I organized over 10 players to play badminton together. We’ve been playing evey week for past 6 months and had some great time. The problem is since I'm the one organized it, I took care of everything for them: court bookings, funds management, shuttle supply etc. I’ve been doing this quite happily because I like this game and always believe that one should help each other whenever possible. But recently an outsider commented that I had spoiled them too much! After some reflection, I realized that I probably did! It was further proven after my oversea trip last week. Because I was absent, I didn't know how many ppl turned up for that week’s session. As a result, I cannot keep the record – for evenly charge those played with the court booking fee. So, I had to call up all the players and ask. The problem is I don't know who has played and had to randomly pick up the numbers to call (why can’t someone call me and inform me of this instead?). Anyway, I was a bit unlucky and only managed to find someone who played that night at my 3rd call! But I try not to be put off by the negative thoughts. Therefore I came up with some idea to help with the situation: to form a social badminton club, point a few committee members to manage the club (court booking etc.) and also charge everyone a flat quarterly fee to simplify the record keeping and funds management process. And also to get more players into the club - since I’ve already put in the efforts, why not put in a bit more efforts to let more people enjoy the game? In fact I’ve turned away some players early this year due to the fact that we only have one court per night and cannot accommodate more players. Next time I may just book more court time since I’ve to get up early every Sat anyway. I sent out my proposal to everyone but so far the response was very poor. I’ll give them a bit more time and hope they will not keep silent. I do afraid that they are just too happy with the current situation - that everything has been taken care of and they just need to turn up whenever they like, have 3-hours of fun and pay a few dollars for it. But I’ll get tired one day. And in the event I move out of the area, the group will not be able to sustain. That would be a pity. What will you do if you were me? Do you think the club idea will work?
1. find out how many courts you can get. 2. admit 4 players per court, plus 4 more. (ex. 4 courts x4 = 16players plus additional 4 to rotate) 3. have a waitlist, take in 4 drop-in plus more if registered players dont show up for that day (waitlist wait for 15 minutes before playing to confirm the available space) 4. allow registration date(deadline) along with registration reminder (email list) 5. fee should include 2 feather birds per game or 1-2 plastic birds per court.
Not sure whether the waitlist thing will work. So far no one confirm with me if they will show up - they just come. So some times I've 9 players for one court and some time only 4.
The club idea is a good one, but you have spoilt them. It sounds like they come along and just pay their money. To run any club efficiently is not easy. I have just seen the minutes of my clubs agm and looking at the costs of the hall and the shuttles etc, it needs to be run well. But if you appoint the right people like a treasurer and a secretary it will take some of the burden from you. It would be good if you could find a venue where it had 4 courts but you only hired 1 or 2 until numbers started to increase. That way if it became more popular you wouldn't have to find a new venue just negotiate a better deal. To show commitment you would need to charge a quarterly or annual fee as you wouldn't want to be footing the bill for people who came rarely and paid on the night. You could have guests that pay on the night but only for a limited amount of times.
Thanks for the advices. If they don't like the changes, I may still suggest them to pay a flat fee to reduce my burden. The guest player is a good idea. We can use it to let the new player to have a trial game before recruiting them (yes, trial game has to be limited to a couple of times only otherwise they will become like current players). And for those exsiting players, I can just call them regular players instead of club memebers if they don't want to get invovled in the club thing!
I think our club you can have 3 or 4 guest appearances, works well for both parties. Also sets out your stall as being a well organised club, hopefully you will have people flocking to join. Might be worth doing a bit of research on what venues are available and what time slots and what days. The other night i really fancied playing as a guest somewhere on a Wednesday night, spent a couple of hours searching online (was even prepared to travel a little further) and couldn't find anywhere. But did notice there are loads on a Wednesday. If you find a day that doesn't compete with another club you may find people would want to come as its nice to have different places/people to play.
