Fees Structure@CCC Badminton

[chris-ccc]

Greetings members@ccc,

Because of the poorer participation@ccc in our last 2 months of Winter 2007 (June & July), we are required to increase our fees for our sessions.

The fee for members@ccc will rise from $6 to $8.
The fee for visitors@ccc will rise from $10 to $13.

All new fees will apply from 1-August-2007.


Some months ago, HandsFull suggested that we should not drop our session fees... but we did not listen to him. :o:o:o

At the same time, kwongj suggested that visitors should pay double of what members are paying... but we still think that it could discourage visitors attending. :(:(:(

Last week, andrewghw, BadFever and DoublesPlease suggested that $8 for members and $13 for visitors could be tried/experimented... and so we will try this out. :):):)

Cheers... chris@ccc

[hkhung]

Last week, andrewghw, BadFever and DoublesPlease suggested that $8 for members and $13 for visitors could be tried/experimented... and so we will try this out.

To all CCC players:

With the new fee structure, this is a good time to get people start talking about fees again.

If $10 does not discourage visitors coming in, surely $13 is gonna turn people to either a) not come after the 1st time b) become members.

I mean looking at 2 new person who came from DTBA recently (brain or a girl), they pay $5 to either play tue/wed/thur or friday. And they have not become members yet. I mean the only rationale behind coming to us friday session is friday DTBA is mainly juniors (they have not come to supper, yet).

And Chris, after watching how hard you do your sales talk to them at the end of last session, i understand how difficult it is to sell the idea of members if they a) don't come to supper b) don't read the discussion board.

On the other hand, the new fee should really make it easy for us to see who want to involve themselves in the CCC family unit. I mean when i ask people to come to sunday albert park badminton, you have to know people or be slightly skilled to be invited to play a game. Otherwise you could keep on yelling at people and nobody would play with you.

With the new season, we might have to give discount for the session to 1st timers. Then again, that would be 1 more thing to do/remember for Chris.

Guys, any thoughts/suggestions is welcomes.

[HandsFull]

$13 for visitor will be a huge turn off for new people, especially if they dont know anything about CCC, and more so for girls.

Compare with JT ultra who charge $7 for men and $5 for girls, it cost additional $32 for girls and $24 for men to play with CCC per month, once per week. And remember, they dont need to pay member fees, and they have games nearly everyday.

My thought is to keep the fee at a reasonable level, which can be covered by increase in number of players. It's important to attract new ppl to come and play, then only they will stay with CCC..Attract and Retain!

[chris-ccc]

$13 for visitor will be a huge turn off for new people, especially if they dont know anything about CCC, and more so for girls.

Compare with JT ultra who charge $7 for men and $5 for girls, it cost additional $32 for girls and $24 for men to play with CCC per month, once per week. And remember, they dont need to pay member fees, and they have games nearly everyday.

My thought is to keep the fee at a reasonable level, which can be covered by increase in number of players. It's important to attract new ppl to come and play, then only they will stay with CCC..Attract and Retain!




Hi HandsFull,

Our initial dream is to have $5 for members and $10 for visitors.

But to our surprise, our players@ccc are so different from all the other Australian clubs that I have been to, where biggest attendances usually happen in Winter, and poorer attendances in Summer.

For those who did not know, we started for members at $10(Autumn 2006) and then moved to $5(Winter 2006), then to $8(Spring 2007), $7(Summer 2007), $6(Autumn 2007) and now back to $8(Winter 2007).

Because of our lower members' attendances in the past 2 months, we need to make changes.

Yes, for most of the things we do, they do have a spiralling effect. But to our surprise, our fees did not attract or drive away players.

Here is our history...
We started with $10 in April-2006. When we dropped our fees to $5 (from 1-June-2006), our attendances dropped. When we put it up to $8 (from 1-September-2006), attendances increased rapidly. And then, when we dropped our fees to $7 (from 1-December-2006), attendances stayed constant as the previous season. Finally when we dropped our fees to $6 (from 1-June-2007) attendances dropped again.

But as soon as we increased our fees to $8 (from 1-August-2007), our attendances picked up on Wednesday 1-Aug-2007, Friday 3-Aug-2007 and Sunday 5-Aug-2007.

We just do not understand WHY. :confused::confused::confused:

However, most of our decisions are made at Suppertime@CCC. And it looks like, in the future, our Summer fees will be cheaper than our Winter fees.

