We are a Not for Profit Company Limited by Guarantee, a Community Amateur Sports Club and a Registered Environmental Body.
The club has developed an almost unique approach to the way it funds itself.
The financial structure has evolved to support the club’s mission to make the sport affordable to all classes of society and maintain an emphasis on family membership. Therefore we keep the cost of joining to a minimum, £20 (plus the AGB fees).
Note that we currently (2021/22/23) also charge an additional joining fee of £20 to new members transferring from other clubs/organisations to recognise all the efforts being invested by our existing membership. This fee is not applicable to existing members, those graduating from our own beginners courses and not to some additional family members, it is also a temporary measure whilst a high level of fundraising is in operation to develop facilities and the experience we offer. We also do not want to attract transfers from other local clubs.
We sub contract beginners courses to allow our coaches to focus on current members and therefore do not generate any income from beginners courses.
Fundamental to the mission is the club objective ‘ To support all members to achieve their full potential,’ this will not be achieved by attending a few practice sessions each month but regular attendance! Our general income will be optimised by offering great experiences at every practice session, no show no income.
The facts are best summarized as follows;
Income
- Annual Membership fees – Kept to a minimum and probably only represent 10-15% of our annual income.
- Beginners Courses – No income generated as we sub contract them.
- Target fees on a reducing scale for families, maximum is £4.00 for a single individual paid for attendance at one or more training sessions in a given week (so could be £4.00 for just one attendance or 7 attendances). This is our main source of income due to high numbers attending weekly practice session. Members can elect to pay by standing order reducing the monthly fee to £12 (less if multiple family members). With 200+ plus members to motivate to attend each week paying between £12 and £16 per month, the incentive to offer a great experience is high!
- Special event income, in house competitions (Target Days), Record Status Tournaments, some socials, fundraising, fetes, etc.
- Hire out of our own facilities, either direct hire out or hosting a range of events organised by ourselves or hosting on behalf of AGB or our County.
- Funds and benefits generated by our bowls, boule, men-in-sheds, electric car racing sections.
- Sponsorship income, usually indirect, through reduced rate of facility hire and ‘in-kind’ benefits to support club activities. We have engaged a number of companies who generously support our club and its role in the community. A raffle attracted over £2000 in donated prizes from local companies! This is only achievable by playing a big role in the local community.
- Grants such as Satellite, Ontarget, Sport England, Active Gloucestershire, Environmental Trust, County and District Councils etc. The Club has members whose role is to seek out available funding and make applications. All these type of grants are used for improvements to our facilities and what we can deliver, the club manages all of its day to day running costs. We invest considerable effort into understanding many of the strategies of local organisations so we can support them and place ourselves in a favourable position for support.
- Monthly income generated by our export to the grid from our 66 solar panels. Currently around £600 per month during the summer, reducing during the winter.
Expenditure
- Hire of winter indoor facilities. Multiple venues hired each week. Equipment stored at each venue.
- Free loan of equipment to new members.
- Equipment Maintenance, which has increased significantly as the standard of our archers has improved (Boss wear, target faces, loan equipment, replacement arrows etc).
- Facility maintenance including services, insurance, tractor, fuel, fire, security etc
- Budget requirements to support the coaching, social, development, men-in-sheds section etc
- Free use of member support items such as bow press, arrow cutter, laser tuning equipment, library etc.
- This is a ZERO expenditure but certainly worthy of listing. The time of all our committee members, all coaches, ground and equipment maintenance officers etc is all free, not even millage is charged for!
- General maintenance costs of our facilities, we now cover general monthly costs and save a further £500 per month as contingency.
Savings
An ongoing major objective is to reduce costs and therefore generate income! Our volunteer workforce does much of the maintenance and development work. Our coaches deliver all sorts of fund raising activities and schools programmes that give us access to reduced rates of hire. We also recycle many items and get sponsorship for others!
Late in 2022 we installed a considerable solar panel array , it will generate more electricity than we use, producing a considerable saving. We are also looking at a grey water system to reduce a water costs.
Financial Balance
All events are financially modeled prior to commitment, a cash look forward system across our entire financial situation is maintained. We are constitutionally required to have a minimum £5000 in the account and are not allowed to take out a bank loan.
All profits are used to develop the club facilities and our volunteer workforce.
We set aside around £1K per month to support ‘special’ projects and a further amount for general big one off maintenance requirements.
This financial approach means that it is essential that the club continually monitors its financial model and we are grateful to our Finance Officer and Management Committee for their efforts! Even with our incredible winter facilities, using partnerships, working with the venue owners and working with the community our indoor season no longer needs a supplement from our outdoor income!
Every year we record excellent financial figures which support us developing even better facilities, better experiences for our members and able to make a beter contribution to our community.
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