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My local club is running at a loss. We have some reserves so we can afford to do so for a while, but not forever.

We offer a heated club house with indoor 25m .22lr range, 10m air range, shop, toilets, snooker table, lockers, kitchen and lounge area.

Obvious ways to make up the short fall would be to increase subscriptions, or introduce green fees. Neither is very popular with most members (many are on pensions!).

We have just increased the fees from £115pa to £125pa, but this is not going to be enough to stop the loss.

So my question to you is, what would you consider a realistic annual membership for a club with such facilities:

Get more members?

BamBam wrote:Get more members?

A fair point. It can be difficult however to ensure we have enough members onsite to supervise and train new people. We get about ten a year, which is manageable, but many more could be an issue in terms of making sure they are properly trained/supervised.

I'll be suggesting that we batch them up and have 2-3 intakes a year with maybe five or six in each cohort instead of our current procedure of just dealing with them when they turn up.

My local club is expensive, is only 25m, and doesn't even have a toilet... not impressed!

A bit more information about your club would help in deciding whether your fee is good value or not.

Is your club open all year round or only during the winter?

How many firing points on each of the ranges?

Electronic targets?

Club Scatt?

Good club kit for novices?

If you are running at a loss its a no brainer you need to work out how much you need to make the club viable divide that sum by the number of members add a bit for a reseve and thats the price people need to pay. Otherwise its good bye to your shooting club.

We pay less than £50 a year, no range fees, for 3 x indoor ranges open 7 days a week, 52 wks/yr. Bar, lounge, free pool tables, bowling, quoits, quiz, Saturday entertainment...

We're very lucky as the bar taking and events cover a lot of the club costs, but the shooting section is still largely self sufficient - things like ammo sales bring in a few grand profit per year and so on.

Kungfugerbil wrote:We pay less than £50 a year, no range fees, for 3 x indoor ranges open 7 days a week, 52 wks/yr. Bar, lounge, free pool tables, bowling, quoits, quiz, Saturday entertainment...

We're very lucky as the bar taking and events cover a lot of the club costs, but the shooting section is still largely self sufficient - things like ammo sales bring in a few grand profit per year and so on.

How many members have you got.

Alpha1 wrote:How many members have you got.

About 80 shooters. About double that as 'social' members who pay 12 quid a year to get everything bar the shooting.

Kungfugerbil Were about do you shoot.

My main Club has 20 members but we don't have any premises and we only shoot on MOD ranges. My self and the treasurer keep a close eye on the finances. I am careful which ranges I book and guest days are carefully managed we pay our way and have a healthy bank balance. The members pay what ever is necessary to keep the club solvent. It works for us.