For changing our fees, we also took into consideration of what you have posted on 25-March-2007, as it is located here at:
http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=539728#post539728
which states;

====== ====== start post ====== ======

Hi Chris,

I would propose to maintain current member fee structure
- $7 for 3hr session is considered cheap
- as you said, the club is still recuperating from last winter's shortfall
- additional fund can be used to establish the ccc Library to buy books, DVD or magazines
- save for rainny days, we might hv low attendance in winter, but still need to bear the fixed cost

On the extention to 11pm, i would suggest to do a quick poll. How many ppl is interested to play till 11pm..personally I dont think it's neccessary until we have consistently more than 30 players for 2 month consecutively.

====== ====== end post ====== ======


We sincerely hope that our dream of $5 for members and $10 for visitors can be achieved when CCC settles down.

Cheers... chris@ccc

[chris-ccc]

It's important to attract new ppl to come and play, then only they will stay with CCC..Attract and Retain!




Sorry HandsFull,

We have forgotten to address the subject regarding new players and/or visitors.

Believe it or not, our membership numbers, as at today 7-Aug-2007, have exceeded 60. :):):)

If all our members turn up on one particular night, we will be overflowing. :crying::crying::crying:

But our experience tells us that many of our members would attend only on particular nights.

Just look at our last 4 Fridays, our busiest nights, for example...
On Friday 13-July-2007, 15 members and 3 visitors attended.
On Friday 20-July-2007, 14 members and 6 visitors attended.
On Friday 27-July-2007, 15 members and 4 visitors attended.

And when we increased our fees;
On Friday 3-Aug-2007, 23 members and 5 visitors attended.

But we have to be careful...
As we have stated before, as a tentative plan, if more than 32 players attended on a particular night, we have to turn away visitors.

We have to plan how we should handle overflowing situations when Summer arrives. :confused::confused::confused:

Cheers... chris@ccc

[hkhung]

But we have to be careful...
As we have stated before, as a tentative plan, if more than 32 players attended on a particular night, we have to turn away visitors.

We have to plan how we should handle overflowing situations when Summer arrives.

good thinking mate. Cos it's gonna happen one way or another. A matter of time when.

i guess once we are getting 32 people, the next step is to give preference to the ones who confirmed by either email/phone. Any other suggestion is welcomed.

As people who know me well from forum, i am all for the idea of confirming.

[chris-ccc]

Because of the poorer participation@ccc in our last 2 months of Winter 2007 (June & July), we are required to increase our fees for our sessions.

The fee for members@ccc will rise from $6 to $8.
The fee for visitors@ccc will rise from $10 to $13.

All new fees will apply from 1-August-2007.


Some months ago, HandsFull suggested that we should not drop our session fees... but we did not listen to him. :o:o:o

At the same time, kwongj suggested that visitors should pay double of what members are paying... but we still think that it could discourage visitors attending. :(:(:(

Last week, andrewghw, BadFever and DoublesPlease suggested that $8 for members and $13 for visitors could be tried/experimented... and so we will try this out. :):):)







Believe it or not, our membership numbers, as at today 7-Aug-2007, have exceeded 60. :):):)




Greetings,

Our members@ccc have not made comments, other than HandsFull and hkhung.

This trial of our new fees was made by andrewghw, BadFever, chris@ccc and DoublesPlease.

Members@ccc should realise that our CCC depends on your suggestions.

One of our reasons that CCC decides to have seasonal membership is that we do not want to commit ourselves to a period of more than 3 months.

In other words, CCC could be disbanded or dissolved within 3 months.

It now depends on the rest of our 60+ members@ccc to decide. :):):)

Should CCC continues with the trial of new fees, or just dissolves because of lower attendances?

Cheers... chris@ccc

[Hagane]

Sorry for not replying :)

Chris, I believe that the price is rather high, however, if it is necessary to keep the club afloat, then charge what you need.

Perhaps, the discrepancies between membership rates and casual turnouts may have been too small before.

Given that you have a limit of 1:8 and that you seem to have large number of members, preference should be given to those members who has identified themselves in the forum as wanting to turn up.

Casual turnouts should be coaxed to join memberships on the night, especially if it's close to full capacity.

That's just my opinion anyway :)

[chris-ccc]

Chris, I believe that the price is rather high, however, if it is necessary to keep the club afloat, then charge what you need.




Hi Hagane,

If we could have known beforehand our past attendances, the right price structure should be $8 for the colder months and $6 for the warmer months.


Our 'Eventual Wish' is a steady price structure of $5 for all months when all of our courts are fully utilised, with no empty courts being wasted.


During our colder months, there are always empty courts being wasted.




Perhaps, the discrepancies between membership rates and casual turnouts may have been too small before.

