Club Finances, Clay Shooting Grounds

shenanigan

Hi all, long time reader.

I am the Secretary of our local NARGC affiliated club, the club has around 70 members. We have a very good Chairman, Treasurer and a few good active members.

Our membership is set at €30 plus NARGC affiliation. We had financial difficulties in the past due to a previous treasurer and discovered that the books weren’t balancing and an amount of money had disappeared, this almost bankrupted the club leaving less than €100 in the bank account. We are lucky in that we have got past this and as a result are very cautious with our finances. At the beginning of each financial year we now set a budget based on the residual amount available after everything is paid from the previous year and this is split as follows: cash reserve, charity donations, game, vermin and clay pigeon. This is working great for us as we know what money is available for each and all members can make suggestions on how the money is spent and this is voted on. If the money is not spent on the allocated area is carries forward to the next financial year.

The one area where we spend the most is on our clay pigeon grounds, we have put a huge amount of work into this in the last three years. The grounds were virtually abandoned during the recession due to the costs of shooting. Three years ago we had one automatic ball trap (that needed refurbished), one automatic trap and three manual traps. We now have the automatic ball trap and six automatic traps with all manual traps made redundant for safety reasons. We have built a dropping duck enclosure and a new enclosure for the ball trap. As you can see we have come a long way but have more to go. Most of our efforts have been on purchasing traps, this results in allot of time setting up as we don’t have trap houses. Our thinking on this is to get the traps, get the lads down then work on the trap houses etc. and it has been difficult getting everyone on board with this as some lads want to shoot in their runners! But if you have nothing to shoot what’s the point in having gravel paths!

To make a short story long we get our annual monies from the club towards the clay grounds and all monies raised from the clay grounds goes towards the clay grounds. Our main income is competitions where local businesses sponsor prizes and these have been a huge success. We have also run a pub quiz and a poker night.

My question is what have you or your club done to raise money? Any innovative ideas? I want to avoid doing the same thing over and over again (apart from the sponsored shoots) as I feel attendance will dwindle. It generally is the same fifteen to twenty lads that make the effort so I want to make sure I mix it up a bit and they get something out of it.

I have been thinking of getting some coats or hats with a club logo and selling these to members, however from my research I feel that we will need to sell a good volume for this to be viable. Likewise I was looking at lapel pins however this has the same volume issue. Another suggestion from a member was a simulated game shoot, a whole day event with three or four drives. We are currently looking into this and if our current setup will work.

So lads any suggestions?

Gorgeousgeorge

Keep changing the layout of the course. Every weekend have it different.

Thats what keeps me going back to my club as its always diffetent

grassroot1

Do you think 30 euro membership is a bit low?

Luckysasha

What about trying to encourage new lads to join ? I started clay shooting 4 months ago in my local clay grounds but because they don’t participate in the Leinster league I was looking to join up with a local club that does. Long short contacted 2 clubs about joining and neither of them have got back to me

ace86

To be honest €30 is low even raise it to €50 and with 70 members u are up €1400 which would mean a lot but I feel from my own club like any organisation things go into rut and stay there and hard to get things moving if the same fellows are in charge and like that the same fellows turning up to everything it can fall apart or turn fellows off whatever ur doing ,I was even going to ask my own club to put membership to €100 but I know some fellows could get a heart attack.

Gorgeousgeorge

ours is 100 plus insurance just for the clay range.

think all in shotgun pistol rifle it is up at the 360 mark including insurance

shenanigan

€30 euro is low and i am very conscious if this, however the membership has only recently been raised to this with some resistance! Its the equivalent of €2.50 a month. Now saying that it does cover the running of the club plus leaves a surplus to be spent on other things.

The problem with a large increase is that we may see a drop off in members and members that only shoot game will not want to spend money on the clay grounds. That forms the basis of our thinking and our budget equal split (game, vermin, clays) after the amount for cash reserve and charity donation is agreed. That is why we separate the clay ground finances thereafter.

We have increased the numbers of members in the last few years but we are cautious when it come to this. We are in a small town that has grown substantially in the boom with the result that some of the people applying for membership are completely unknown to any of the members. If you don't have a member to vouch for you, there is no chance of getting in. We have had problems with this in the past and all i will say is there are allot of poachers out there!

What i am really interested in is what other clubs are doing to raise money specifically for their clay grounds. I have had a helpful message that suggested a Game Tasting Night and BBQ. We have done both in the past with some success but these things begin to loose their appeal after a few years if not updated or changed, on that basis we are taking a break from the game tasting for a few years, plus we do not see this as (or the previous management didn't) a money making opportunity, it was treated as a chance to give something back to local farmers and raise money for charity.

Gorgeousgeorge

what do you charge for a 50 bird shoot. members and non members?

shenanigan

€20 for a competition. Normally €10, we kept this low in order to get the lads back shooting clays

ace86

shenanigan wrote: »

Hi all, long time reader.

I am the Secretary of our local NARGC affiliated club, the club has around 70 members. We have a very good Chairman, Treasurer and a few good active members.

