OfflineThe Scranton Curling Club is a new club on hockey ice. We have been curling since mid-February and are still curling. Being the new guys, we got the only ice slot available, Sundays at 9pm. With the slow down at the rink, we are switching to Saturdays at 5pm starting this week.
We've had over 100 people come through our door to try curling, some said it was too late for them. At our height, we had 20-24 curlers per week, with about 15 being "regulars". We are now down to around 8-12 per week. I know that it's summer and we're competing against many other things.
We have been on the news and had the front cover of the paper, but that was all back in March. We had one new person find us since mid-May. In the past month we've come up with membership dues and are going to give people 2-3 chances to curl before we require a membership to continue. We want to build up our membership so we can lobby for a good ice time. I would hate to get people interested, then have to go back to a crappy time and lose the people we just added. On our worst night, we still had more people than some of the best attended figure skating sessions they've got on the schedule. But I understand they've been around a lot longer than we have.
In the few month, we've come up with an organizational structure, adopted by-laws, elected officers, come up with a membership schedule and have been acceted by the GNCC and the USCA. We have been unable to get people coming on a regular basis to set up teams so we've been playing pick-up. I know this is a crucial thing for our survival, but have not been able to over come it. We have had a couple groups of people come as a team, come for a couple weeks, then disappear. We had a BBQ one night (memorial day weekend) and the attendence was a little better than average, but not much.
We are planning on having an Open House in either late July or August and the folks from the Schnectady Curling Club are coming down in July or August to give us some instrction and a good butt whooping. We are going to do our best to get the word out on those activities.
My question is, what have other new clubs done to grow their membership?
Dave
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What you have done is great. It sound much like us in our first year. We maintained our membership and grew little that first year but each year after that we have expanded exponentially.
Summer curling is tough. We simply do not do it since we cannot get enough curlers interested to cover the $252 per hour we pay for the ice. Our season starts Mid October and ends the First of April. However the facility is willing to experiment this summer with Wednesday Night curling from 6:15-7:45pm since there are slow as well. We will pay per person rather than an hourly rate. (I'll keep you posted if it works). If they gave us a Saturday Night, I'm not sure we would try it since Saturday Nights are tricky.
Growing curling is challenging . We have tried many methods most of which require a variety of effort on your part. Many of the methods we used where modestly successful getting but 1-3 people at a time but nothing compared to the overwhelming input the Olympics had. Here are some
1. Your Website will be your most valuable soarce and presence for people to find your. Make sure people know what they need and is inviting to new curlers.
2. Send out Press release via email at least 4 times throughout the years. You may not get them to show up on your time frame but they will show up to film, write a story. Any press is helpful.
3. There are several places in the print media here in KC that are Free. The Kansas City Star has "starting times" which list sports event . Channel 5 has a morning show that list local activities, A monthly paper called the KC Sports and Fitness has a Calender of events. We have a local happenings paper called the Pitch. We have on demand local cable access which we can submit a video of curling. (The USCA have a general video on Curling that they can attach you logo and club name)
4. Take a stone on the road. We do Parades (St. Patrick's Day), Festivals (Scottish Highland Games, Ethnic Festival), Church Groups, Barbecue Competitions (Lenexa and, Ball Games (T-Bones and Royals) (We have Pop up tent, table, brooms, sliders, stones and print material to let people know there is a club. ) We even bought 50 ticket to a local Minor League Hockey team and they gave us 6 minutes to slide a stone on the rink between periods.
5. Fliers, Post them Restaurants, Grocery Stores, College Campuses, Golf Courses, Local Hangouts.
6. Corporations. When your ready to handle a large group 20-40 people. We allow group outings outside our season at a time fitting there schedule during the week.
7. Organizations; I am a member of the St. Andrew Society, and they have help me promote curling. Another Member is a Rotary Member who helped me promote the sport.
8. Our Club Members. I know this can be tough since I have never gotting a single friend of mine to play but your members simply need to mention curling to let people know.
9. In the facility we curl at we have DVD to play on the TV Monitors, Flier box to Post, Bnner in the rink. A link a their website.
10. The USCA has literature on this matter
Well you get the Idea. I have yet to find a method to drive them in large numbers but the more I do it, I see better result each season.
As far as getting the best Ice Time, Good Luck. We are at the bottem end of the totem poll. (Hockey, Figure Stating, then Curling. ) When we started we were curling Sunday Afternoon, Each season we have very little to say as to when we will get ice. Now we Curling from 9:00am-1:00pm all we hope is we aren't just pushed out.
Good Luck
Bill McBride
Kansas City Curling Club
wam@kccurling.com
816-523-2345
Some of the links / information on the Business of Curling site may be of help to you...
http://www.curling.ca/business_of_curling/index.asp
Mike
Mike Potter
Don't you think its time for new curling gloves or curling mitts?