Given that you have a limit of 1:8 and that you seem to have large number of members, preference should be given to those members who has identified themselves in the forum as wanting to turn up.




In the future, we hope that our CCC could function without casual visitors being involved, but with the exception of friends of our members invited to join in.




Casual turnouts should be coaxed to join memberships on the night, especially if it's close to full capacity.




We have always been encouraging casual visitors to join our membership before the size of our membership reaches full capacity.

Cheers... chris@ccc

[chris-ccc]

Our 'Eventual Wish' is a steady price structure of $5 for all months when all of our courts are fully utilised, with no empty courts being wasted.


In the future, we hope that our CCC could function without casual visitors being involved, but with the exception of friends of our members invited to join in.

We have always been encouraging casual visitors to join our membership before the size of our membership reaches full capacity.




Greetings,

Here is another suggestion from our members@ccc...

Because CCC is to promote Badminton by bringing in not only new players, but also younger players, CCC will be giving Scholarships to our juniors@ccc. :):):)

Currently, we have 20 juniors(under 18) involved at CCC throughout our various venues.

Cheers... chris@ccc

[sin2kilda]

If you put an affordable price for University students, am sure the'll come to join you. Some uni doesn't have good players there and most students are tight on budget. I used to pay like $1 for the games (of course subsidised by the uni) and $2 for outsiders. Of course again it was like in the beginning of 1990s. Do advertise in the uni notice board saying there's a badminton extravaganza in Melbourne for Uni students for Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian and anywhere else. They'll flock in. It's also a chance for them to mingle with fellow countrymen/women.

[chris-ccc]

If you put an affordable price for University students, am sure they'll come to join you.

Some uni doesn't have good players there and most students are tight on budget. I used to pay like $1 for the games (of course subsidised by the uni) and $2 for outsiders. Of course again it was like in the beginning of 1990s.

Do advertise in the uni notice board saying there's a badminton extravaganza in Melbourne for Uni students for Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian and anywhere else. They'll flock in. It's also a chance for them to mingle with fellow countrymen/women.




Hi sin2kilda,

Appreciate what you have posted. :):):)

The answer is actually quite complex... as I have experienced over my years involved with Badminton.

Organisers of Badminton Clubs/Groups usually have their different objectives. And the fees involved (as paid/contributed by their club/group members) could vary greatly, if their objectives are to be met.

Here are 2 of the objectives for what the organisers wanted;
1. Sessions for all players: The organiser(s) will accept players of all skill levels. Here, I believe, is where Badminton will be promoted.
2. Sessions for experienced players only: The organiser(s) will not be interested in players new to Badminton. Only experienced players are welcome.

Based on the above objectives, it will depend on how many players, skilled or unskilled, will participate in the objective of the club/group.

To me, to promote Badminton, organisers should accept players of all skill levels, if they are to promote Badminton. However, there are many skilled players not happy with this. These skilled players prefer not to play with new comers.

Of course, for non-profit organisations, the sharing of the costs for meeting their objectives will be different.

As a founder of a University Club, I was happy that our university students were happy enough to allow players/students of any skill level to participate. Result: The University club fees remained low.

As a founder of an Open Public Club, I wasn't happy that many of our members are selective. They are not interested in lower skilled players. Result: Open club fees remained high.

However, not all Open clubs face this problem, if their members still welcome new players to Badminton. And these are the clubs which are able to provide lower fees to all their members.

Cheers... chris@ccc
***

[chris-ccc]

The fee for members@ccc will rise from $6 to $8.
The fee for visitors@ccc will rise from $10 to $13.

All new fees will apply from 1-August-2007.

Last week, andrewghw, BadFever and DoublesPlease suggested that $8 for members and $13 for visitors could be tried/experimented... and so we will try this out. :):):)







$13 for visitor will be a huge turn off for new people, especially if they don't know anything about CCC, and more so for girls.







If $10 does not discourage visitors coming in, surely $13 is gonna turn people...

On the other hand, the new fee should really make it easy for us to see who want to involve themselves in the CCC family unit.

With the new season, we might have to give discount for the session to 1st timers.







Chris, I believe that the price is rather high, however, if it is necessary to keep the club afloat, then charge what you need.

Casual turnouts should be coaxed to join memberships on the night, especially if it's close to full capacity.




Greetings,

New Fees@CCC: Applying from 1-December-2007.
$8 for members@ccc
$10 for visitors@ccc
$5 for 1st timers@ccc


Our 'Eventual Wish' is a steady price structure of $5 for members when all of our courts are fully utilised, with no empty courts being wasted.


Cheers... chris@ccc
***