Our bridge education has been and is a critical activity for our club, essential for the ongoing renewal of our club, and for maintaining our vibrant member body and promoting our game. It has been instrumental in our change from a club with declining membership more than five years ago to one that now has stable, stronger membership trends.
Some members have raised the question of how our bridge education activities are managed and accounted for.
The direction, scope and course fees of our bridge education program are agreed between the Committee and the Bridge Education Sub-Committee every six months. This year for example we reduced the number of beginners classes in favour of more courses focused on our improver players. This shift probably contributed to our club membership falling slightly this year in contrast to growth in recent years.
Our club's approach to managing our bridge education has a long history with many past programs, ranging from those run by volunteers to external professionals and with different success in terms of player retention and sustainability.
More than five years ago when the current successful bridge education program and structure was established the then club committee thought it prudent to avoid the education program's financial uncertainties and continue to require those willing to implement it to wear the financial risk and to pay the club a fixed amount per student per session (to more than cover the overhead costs of using the club's facilities).
Consequently our current education team set themselves up so that they were responsible for their own materials and largely for their course marketing. Apart from when we involve external teachers, it required each of our teachers to be responsible for collecting lesson fees to offset the payments due to the club, their materials costs and a return to themselves for the hours involved in student liaison, lesson preparation and delivery. Our teachers have generally not made a return that an accredited experienced teacher would receive.
The club on the other hand has consistently recorded positive direct income from lessons, and of course significant further financial benefits from the new players who then pay additional table monies to the club as covered in last month's President's letter.
Recognizing that bridge education is a critical activity for our club, the current committee is discussing the further integrating of our bridge education processes and accounting more closely with the rest of the club. One step already occurred in 2017 when we brought our supervised session arrangements and its table monies and director payments into the club's normal processes and onto the club books. Completing the process for lessons will need to be done carefully as we want to ensure that the existing successful bridge education team and activities are enhanced rather than disturbed by the integration.
Bridge education has and will always be a whole of club endeavour. A critical success factor for any bridge education program is the welcome that existing members give to newer players, both individually and through the sections and events focused on newer players.
