Running a Club as a Business – Part 3

“A beautiful backstream, but where are the anglers?”

ANALYSIS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE

So, from the last part, we have now sent out renewal notices and on the same piece of paper was a questionnaire asking the members joining (and even those who may not be) what they think and how many times do they fish venues, etc. Hopefully many of the members from last year are renewing and most, if not all, of them have completed their questionnaire. This is how it may look:

Q.How many times do you fish the following venues (please give as much information as possible):

So, now you have the job of collecting all the questionnaires and totalling up all the visits to the four different venues. The remainder of the information is useful, for example, you now know that the Big Lake has yielded a large mirror carp to 24lbs at least and that there is a stunning little crucian carp in the Little Pond. The River Dribble has some nice bream in it too (and you’ll have to imagine the other responses to see if there were any carp or barbel caught in it!)

You also want to know, possibly from the Treasurer, what each venue costs your club each year. This collating of information can be tedious, but you must do it accurately and when you have the results, this is how to show them –

Some points to consider: The ‘Number of anglers fishing’ is equal to each angler that fished that particular water so some anglers will have fished more than one water, don’t be surprised that the total shown here is far more than the total members of your club. In our example we only have a small club of around 250. The ‘Total number of visits’ is the total count of ‘Number of visits in Season’ from the questionnaire and the ‘Average per angler’ is the total divided by the anglers. This average doesn’t tell you much, but may be used to emphasize the lack of use of a venue.

The ‘Cost per angler’ is the venue cost divided by the ‘Number of anglers fishing’. This just shows how much it costs per season, per each angler that fishes that particular water. Again this is not a lot of use because all clubs and societies are cooperatives and we all share the burden of the cost of venues whether we fish them or not. This is just another view of the cost to individuals in a sense, that’s all. I saw a case once where it would have been far cheaper to give the members involved the money to join another club and fish a part of the same river further downstream and from the looks of the above example, the Backstream is a similar situation.

‘Cost per visit’ is the big one though. This, in effect, is what you are saying would be the daily charge for each member using the venue each time he goes. In other words, if a commercial venture wanted to run this venue they would have to charge more than this sum to earn a profit from it. For the club, it is your raw cost and you can see from it just how much per session/visit you are paying. Anything less than £ 5 might be acceptable, remember you’re not paying for a day ticket, but the lower you can get this figure the better.

As you can see from our example, the River Dribble is very popular and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and so the cost per visit is relatively low. Even better value is the Little Pond because although it costs more per season, more anglers visit it on more occasions than any other venue. This is where, without this analysis, most committees are deciding which water to shed when they are cutting costs. Go for the dearest overall and never look at the pleasure their members are getting from it. In this case, although it is the dearest per season, it is the cheapest in overall value when you view the cost per visit and from the other answers you were given on the questionnaire, it yields some very good catches.

The problem water we have in this scenario is the Backstream. The cost of it per season isn’t bank-breaking, but not enough anglers visit it enough times to make it more viable. You may also have to look at the match records to see if a lot of the visits mentioned to the Backwater were because matches were held on it. What were the overall match results like? All-in-all, it paints a pretty gloomy picture for the Backwater.

Are there other reasons why it was so poorly attended? The other questions you were asking could point to the reasons. It may be there is poor car-parking facilities or vandalism is rife in that area, none of your fault, but it is now your problem. It might also be that there hasn’t been a work party down there for the past five years, all the swims are overgrown and the weed chokes the stream in summer, the most popular time for fishing. The questions you are now faced with are: a) do you spend some more money and clean it up and provide car parking, or b) do you relinquish it and save the £ 960 per year, but risk upsetting 35 of your members, or c) do you just keep paying the money and don’t let the cost trouble you?

At least you now have the information! You’re not simply sticking a wet finger in the air to see which way the wind’s blowing to base a decision on as so many clubs presently do.

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SWOT!

I promised in the first part that I would introduce to you SWOT analysis. What’s SWOT? It’s an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Basically, you take out four sheets of paper and head each with one of the above topics. Then, with a clear unbiased mind you start to fill in the papers.

Under STRENGTHS you list all the good elements of your club. This could be the better venues (like the Little Pond and the River Dribble in our example) or could be a good meeting room, the ‘bon viveur’, good car parking, a wonderful bank balance each year, good healthy fish stocks, a thriving match group, catering for ALL methods of fishing, no pest problems, etc. In fact everything that you believe makes anglers want to join your club.

Under WEAKNESSES you list all of your problems and faults. The bad venues, the waste of resources, bad parking, bad or poorly producing venues, poor bank balance and poor organisation in committee, poor communication with the members, lack of members and no interest in matches, etc. The list goes on, but above all you have to be honest and face these facts. Only when you have committed them to paper can you start to address them.

And now OPPORTUNITIES. Here you list all the good things that can happen to your club. A special match perhaps, some additional publicity, a well organised teach-in for juniors, sponsoring of a local charity, a local show where you can promote your club, the chance of adding a new venue, application for a grant to carry out renewal work on an old fishery. This is where you can demonstrate that you are a pro-active club and not a reactive club. If you are pro-active then of 5 things that happen to your club at least 4 will be give you some reward. Whereas if you are reactive, you will be unprepared and if the same 5 things happen, almost all will turn sour or go against you because you couldn’t address them quickly enough. Be prepared – do it now!

And finally…… THREATS. Everyone faces them, businesses face takeover, a fall-off in interest, has a new lake opened up near you, but to a rival club? Are you losing members to this other club? What about your venues, are they kept tidy or is the landowner quietly threatening to throw you off at the end of your present term? Could it be you could lose the Little Pond? Was that a flock of cormorants you saw the other day? What are the finances of the club like, do you have enough money and members to see you through the year? Don’t get paranoid, just write them all down – forewarned is forearmed – remember that.

Just a last word, once you have written them all down on paper – ACT ON THEM. Do something, don’t just file it in with the minutes never to be seen again. They’re there to focus your attention, that’s what SWOT is for!

NEXT: We do a budget and cash flow for the coming year…