We hold a general managers' meeting quarterly, these meetings involve the managers from all of our sites; The Oxfordshire, Sandford Springs, Dale Hill, the Leaderboard Golf Centre in Reading, and Chart Hills.
The purpose of these meetings is to discuss all aspects of our business, review all categories, and to create new ideas which should help drive the business forward.
Two years ago we were discussing junior golf. Everyone was happy with the numbers, in fact as a group we had £85,000 worth of revenue coming from it per annum. We also saw the importance of growing the juniors and opening it up to attract new children to the game. But looking at it from a parent's perspective, we understood that for a child to take up golf; adding the joining fee, annual subscription - not to mention the golf tuition - works out to be very expensive and beyond many families' reach, particularly in a recession.
So we created a new junior package.
As of two years ago, this applied to our existing members and created 60 more places at each club for all juniors between the ages of eight and 18 years old to receive free membership, free annual subscriptions, and free golf tuition.
As part of the deal, we hoped our juniors would get involved in their section, and take up the free golf lessons with the intention of playing as part of the team at home and away matches.
Our juniors could enjoy our offer for two years, and afterwards they would need to choose to pay an annual subscription to continue. However, if you were a member then your child could still enjoy free membership, and if a child showed great promise, then we would be flexible and extend the free period.
We introduced the two-year period to ensure we didn't block the system with non-players which would prevent others from joining.
We're happy to say that it's working! Our new intake of juniors enjoy the club atmosphere, take part in club matches and golf lessons with enthusiasm, and to boot we have found some shooting stars!
We recently held our Leaderboard Junior Inter Club Challenge at Dale Hill, where juniors from all of our clubs took part and had a great day. Dale Hill won by a small margin but we know this will be seriously challenged next year.
In the spring of next year we will be in a position to open the doors to more juniors who want to take up this fantastic game while enjoying free membership and golf tuition.
As I mentioned earlier we wrote off £85,000, as a group, in junior revenue - but it's interesting to measure the effect this had on our business. The great thing about it which is difficult to measure in financial terms, is that is has brought us tremendous respect throughout the industry, the commercial world, the general public, and everyone has been able to see what we are trying to achieve.
This has created a lot of extra revenue in itself; we have had a large amount of adults move their golf membership to us because their child is one of our members.
Most importantly however, we have given over 250 children the opportunity to learn to play golf, who may not have previously been able to. I am sure a lot of good for the golf industry will come from this.
Wish us luck!