Our membership is set at €30 plus NARGC affiliation. We had financial difficulties in the past due to a previous treasurer and discovered that the books weren’t balancing and an amount of money had disappeared, this almost bankrupted the club leaving less than €100 in the bank account. We are lucky in that we have got past this and as a result are very cautious with our finances. At the beginning of each financial year we now set a budget based on the residual amount available after everything is paid from the previous year and this is split as follows: cash reserve, charity donations, game, vermin and clay pigeon. This is working great for us as we know what money is available for each and all members can make suggestions on how the money is spent and this is voted on. If the money is not spent on the allocated area is carries forward to the next financial year.

The one area where we spend the most is on our clay pigeon grounds, we have put a huge amount of work into this in the last three years. The grounds were virtually abandoned during the recession due to the costs of shooting. Three years ago we had one automatic ball trap (that needed refurbished), one automatic trap and three manual traps. We now have the automatic ball trap and six automatic traps with all manual traps made redundant for safety reasons. We have built a dropping duck enclosure and a new enclosure for the ball trap. As you can see we have come a long way but have more to go. Most of our efforts have been on purchasing traps, this results in allot of time setting up as we don’t have trap houses. Our thinking on this is to get the traps, get the lads down then work on the trap houses etc. and it has been difficult getting everyone on board with this as some lads want to shoot in their runners! But if you have nothing to shoot what’s the point in having gravel paths!

To make a short story long we get our annual monies from the club towards the clay grounds and all monies raised from the clay grounds goes towards the clay grounds. Our main income is competitions where local businesses sponsor prizes and these have been a huge success. We have also run a pub quiz and a poker night.

My question is what have you or your club done to raise money? Any innovative ideas? I want to avoid doing the same thing over and over again (apart from the sponsored shoots) as I feel attendance will dwindle. It generally is the same fifteen to twenty lads that make the effort so I want to make sure I mix it up a bit and they get something out of it.

I have been thinking of getting some coats or hats with a club logo and selling these to members, however from my research I feel that we will need to sell a good volume for this to be viable. Likewise I was looking at lapel pins however this has the same volume issue. Another suggestion from a member was a simulated game shoot, a whole day event with three or four drives. We are currently looking into this and if our current setup will work.

So lads any suggestions?

I just feel like any organisation u need €€€ to keep it going and if it’s a case of increasing membership then so be it unfortunately u might loose members but if u had 30 guys paying a €100 a yr or more ud have fellows that want it to work and make it work for the benefit of all in the club.

J.R.

Have two categories of membership:

Why not increase slightly to

{1} €35 for game / vermiin
and
{2} €50 for game / vermin & clays.

In another year or so, increase both by another €5 per annum......who would be mean enough to moan about €5 per annum increase...........1.5 cents per day!!

A club I was in years ago ran a dinner dance in the local hotel ...it was a huge success...tickets sold rapidly.

Do a horse racing night..........karaoke night............dancing night

Do any club members have any particular skills or contacts in above areas or any areas that could be used to raise money?

grassroot1

What would you pay to join a golf club? how long would it take to drink 50 euro.
It always surprises me how tight lads become at club meetings then they go down to the bar and toss 50 euro over the counter.

Do as much as you can with what you have. The effort of lads like the op keep a lot of clubs going on a shoe string.

ace86

grassroot1 wrote: »

What would you pay to join a golf club? how long would it take to drink 50 euro.
It always surprises me how tight lads become at club meetings then they go down to the bar and toss 50 euro over the counter.

Do as much as you can with what you have. The effort of lads like the op keep a lot of clubs going on a shoe string.

Cant Agree with you more no problem drinking €50 any night of the week ask a fellow for that in membership and they flatline on you and it’s only a €1 wk but I see a lot of good ideas by guys here to make a few €€€ for the club but the same guys that wouldn’t give the extra few €€€ for the club wouldn’t buy a decent rifle/shotgun if they had the money anyway. I feel sorry for the guy who started this thread like a lot of guys in a lot of clubs trying to make it work and a success for all but €€€€ is always the biggest problem like I’d said if he had 70 members @ €100 would be brilliant for all but I’d call a meeting and tell fellows look this is how finances are and ye need to up membership and see what comes of it.

berettaman

Hi OP,

Funding for clubs is always an issue and like previous posters stated €30 on top of comp fund membership seems a bit low.

I would say that an average across the country is €50.

Our club does a raffle every Christmas where every member must sell €30 worth of tickets. pays for cost of pheasants.


If you had a shooting grounds you could look for sponsorship/ advertising..

shenanigan

Thanks everyone for your reply. I take note of comments in relation to the membership fee and this is something i would like to address, however i can only make proposals, its down to the members to decide.

slavetothegrind

Why not seperate the clay club from the old vouched menbership game club.
Form a new clay club so you can get new members easily, your game members can also avail of it but the clay members not the game.
100 i think is very little and fairly standard minimum, and in fairness if you cannot afford that how are you going to afford the cartridges?
Join icpsa and csi, they will help you grow.

Wish you every success!