The last MTB club I was in spent money on:

subsidising club kit
subsidizing race entries
subsidizing trips through the UK and Europe
Buying a club van
buying various bits and pieces of kit eg. bike lights for use by members, club generator etc.
Organising road races, xc races and sportives. (which was the biggest recurring expense)

income came from:

membership fees (£20)
race entries
sponsorship

Although membership fees were very important, the biggest earner was road race entry fees though the club struggled to break even on XC events. Sponsorship was meant to cover the cost of subsidized kit, but rarely did.

I always thought this kind of thing was to keep out the riffraff. Although I guess that means if you join a club with a £10 membership fee, you are riffraff.

I remember being at an ESCA meeting once where they revealed they had amassed £40ishk from the 40p levy they took from each race entry in the East of Scotland, and that was just what they didn’t spend on track bikes. This was the point at which I de-affiliated our club and refused to levy via ESCA, they sent me strongly worded emails threatening to sue, which I deleted. We did rejoin when the old guard left (or in point of fact, were voted off) and some sanity took over.

Sorry bit of a digression, but I thought that was shocking behaviour.

If the club is run and at the end of the year at the A.G.M. there’s very little funds left in the account all well said and done. Charge what you think is a fair price for what you are offering.

But at the end of the day it is a cycling club NOT a savings account.

When I moved to the US I joined the local MTB club. It’s now an IMBA chapter but has always built and advocated for trails in the area. The club was behind the efforts to put another 25 miles of trails in with more to come, focused fundraising efforts and has all the trailbuilding gear it could need.
I joined it because they are doing the right thing and I wanted to be part of that.
We have plenty of binners-esque miserable rebels who aren’t members and do nothing but bitch about the trails, trailbuilding, dumbing down etc etc but won’t step up and do something themselves.

Interesting, I’m kind of a member of a club (it’s a shop really though). I’m not really sure how many “members” it has to be honest but interestingly it’s the only club running a road race in the local area this year. It does do a local Saturday ride but I’ve never been on it as it’s just too slow (I tried re-wording that so I didn’t sound cockish and failed…).

The other local club which is huge only seems interested in TT’s and a couple of reliability rides a year now/this year but have ran some good races in the past. This club apparently has £15k+ in the bank! This seems to be a strong bone of contention to a few riders around here especially when racing support is mentioned, I don’t know though only going on what I’ve heard. I found it strange when I first started on the road that despite showing an interest in racing and not being that slow that I was never approached by the Clubs members to ask if I fancied joining but did pretty much straight away from the above shop when on group rides.

Group rides around here just seem to happen via word of mouth opposed to Club led.

The committee of the club that I was in took the view that the fees needed to be a substantial amount (£40 ish) so that folk would come on rides in order to get their moneys worth. If it was only £10 or so the committee figured that members would join but then not bother supporting the rides.

Needless to say the club had a healthy bank balance……

I am a member of an athletics club and have been for over 30 years. I get almost nothing out of it except the consolation that what I pay goes to support facilities and coaching for others, particularly youngsters who get support with transport to events, event entry charges etc.
Running and running clubs have provided me with some of the most enjoyable and memorable experiences and I have made life long friends. Without the structure of a club and the tireless work of volunteers many people would miss out on the opportunities I had. Long may it continue.

Not much chance of that. In that situation we’d club ’em to death with a track pump, and bury the body in a shallow grave on the moors

They’d have to know our real names first before they could sue anyone. Seems like the main rule on MNPRs is not to know anyone’s real names or forum names until they’ve been going out for a few months. I’ve lost count of the number of time I’ve heard the following conversation..

“Who was the guy on the XXXX?”,
“Dunno”,
“Has he been out before?”,
“Dunno”,
“Anyone know his forum name?”
“Nope”

Hang on a minute. Which one are you…..?

🙂