On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:16:03 -0700 (PDT), Morgan
wrote:

Similar rates in our club and ours is also pretty cheap by some
standards.

$40/mnth dues
Aircraft: $7/flight
2000ft tow: $30

Your 30 flights/30hrs is still in the $1500 range thanks mostly to tow
costs.

I would love to have our average member taking 30 flights. Students
yes, more actually. Average members are not as active with far fewer
flights than 30 I would guess. We love them, they pay their dues and
help us with our fixed costs, but I'd like to see more members out and
flying.

Costs in the US depend a lot on the location of the club. I would
guess that a typical club pays the most in rent/mortgage. Then
probably insurance. (Remember, we are talking about the US and we
love to sue everyone for everything) Aircraft leases, maintenance,
utilities, misc.

Thx a lot for your numbers!
Are you able to provide some typical numbers for rent, mortgage and
insurances?

For comparison:
My club with about 85 to 90 active members pays 18.000 Euro per year
for the insurances of nine gliders (ASK-21, Ka-8b, 2*DG-300, ASW-24,
ASW-27, Duo Discus XL, SF-34B, Mistral-C), a Super Dimona motorglider
and a DR-300 tow plane. All our gliders apart from Ka-8 and Mistral-C
are covered by hull insurance.


Our club of around 40-50 members requires very careful attention to
finances to stay afloat with the above cost structure.

I see other clubs with similar size having similar problems: Few
members, not much flying by paying members, therefore very limited
income because income is provided by flying time.


Some things we do to support Juniors are including kids automatically
with a parent membership. So a juniors parent joins the club for $40/
mnth and their children are automatically covered as club members. It
can be beneficial because sometimes it is a kid that is really
interested, but we get mom or dad to take a demo (in a 2-33) and they
end up giving soaring a try as well. Young students in college get an
extremely discounted rate for monthly dues. $10 gets their monthly
dues covered. Right now I don't think we have any college students on
the roster though, not for lack of trying. We are located 70 miles
from the closest college though.

Have you considered a different kind of fee system?
An example:
In my club we have a flat rate of 305 Euro per year that includes all
the flying (including all winch launches) for any glider. This flat
rate is identical for all members, the only additional fees are the
member fees of about 140 Euro and 70 Euro for junior pilots without an
income.
This means, a pilot in my club pays 445 Euro (respectively a student
pilot375 Euro) per year, no matter how much he flies. The only
additional fees are aerotows (which are similar to yours - aertow fees
are calculated to cover the costs of the tow plane).

Very easy to calculate, stable income, and tends to provoke pilots to
fly *much* more often because flying is essentially free (flatrate!).

We are of the opinion that the introduction of this flat rate saved
our club 25 years ago when takeoff numbers started to decline (we had
a similar system these days as you have now).

With this system we get an overage of cash of about 15.000 Euro per
year which we are using to pay for our part of the airfield since 2000
(it'll be payed at the end of 2011).


Might this be a useful system for a US club (with adjusted fees of
course)?


Regards
Andreas







On Sep 16, 5:26*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:50:01 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Initiation is $300
Dues $35/month
2000' tow is $25 and $13 for Jrs
2-33 is @26/hr *and $13 for Jr's
1-26 is $20/hr and N/C for Jrs
1-34 $28/hr and $14 for Jrs
K21 is $40/ hr for all- that will drop in 5 yrs time when it is paid
for.
General approach is Jr's pay variable costs and fixed costs are
covered by regular members.
Jrs are about 25% of membership and about 35% of activity

Argh... impressive. Does your club have a web site?

I'd estimate that an average pilot with, say, 30 flights and 30 hours
with a mix between 2-33, 1-26 and 1-34 per year pays about $1.900 per
year, and an average junior student pilot with the same hours about
$1.300 per year. Am I halfways correct?

Sorry if I'm being offensive, but to me these fees are brutal.
Please allow me a question: How many members does your club have, and
what is causing such high costs?

I have to admit that unless your club has to pay a formidable rent for
the use of your airfield I don't have the slightest clue what could
cause such costs for a glider operation.

Regards
Andreas