How does your club collect money?

[andrewjackson]

This question comes with a long backstory. The short of it is, that I am a member of a club that has folded up which leaves a fairly large fencing community in its place. We are trying to start a new club and are wondering how it is that other clubs go about collecting money? Are lessons billed separately from membership? Is membership collected monthly? Quarterly? Yearly? Who does the enforcing to make sure that people actually pay?

Thanks a lot for any help.

[Peach]

A year or two ago, my club went to monthly automatic billing to a credit card, the way my health club does it. Lessons are purchased in ten-packs, with different rates for different level coaches. Tournament fees and incidentals are billed by mail.

[qatet]

Originally Posted by Peach

A year or two ago, my club went to monthly automatic billing to a credit card, the way my health club does it. Lessons are purchased in ten-packs, with different rates for different level coaches. Tournament fees and incidentals are billed by mail.

A bit more background for anybody thinking about doing this... THe service costs the club money, but we figured that it was worth it both so we wouldn't lose the money from people who simply never pay their outstanding fees and so we wouldn't have to be the heavies shaking our fists to get that money.

[Allen Evans]

My club records visits and lessons in a database front end, which spits out a billing report, and monthly bills are generated. Incidentals (such as tournament fees and equipment purchases -- if any) are manually added. Once a month, each member gets a bill. We have very few members, so this isn't very difficult.

We're so small that if someone isnt paying regularly, a phone call and ultimately, denial of lessons is enough to handle it. That's never happened, however.

AE

[TBean]

I am at the same club as Peach and Qatet - so I get billed monthly for my floor fees and purchase lesson packs. This works well for the club because of its size with a large number of adult members and the programming offered for established youth, cadet and junior fencers in addition to classes new fencers of all ages. It is a business.

If I was in your position, I too would be are eager to provide for the fencing community. Do you have others who are willing to help run a new fencing club? Getting the money is only part of the equation - there are lots of moving parts to consider here. Good luck to you.

[jjefferies]

Been going through this recently. Cost wise one would think that it is best for the members to directly pay the club. But it seems that some people have a hard luck story of why they can't pay or they will catch you next week/month or want some special arrangement.

We're coming around to the idea of having a dual approach to club dues:
1. pay for the year or 6 months in advance or
2. Pay by the month using credit card billing.

The rationale is that some people will just pay up front with little problem while others need some sort of short term arrangement. And the billing companies do charge but given the hassles involved with tracking members status, it sounds like it is very worth it. Most of these billing companies will add your bill to the fencer's monthly credit card statement and forward you the money and a list of who paid and who didn't.

Lessons on the other hand have tended to be paid directly to the coach at the time unless the fencer wanted to book a number of lessons in advance (makes sure he's on the schedule).

And then there is the question of how much to charge, like for instance the fellow who asked if he could have a discount because he was a teacher. Really wanted to point out to him that at least he had medical coverage while the coach he was asking to cut him a discount didn't but he didn't come back around.