BoardRoom Innovative Ideas

CELEBRATING 23 YEARS OF EDUCATING THE PRIVATE CLUB INDUSTRY

ISSUE 281 | VOLUME XXIII MARCH/APRIL

BOARDROOM AWARDS Excellence in Achievement Winners

10 | PUBLISHER’S PERSPECTIVE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE TAX MAN COMES CALLING?

32 | EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REAL LONG-TERM VALUE LIES IN THE VISION

60 | ON THE FRONTLINES BUDGETING: LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

94-97 | INNOVATIVE IDEAS CHAMPIONS RUN COUNTRY CLUB OF VIRGINIA KANSAS CITY COUNTRY CLUB NORTH SHORE GOLF CLUB

INNOVATIVE

IDEAS

Focus on Fitness

The Country Club of Virginia Invests in Well Being of Its Members

It’s sometimes difficult to know where to make capital investments at a private club to keep pace with member demand and consumer trends. Will your membership 10 to 15 years from now have the same interests as your current membership? Will they be entirely different?

Getting ahead of industry trends and member desires, The Country Club of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia recently announced the completion of a 90,000 square foot fitness and racquet sports complex that carried a $19.6 million price tag. The debut of the complex is the latest chapter in the club’s 30-year commitment to fitness and family-centered activities, and the third iteration of the club’s health and fitness facility. The entire project, designed with growth and flexibility in mind, creates a footprint to foster social connections.

Construction for the three-phase project broke ground in early 2017, and the club celebrated a grand opening party in the fall of 2018, just in time for members to enjoy the new facilities over the holidays and set them up for success in keeping their New Year’s resolutions.

Members now enjoy a total of five squash courts that feature enhanced lighting and a state-of-the-art scoreboard system. The club reports that squash participation has increased by 50 percent and lesson revenue is up 60 percent since the new facilities debuted. The club has also welcomed a second squash professional to its staff to keep pace with member demand.

For tennis players, the club’s indoor tennis courts have been resurfaced and cushioned and the courts now boast new baseline viewing windows and LED lighting. In addition, two of the club’s outdoor courts were converted to hydro courts, also with upgraded LED lighting. The expanded fitness center also includes a new youth lounge, a spa and a fast-casual café.

The additional 11,000 square feet of fitness space includes a fitness center, a popular Pilates center, more room for personal training, stretching, private physical therapy and functional space for dynamic workouts. New studio formatting allows for increased group exercise options, from Orange Theory-inspired classes and TRX to a new cycle studio with classes that are consistently at capacity.

In the first month of operation, the expanded fitness center experienced a 56 percent increase in visits compared to the same month in 2016. This increased participation extends to CCV’s wellness program, which has experienced the highest member use in club history.

One of the most popular aspects of the new fitness/racquet sports complex is the club’s fast-casual restaurant, which averages 240 covers per day. The Cool Springs Café, named after the former farm on club land, meets member demand for a casual, family-oriented dining option with fast, friendly service and a broad menu with wide variety and appeal. The café offers early-morning grab-and-go menu items, custom-blended coffee from a local roaster and smoothies. A robust to-go

program is also part of the operating model for this new club offering.

Junior members are now able to enjoy a youth lounge, which offers a fun and relaxed space to hang out with activities such as video games, ping pong, and foosball. While the space was designed with youth in mind, the club immediately noticed a trend of parents joining their children for activities. The area has also become popular for private events, with members calling to reserve the location as soon as it opened.

In the words of CCV General Manager Phil Kiester, “We continue to learn that ‘build it and they will come’ should really be ‘build it and they will come in such numbers that you will build again.’ Our members vote with their feet and the members’ response since the new building opened is nothing short of amazing.” BR

94 BOARDROOM | MARCH/APRIL 2019

MEGHAN THIBAULT Meghan Thibault, Innovative Ideas editor, is a professional writer and communicator with a passion for storytelling.

A writer at heart, Thibault has been involved in the hospitality and club industry in Canada, the Caribbean and Hawaii. She is currently a member and on the membership committee, at Mid-Pacific Country Club in Kailua, HI.

To submit an idea or story for this section, please email ideas@boardroommag.com

Reggae Music Video Highlights Club’s Junior Summertime Calendar

Summer is almost here and as we look forward to warm weather and summer programming, you may want to break out your 4K video camera and start filming.

Champions Run in Omaha, Nebraska is showcasing its summer youth programming with a high-energy, hilarious music video featuring footage of the club’s junior members engaged in summertime fun.

The club is well known for its programming for junior members. With 350 kids in the club’s swim program alone, plus junior golf and tennis programs, there’s plenty of great material to capture and choose for the video.

“We wanted to highlight all the epic things we do over the course of the summer,” said Ben Lorenzen, the club’s creative director and self-proclaimed chief memory officer.

Lorenzen adeptly handles all of the club’s creative, as well as managing the aquatics, fitness and youth programs. Always innovative and cutting edge, Lorenzen sought out an appropriate artist on Fiverr.com, an online service where you can hire freelancers for almost any need. He landed upon just the talent he needed to provide the vocals and musical production: G Steel – No Coast Reggae Studios.

