April - Club Victoria Inc.

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Opinion Where are the Excellent Clubs? Or even any aspiring to be Excellent? MEMBER CONNECT REVIEWED A Report on the First Member Connect at Veneto Club 8 March 2011 As a former Australasian marketing manager of a worldrecognised Excellent Company, Hewlett Packard, it has been natural for most of my life to orient my observations in search of excellence. And in my consulting to seek to encourage everyone I work with to set out to achieve the same. During the final quarter of last year, I participated with 13 th Beach Marketing Pty Ltd in a wide ranging survey of around 20 fairly randomly selected clubs, examining Food and Beverage service, General Operational Management and Attitudes to Members, Customers and the wider Community the clubs served. An obvious particular assessment dealt with clubs’ approach to promoting their benefits, facilities and services. We were most surprised by the expressions of the corrosive relationships that actually exist out in the clubs. In almost every case Boards Members, management and staff regularly expressed the view that their members are simply greedy, grasping people. This was closely followed by the view that many of the sponsorship bodies which they are there to provide for, are simply ‘takers’ and not supporters. To the point that this view became predictable. So attending this first meeting of the year gave us a chance to calibrate our discoveries with those that manifested themselves on the day. It appeared very quickly. At the outset the Minister, a lawyer and parliamentarian, instructed Clubs Board Members and Managers present on their role in the community. In response to the first question directed to him, hopefully seeking the removal of sign-in books, the Minister made it clear this would not happen. His view was that Membership and interest in Community Development were the clear differentiators of clubs from pubs, and these key differences provided the basis of concessions granted by the Government. Later during the panel discussion this corrosive interaction appeared as a passing observation by one of the panellists reporting that they had effectively enforced a quid pro quo. A number of the clubs we surveyed also took this ‘commercial’ stance of effectively enforced encouragement: “You only get your subsidy if you support our club”. [Which by the way would most likely turn out to be a losing situation for the subsidised body] It would seem to be an absolute necessity that this yawning chasm be at least bridged, if not closed over for the Clubs industry to survive further Ministerial overview. During the panel, one of the Award-winning club Managers informed us he was too involved with day-to-day activities to have time to manage the strategic impacts of choice in gaming machines, such as denominations. pay-outs and geography within the space. And this prevailed in spite of having his financials fully being looked after by a senior Clubs’ CFO and seven qualified staff. I became as concerned as I was about the 2005 Telstra Business Woman of the Year who clearly didn’t know how her business operated. Quoting from the award press release: But it has not been all smooth sailing. She spent some money after her accountant told her the business had a $30,000 profit but then pro duced a loss. This Business Woman of the Year manifestly had no idea what was happening within her business because she could not discern that her accountant had sent her erroneous reports; not even intuitively let alone as a matter of competence. However from the survey, things were not much better in club land. We never asked for P&L’s though we saw a number of annual reports and revenue analyses which were sufficient to support similar concerns. Eg both anecdotally and from evidence viewed, no club recognised the connection between food and beverage; though their correlation may be as high as 60%. Equally there was no apparent outcome forecasting in the financial systems. More was to come from the Round tables. No one attended the ‘Education is not about the money’; only a few worried about Food; and the eight or nine who wanted to sell to their community better, effectively unanimously concluded that advertising doesn’t work. This was particularly ironic because they were all offered a seminar the day before which could have shown them not only why their version of advertising does not work but also many clues on how to improve their compositions. Regular investments of $10,000 + annually in advertising are made in this non-performing area, but the value of a preliminary investment of less than $400 was forgone. So where are the excellent clubs? Or is it just too hard? What do you think? Can you tell us about excellent clubs? Do you have stories about trying to be an excellent club? Or, is there simply no interest? Write your views to admin@clubvic.org From Denis Hitchens 22 CLUBConnectApril 2011
ROUND TABLES Selling your club to the community Eight participants, representing Golf, Sports or Bowling venues shared what they do now to sell to their community in the 30 minute round table session. Current practice amongst the participants included: Free newspaper publicity through creating newsworthy events (1 participant) Direct mail to the local community through letterbox drops, either in conjunction with the local council, or direct to members by post, email or SMS (3) Local festival participation (1) Radio or TV advertising (2) Sponsorships to local groups (8) Sending flyers to local schools or retirement villages (2) Running junior sports development programs in schools (2) Sending a fridge magnet to members with a year of activities (1) All participants placed regular newspaper advertising and all questioned whether it actually worked. This would suggest to all club managers that by August 2012, clubs will need to know why their advertising doesn’t work and how to fix it. Nigel Rawlins is the director of13 th Beach Marketing Services, www.13thbeachclubsandpubs.com Hi my name is Andrew Briese C.E.O Cooking the Books. On behalf of Clubs VIC Member Connect Learning Event, I recently hosted their first Round Table in March on Profitable Kitchen Secrets . The overriding topic of conversation was that “If food ends up in the bin you might as well toss your money in with it”. Our main points of discussion were: Why did the food end up in the bin? Could we have used the food before it was thrown out? How could we stop it from happening again? Some other points raised to help make the kitchen more profitable were: Menu Has the menu been written for the time of year? Are you using seasonal produces? - they're cheaper Does the menu allow for seasonal substitutes? Product price changes Is someone monitoring stock prices? Have suppliers been asked to tender or bid for supply? Goods received Are you getting what you're paying for? Production issues Portion control - not being adhered to Wasteage/skill issues Are you monitoring the weekly spend on food? Have you got standard recipes for all dishes? Are they being used? Have the recipes been costed correctly? Are all the specials on offer costed property prior to being offered to customers? What is going on with GST - is it being allocated correctly? Freebies / Theft Are foods not being paid for by customers, staff, owners? Front of House Has front-of-house been asked to help lower the food cost up-selling high-margin items? Costing the Roster before the staff see it Because time costs money… CLUBConnect April 2011 23
Page 1 and 2: Connect www.clubsvic.org April 2011
Page 3 and 4: CLUBConnect April 2011 3
Page 5 and 6: Contents Blog Tips for Clubs 16-17
Page 7 and 8: Sydney Convention and Exhibition Ce
Page 11 and 12: Minister O’Brien TALKS SENSE It i
Page 13 and 14: Advocacy, Lobbying and the ROLE OF
Page 15 and 16: Join the Club Let Australia’s lea
Page 17 and 18: Weigh-Up: Firstly, who is going to
Page 19 and 20: HOSTPLUS leadership Series #1 IMPOR
Page 21: Gambler’s Help EXTENDED Launched
Page 25 and 26: The RACV The RACV Healesville Coun
Page 27 and 28: Clubs Victoria Appoints Event Manag
Page 31 and 32: POST 2012 GAMING ARE YOU PREPARED?

April - Club Victoria Inc.

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