Are you worried about keeping rowing club members enrolled and on board to keep your club finances from springing leaks?  Well we have a few tricks for you to keep up your sleeve that should help pay for the necessities, and all YOU have to do is start thinking small, because it’s little bits of change that can make the difference.

1. Regatta fees – When planning to race, within the regatta entry fee you can charge any person wanting to put their behind in one of your rowing boats at the following rate:  Entry fee + money for petrol + a small allowance for trailer maintenance (flat tyres, etc) + small profit for the club.  This will probably amount to as little as 50 pence per person per race.  The athletes will most likely not even notice this minuscule sum lumped in with the regatta entry fee and certainly won’t mind, but if you cart 30 members to each race and have the same number of races per season that ends up being a fair chunk for you to add to the kitty.
2. Club uniform / all in one row suits – When a member purchases an item of clothing, include in the kit charge an extra £2 as a club donation to pop into the cash box for future club maintenance.  Again it’s such a tiny amount compared to the cost of an all in one unisuit, that the athlete will hardly notice or mind.
3. Prepaying – When registering for a Regatta you have to pay the entry fee in advance upon registration.  Therefore ask the athletes to have a direct debit account set up with the club so that you can pay for their entry into the Regatta with their money.  It’s up to them to keep their club debit account sufficiently full and if they don’t have enough funds in it that month, they quite simply won’t be racing.  This saves you from the all-too-familiar cry of: ‘I’ll pay you next week, I promise!’
4. Monthly fees over Annual fees – Annual fees are usually the way clubs do business, but you will find that some members would much prefer to pay monthly.  If you offer this as an option, you can charge a touch more per month than you would for the whole year, simply because you’re not getting a lump sum up front.  The monthly fee is still appealing to the member because they don’t have to come up with a whole heap of money in September after the expensive summer holiday season.

Part of Space Saver Rowing Systems’ club management blog post series.  Space Saver makes boat racking for rowing boats, dragon boats and coaching launches.  Its innovative oar hanging racks save space and improve equipment safety – get the last oar out without crashing into the rest of the set….. see video here.

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