@hotisland I know exactly what your going through as I have been in the same situation! late 2006 a few people (5-6) started playing together weekly and it was all very informal. We used a forum website for people to sign up so we knew at least how many courts to book. one year later we had about 20-25 players weekly and we were approached by Badminton England if we wanted to become an official club. March 2008 we became an official club and now we have about 100 members (weekly 40-50 playing). it's still very informal with level required and the pint afterwards. We don't have memberships or anything like that. We're now a social club which seems very informal for the players but has got a solid organised structure behind it. I know how it was like to start with in terms of court bookings and collecting money so if you have any questions just let me know. Jaap
word of mouth is very important. guest are welcomed as long as the person who brings them know that it cost X amount of money for dropping in. as commented previously by another member, try to find a faucility that have say 4 courts and only rent 1 or 2 to test the waters. i also recommend free online (local) ads as well as letting local BC member know, i'm sure people here wouldnt mind making new friends!! *but price should be firm*
Hi Japioo, Thanks for the suggestions. I do have a question: 1) A couple of exsiting players only come 50% of the time while others come almost every week. Since the club will be totally non-profitable, I wanted to be really really fair to everyone. Worring that a single type of club memebership may not make everyone happy, I come up with the following memebership types. Do you think it will work? Type A) Regular Memebers: cost is $XX/qtr, entitle to evey session - which is up to 13 per quarter. Club managers will try their best to secure courts for every week and arrange minimum 12 sessions per qurter. If the session numbers fall below 12, the club will (prorate &) refund the memebers accordingly. (book a court on weekend is extremely difficult in Singapore!!!) Type B) Casual Memebers: memebers come at pay-per-play basis. Per session cost is 10% of $XX (regular memeber fee). But limited to 3 sessions per quarter only. Type C) Guest players: new players that come and have a trial session before decide to join the club. Limited to one trial per person only. Trail session cost is also 10% of $XX. And at every session, we only take up to 2 guest players or causual players per court. 2) I think a grade system may put into place to make sure we always have a balaced game each time, especially when match up for doulbes (we only play doubles & are all male). Do you have such system and how do you execute it? 3) As more players joining, the players skill levels may become a problem becuase we all know some good players will shun from playing with low level players. Pls note that current players are all at advanced beginner or medium players level. So far I don't think we should take in anyone below advanced beginner's level or some players will not be happy. How do you manage this kind of issue? Thanks everyone again. If you have good advices for the above questions, pls let me know.
Hi Hotisland: We don't have a membership as such as some of our player come only 50% (or only occasionally) of the time. Therefore we have set a fixed price for the night they play. If you set this slightly above the court price the you can save up that money and buy the shuttles for everyone and also prossibly let a newby play for free the first time. Our members had no issue's paying slightly above court price. Now after two years we saved u a fair bit of money so we even started hiring a coach once a month, and sponsor socials. As for levels; we are just a social club, all standards play each other on the night randomly wherever a court is available (we have 8-10 courts at one time though). If people become competitive and want to play only hard-core games then they will have to join another club as (I also play for another club to really improve my level). Because it's so social the club has been a huge succes so I wouldn't worry about that too much yet. During the night the players will automatically form even balanced pairs anyway. Of course it's up to you how you want to grow but you should think wether you want it to be a competitive club or social as it will make a big difference at a later stage. To my opinion there's already enough competitive clubs around but hardly any just social like ours where there's no pressure for beginners.
Yes, I want it to be a social club also. Thanks for pointing out the diffrence between 2 types of clubs. I think it'll be good not to have mandotary membership. But the thing is the "pay per play" rate I worked out is pretty low (since the court rate is kown to all and I want the club to be nonprofitable), so if there're less than 6 players for one session, I will end up losing money. There were more than a few times we only had 4 players for one session! But if I charge them base on the number of players turned up, I end up back to square one - this is exactly what I am doing now! Acutally I was hoping most of the players would just show their support by adopting the membership scheme - so that I don't have to worry about the court booking fees too much. We may still have 20% of players as causal players.
My social group collects S$4 if there are <8 players and S$3 if we have more. So the sessions with higher income will subsidize those with less. Finally, everytime the pocket exceeds S$50, the next session is free.
Our group is based around a general forum of the city we live in. Every week players sign up so I know how many courts I need. I have a number of courts fixed booked every week and for every 4 players that sign up extra I add another court. This way I can keep my flat fee of £4,- a night. All the extra money will go back to them but in the form of: shuttles, coach, socials, etc. So I can advice you to get a forum/website where your friends can sign up every week (as early as possible to give you a change of booked the correct number of courts). Please see the webiste I sent you the link to by pm for more info.
Most of player are ok for the change, which is a good news for me. I hope most can opt for regular memebership so that I will not be burdened with records keeping again - so far no one offerred to help out so I just have to keep everything simple! I may charge slightly more than S$4 becuase some times we only have less than 6 players and the shuttlecocks are included. And I can tell you its consumption rate is Very High even though we are not good players! This bad habit has to be changed too if you ask me. In fact, after every session I would go around the court collecting back those used but not in very bad condition birds, and bring them back the next time for the warming up use. Just hope they would appreciate what I've been doing... Thanks everyone again for the advices.
It is best to keep everything simple . Hi Hotisland , Most session organisers are in the same boat with you. Yes, it's best to keep everything simple. The most difficult thing is that some players come as a group of 6 players or more. Therefore, a session could suddenly be very crowded or very quiet. That's my biggest headache. Cheers... chris-ccc .