The club put together the basic lyrics and commissioned the vocals, mixing and production. Lorenzen then set about filming the club’s various summer activities, even teaching the lyrics to the kids in their junior programs. The kids can be seen throughout the music video happily singing along to the reggae beats.

The lyrics are meaningful to the club’s members, referencing kids at the club, their swimming abilities and a number of other summertime favorites like ice cream, chicken fingers and margaritas. Wait…margaritas?

The song references a unique event Lorenzen introduced at the club’s sizable pool. At rest breaks, which are 10 minutes out of every hour, the club wanted to keep members occupied in the gap between pool sessions. To fill the 10 minutes, they enlist one junior member and one adult member to take a half-court shot across the empty swimming pool and into the poolside basketball net.

When a junior member makes the shot, the club offers free slushies and popsicles to all the kids around the pool. When an adult successfully drops the ball in the net, they offer free margaritas for all the adults at the pool.

“It’s pandemonium when someone makes the shot, but our members absolutely love it!” proclaimed Lorenzen, who noted that there are often as many as 300 people poolside, resulting in a very busy bunch of bartenders.

Once the song and footage were in place, Lorenzen edited the resulting clips into a short, entertaining music video, which the club uses to help promote their highly popular juniors programming on social media.

The video, which has proven an effective tool in recruiting new member families, was uploaded to the club’s site. If you’re looking for inspiration and some good reggae beats, it’s available for viewing on YouTube https://youtu.be/HlcURBCDUNQ BR

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INNOVATIVE

IDEAS

Fitness Then & Now Engages Members of All Ages

Kansas City Country Club introduced a fun and unique fitness class taught by two of the club’s instructors – one a millennial and the other a Gen Xer.

Karen Sullivan, the club’s director of fitness and wellness explained, “I like to put together programming that involves the less active members of the club and that engages club members of different age groups.”

While these two groups are usually attracted to different class formats and schedule times, the club’s Fitness Then and Now was a mash-up of several trends in fitness over the last several decades – incorporating high-impact and step aerobics with the more contemporary barre fitness, functional and kettle bell training.

The result? A memorable Saturday morning class that left members clamoring for more.

Prizes were awarded to participants who sported the best retro look in exercise gear. The class was set to music that spanned the decades. If you’re thinking high-cut, one-piece leotards paired with terry-cloth headbands set to a soundtrack of Donna Summer and Olivia Newton John’s “Let’s Get Physical” – then you’re probably not far off the mark. The one-time offering proved a good laugh and a good workout for all participants.

If you’re looking for member mixers that encourage the various demographics of your club to interact and engage, this just might be a solution for you. “This was a great way to bring the two groups together in a fun, non-competitive environment” said Sullivan. “Our membership enjoyed it so much that they’ve asked for it as an annual offering.” BR

96 BOARDROOM | MARCH/APRIL 2019

MEGHAN THIBAULT Meghan Thibault, Innovative Ideas editor, is a professional writer and communicator with a passion for storytelling.

A writer at heart, Thibault has been involved in the hospitality and club industry in Canada, the Caribbean and Hawaii. She is currently a member and on the membership committee, at Mid-Pacific Country Club in Kailua, HI.

To submit an idea or story for this section, please email ideas@boardroommag.com

Handcrafted, Freshly Squeezed & Seasonal Beverages

Offer More Than Just Health Benefits

Inspired by member requests for fresh grapefruit mimosas, the North Shore Golf Club in Menasha, Wisconsin is now offering a bevy non-alcoholic beverages and cocktails using freshly squeezed juices to their members.

What may seem like an impractical choice for a cocktail list has been streamlined with an investment in an industrial juicer, whose visibility behind the club’s main bar helps to keep these higher-priced offerings top of mind with the club’s membership.

“When the membership sees the juicer on the back bar, it not only raises awareness that we now have the capabilities to ‘hand-juice’ fresh cocktails, but it opens an entirely new dialogue about fresh and seasonal beverages,” said Michael Jernegan, assistant club manager.

Apart from the health boost they provide, they’re simply delicious. The club has used them to create a demand for upscale, resort-style cocktails. At a higher price point, handcrafted beverages have become especially popular at the club’s poolside bar and at large member functions.

The added sales revenue has boosted profitability, while the efficient use of produce from the club’s kitchen has served to minimize waste, adding even more benefit to the club’s bottom line.

Fresh juices are rich in antioxidants and vitamins, of course, but they also contain health-inducing enzymes found only in freshly-juiced fruits and vegetables. Health-conscious proponents of juice cleansing claim these enzymes are what make fresh juices far better for our health and wellness, since they are purported to improve the digestive process and increase the body’s ability to absorb nutrients.

As for the cost of the new juice – it has paid for itself within a few short months. The bartenders are making fewer trips to the kitchen and each custom, handcrafted beverage requires less effort from the culinary team.

These days, the club’s bartenders have incorporated juicing into their daily duties, making small batches of the most popular items to last through the busy periods of the day and storing these in squeeze bottles in the bar cooler, where they stay fresh for a few hours until another batch is squeezed.

“The membership has embraced the freshly juiced cocktails wholeheartedly, and we have been able to follow their satisfaction directly down to the revenue line,” reports Jernegan. BR

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