ON THE COVER
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
As my term as President comes to an end
in the next few months, I’d like to reflect
on one or two of the goals we all set for the
Club and comment on our progress.
The Board and the Strategic Planning
Committee, with overwhelming support
of the members, initiated a capital
improvement plan last fall to ensure the
Mark Smith
long-term success of Fort Collins Country
Club President
Club. While there were some opportunities
to get more efficient and to rebalance our spending, we knew that
the real key to success was to increase our revenue base – and a key
part was new members. Our plans to add fitness, indoor tennis, and
to greatly expand our casual dining facilities, combined with several
marketing activities (new membership focus with Danielle, direct
mail campaigns, much improved social media presence, and a broad
effort to make FCCC much more visible in the community) have
come together to generate excellent results.
Our goal in the Strategic Plan was to attract new members, especially
younger families from a broader geographic reach. In just the past
three months, we’ve added 63 new members (28 golf and 35 social/
tennis). Of these new members, 74% of them are under age 56, with
nearly half of the total below age 46. This is good news for the Club
and is consistent with national trends on the age of the average new
members at country clubs. As far as geographic reach, there has been
a slight shift in drawing members from south Fort Collins, but we still
have an opportunity to improve our penetration there. Clearly, we
have more competition as we move south. I am confident that our
year-round amenities, once they are operational, will help us in this
area. The addition of these new members has boosted our revenues
by more than 12% so far this year. We’ve seen an increase of 17% in
food and beverage revenues as more of you are spending more time
at the pool or making FCCC a more frequent destination for a night
out. I love the increased activity across the Club! It is important for
our momentum in revenues and membership to continue in order to
seamlessly move forward with Phase II expansion plans.
Another area of focus has been to take a broader view of what’s
working and what’s not working across our industry. With our
partnership with Sequoia golf, we’ve not only been able to benchmark
against other clubs, but we’ve been able to tap in to an entire network
of clubs to see what’s working. I don’t know how many of you are
aware of the state of the golf industry, but the statistics aren’t great.
From a peak in 2002, golf participation in the U.S. is down 24%
through 2013 (our club shows a very similar trend). According to
the National Golf Foundation, in 2013, 14 new courses were built
in the U.S, and almost 160 closed down. These statistics are not
meant to scare anyone. They should help put into context our push
to broaden our amenities. They have also heightened the Board’s
focus on understanding what’s working at other clubs and across
the industry to attract more participation in our primary sport: golf.
We have added a permanent topic to each Board meeting to discuss
relevant industry reports and to implement changes (operational and
investments) that increase participation in golf. We are also meeting
with key members of the Sequoia management team to make sure we
leverage all of the top programs within our expanded network. We
have been focused on implementing our current construction plan,
but the operational side of our business always deserves a fresh set of
eyes. I am confident that we will improve “across the board” as we tap
the top performing resources in our broader organization.
Thanks for your ongoing support. See you at the Club!
labor
day
COOK
OUT
Monday, September 1
4-7 PM in the Gazebo
Featuring: Grilled chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs, brats, home-style
fried chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, buttermilk
biscuits with whipped butter and honey, freshly prepared salads,
Country Club slaw, red skin potato salad and dessert! $18.95++.
Add a New York strip or the fresh catch of the day. $23.95++.
Kids 10 and under $1.00++ per year of age.
2 :: AUGUST 2014