Wednesday hockey fees

[Tom Brown]

Sea Lions, we're making some changes to individual practice fees to help students and encourage everyone to keep a positive balance. Paying club bills is an important part of making sure we get to play hockey and I'd love to hear any ideas you have to assure it is done fairly.

Effective immediately we'll charge full time school, college or university students 50% for practices. Please let Tom or Holland know if you qualify.

Effective December 2021 your fee will depend on if you pay in advance or not. If your balance before practice is at least the fee ($8) nothing changes. If you pay after 5:30pm you'll owe $15. Please help me by watching http://www.sfuwh.org/club/balance and paying for a bunch of practices at once. I don't like nagging people to pay and hope this motivates you to take care of your debt to the club. If this works the club will save time (super!) without costing players a single penny. If it doesn't work the club will have more of your money, which will help pay our rising costs.

Practice is free each time you bring a new player and help them get started in the water. Put an asterix (*) next to a name on the attendance list when this applies.

Let me and/or Holland know if you have any questions or concerns. I'll be out of town for a few weeks but reachable by email.

See you at the bottom, Tom

[Tom Brown]

My fellow Sea Lions, we're changing the fees again. Please help me by watching http://www.sfuwh.org/club/balance and paying for a bunch of practices at once, before you go into debt or I need to remind you.

Wednesday night is $10 per person, effective immediately. Full time school, college or university students pay 50% for practices.

Practice is free each time you bring a new player and help them get started in the water.

New and visiting players pay the same as everyone else. As far as I can tell "free for new players" last appeared at sfuwh.org/club/pay in January 2013 but I still occasionally hear people mention it. It is pretty uncomfortable for me when I ask someone to pay (per our written policy) and they tell me they heard it was free.

Why the change? Thanks to some conversations with club members Holland and I decided to remove the pricing incentive for paying in advance. While I liked that it whipped some people into paying in advance, I'm not comfortable charging people more because they are struggling with a limited cash flow. We'll come up with something else but I want to remove the regressive fee ASAP.

Let me and/or Holland know if you have any questions or concerns.

[Steven T]

Great move, Tom and Holland! And a good reminder to refill our balances. 

I am guilty of telling newbies their first practice is free and I’ll change my behavior there. 

Thanks again for all the hard work in keeping our club sustainable. 

On May 1, 2022, at 4:01 AM, Tom Brown <thec...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Cy]

re: Practice is free each time you bring a new player and help them get started in the water.

Is it free for me, the new player or both of us?

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[Uncle Terry]

Tom,

 

I am a fan of the idea that the first practice for a newbie is free.  If it can get someone who isn’t sure about the sport to try it once, it may pay dividends.  I realize that hasn’t been the policy for a while.  And I know that club finances are tight.  So to support the club I’d like to make an offer.  I’ll pay for the newbie’s first practice (while the club is paying for the member who brings them). 

 

If this is too much administration for you, forget that I brought it up.  But if you’re OK with the idea, I’ll send some funds and you can draw from my account as needed.

 

--T

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[calou...@yahoo.com]

I think that's great solution.

jk

Jacob (415) 937 0691

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[Tom Brown]

Thank you for the ideas and generous offer Uncle T! I don't see loss of income as much of a factor when considering free (or not) the first time. On multiple occasions new players have shown up, heard it is free the first time and then for many practices they don't volunteer to pay and I end up having to chase them down. Sometimes these people turn into upstanding members, other times they disappear with a debt much larger than a few practices or are habitually late payers. My hope is that if we consistently tell people to pay I won't need to have as many uncomfortable conversations along the lines of "ummm, time for you to come up with some $$$".

Being free once might get a few more people in the door once but I'm sure the experience they have is a much bigger factor in retention and the stories they tell friends.

If you think more flexible costs will be good for the club please speak in favor of going back to donations instead of fixed prices. It reduces my work and I'd like to think we can fix the problems that came up last time we tried them.

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[Le Grand Bleu]

"First time is free" was dropped in mid-2016 for the reasons Tom mentioned:

https://groups.google.com/g/sfuwh/c/DZqqrt7RZLQ/m/t419usZiCQAJ

1- It makes accounting more complex,

2- It fosters poor "financial hygiene" in new players,

3- Its benefits are unproven; has anyone not tried hockey because it costs something the first time?

On the other hand, we have seen instances of folks who thought the activity "free" because we didn't chase them to pay up.

Personally I think (2) is particularly important; a casual attitude towards practice payments translates into an ongoing issue for the club at large.

I've been there, and I attest it is a major pain to have to remind players to pay for practice.

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[Uncle Terry]

‘Nuff said.  I defer to y’all’s wisdom.

 

--T

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[Charlie Kain-Williams]

I thought it was all free all the time

JK-see you all weds

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Charlie Kain-Williams

415 305 3325

californiaequipment.com

[Jose H. Espinosa]

My 2 c. I do not think anybody as ever show up cause it's free. But they might push someone to try it (that's the reason that when we charge newbies there is no big deal since nobody is breaking the bank to come) I do not have any preference on keep doing it or not I'm just trying to get in the head of someone coming for the first time.

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