basically are telling you, if you wont pay it, we have enough people that some else will. 

[pinhigh27]

10 hours ago, mizuno player said:

There isn't anything as too much revenue though. 

Assuming it's member owned then yes there is, there is a point where the cost forces everyone out and the club has 100 members who then have to pay more because there are less people in the pot to pay for everything. 

 

It's a balancing act of retaining people with low enough dues while still being able to pay the bills. There's no point in charging more than you have to.

 

If it's corporation owned then sure they don't care, they will bleed the members dry if they can. 

 

To me it seems weird to have a non-trivial increase in dues along with a large increase in amount of members. If you have new costs and say ok we either need to have an assessment for the costs or raise dues, but the membership stays the same ,ok. But if you're drastically increasing the amount of members, you have a ton more people paying for everything and increasing revenue that way. So if you need a 22 % increase in dues given 200 new members from a club that previously had 300, what would they have needed if it remained 300? Most places aren't increasing dues by like 30-40 % at a time, that would be a pretty big change.  

 

500 members seems like a lot too if it's just 18 holes, obviously depends on how active membership is but if typical, I would expect that to be pretty busy. 

Edited April 30, 2021 by pinhigh27

[pinhigh27]

8 hours ago, PEI_Golfer said:

 

 

Then that has to be a hell of a club you are a member at at that rate.  Even some of the best courses in Canada have annuals in the $8k or under range for full members.

Not really in america. That's pretty standard depending on the area. Could be cheap if in a very HCOL area but other than that pretty typical IMO. 

 

Junior doesn't mean kid or child, it means like 20s- low 30s age group typically. 

[Abh159]

It sucks, but unfortunately your story makes sense to me if you just look at the basic facts you mentioned. 

 

1) Your club is several million $ in debt.

2) The membership has almost doubled in the past 4 years, but they haven't increased the dues at all over that time.

 

The club seems to be trying to cash in on the golf boom (which is a bit shady but at the end of the day it is a business) by increasing the dues and revenue. Based on the fact that the membership has grown so much I'm sure the know that if they lose some people because of the increase they still have plenty of other who would join in a heartbeat. Will it probably hurt them in the long run? Maybe, but I'm sure they are only thinking about how the can maximize profits while the market is hot. 

 

Out of curiosity, would you have been okay with them doing a 5% increase each year instead of the whole 22% at once? Seems to me that you're more upset at the sudden nature of the increase than you are about the cost itself. 

[Skaffa77]

I can definitely understand the OP's frustration with the situation.  I don't personally belong to a private club, but have family and friends who do.  My in-laws left their club primarily due to massive hikes in prices and assessments for club improvements.  They went to different club that was reasonably priced and closer to their home. 

 

Their old club had faced a little bit of an exodus as a result, but have been busy trying to get new members to fill the spots.  Seems like it's the nature of the business.

[ebrasmus21]

9 hours ago, PEI_Golfer said:

 

 

Then that has to be a hell of a club you are a member at at that rate.  Even some of the best courses in Canada have annuals in the $8k or under range for full members.

[ebrasmus21]

Lots of good points being made, thanks Fam.  
 

Couple of points: 

 

1- we are non-profit, members owned

2- our golf course is in great shape and demand is high 

3- our balance sheet has way to much debt 

 

at the end of the day, because I’m in customer service, I don’t appreciate the communication or lack there of regarding this decision. 
 

With a membership as healthy as ours currently is it seems a bit much to pop all juniors 22% however our balance sheet does need to improve...

[pinhigh27]

How did they propose paying for all this stuff before this recent increase ? Like obviously it had to be addressed prior to you guys acquiring 4M of debt 

[ebrasmus21]

3 minutes ago, pinhigh27 said:

How did they propose paying for all this stuff before this recent increase ? Like obviously it had to be addressed prior to you guys acquiring 4M of debt 

Honestly I think the conversation was basically “we have no choice but to do this. We will figure out how to service the debt later.” 
 

At the previous couple of annual meetings we had members voice their concerns on the state of the balance sheet.  The board agreed but now that we have so many members I guess they want to act on it..

[mmoran]

500 members is way to many unless that includes a couple hundred social members or you have 2 courses.  Raising dues is the country club way of thinning the herd.  

 

Almost all mid tier and lower clubs have too much debt.  They don't have the members that will stick around if they get an assessment for $15k in one shot so it gets done at $100/month forever.  

[Petethreeput]

A couple of things I can think of:

I suspect the GM investigated other regional course junior membership dues.  Let’s say there are a max 35 junior memberships available, and your full.  you have massive debt, it’s only $3500 monthly to debt service.

It hasn’t increased for a few years. So inflation over the years is 7%. Maybe they pick a hard number rather than an annual COI increase, in 2021 they are ahead, but then in 2026 they will increase again?  I don’t know.

One last thing. Members are quick to say, we have more members so dues should go down. A certain amount of payroll is fixed cost, but with a full membership the need for more employees occurs, and payroll is the number 1 expense for any club.

Not knowing where you are and whether $500 is a lot or a little, if you want the maintenance (irrigation system) and employees to know your name and help you, then it is what it is. Remember, the board are members too, so presumably their dues have gone up too.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Petethreeput

[PEI_Golfer]

3 hours ago, pinhigh27 said:

Not really in america. That's pretty standard depending on the area. Could be cheap if in a very HCOL area but other than that pretty typical IMO. 

 

Junior doesn't mean kid or child, it means like 20s- low 30s age group typically. 

 

For many up here, as soon or earlier as you hit 30, you enter 'intermediate' range and then would have to go full after 40.  Some top end Intermediate after like 35.

 

Years ago when I was at one course that is generally a top 15 in Canada, annuals were $4.6k.

[Abh159]

12 hours ago, PEI_Golfer said:

Then that has to be a hell of a club you are a member at at that rate.  Even some of the best courses in Canada have annuals in the $8k or under range for full members.

 

From my experience $500/month is on the affordable side of a Jr. Membership in the US for a halfway decent club. 

 

I'm guessing golf is a lot more affordable in Canada since you can probably only play like 6 maybe 7 months out of the year? I imagine it would be difficult for clubs to justify charging a ton when members can't even use the course for half the year.