Just curious here...I posted this as a reply to weekly fees and the cash issue but maybe I should have started a new thread...

Here's the issue:
We recieved as increase in weekly fees a while ago. Now the membership fee has increased to cover the cost of running the club. On top of that, we now have to pay the team fee each half which is another $15 increase put on the backs of the members.
Now I know it's our club and we should support it but...I wonder why the membership ALWAYS gets the increases?
The bar owners make a LOT of $$ every week through alcohol sales to more than compensate them for their small donation of $50 per year on their bar fee. The bar fee charged to them has not been raised in many years. I'm talkng at the very least 12 years this fee has remained the same for the bar owners.

My questions is:
Why can't the bar fee be raised to $75 or even $100 per year to help support an organization that does nothing but make them $$$?
Why not remove the team fee off the backs of the membership and place on the bar owners?
If you want a team to play out of your bar, then you pay $75 bar fee and $15 team fee per half for that priviledge. And quit comoing back to the membership everytime you want more $$$....

Just a thought...Want do you think?
Waiting for comments...
Winnie

The weekly fee's were raised 8 to 10 years ago. From $15.00 to $18.00.
There has been no other increases since then. We started the team fee every Season to try an avoid the need of raising the membership fee's. With the increased cost of just about everything, we raised the Membership fee's.
We are a non-profit, so anything that is left at the end of the year goes back to the darters in the payout checks. I think (and maybe wrong) that we are the only area league that pays money back to every place, even last place gets some money back.
Some of the Bars do pay for the team fee's, that is upto the bar.
At this time there looks to be no need to raise any other fee's.

I think Winnie has a good idea...I know the fees for weeklies was raised when Karl was president. That's all well and good. But everytime the league is hurting for money, they come to us. maybe it is time for the bars to anti up a little...they are the ones who make money off this club..maybe it is time for them to give back

yeagermiester

I disagree with the idea of the bars ponying up the extra cash. They are already providing the teams with a place to play, so what more is necessary? I'm not a huge fan of the number of perks that seem to go to some teams, and I've been privied to them myself. I don't know when all of it started, but what it did was open a pandora's box where teams bounce around from place to place like we're free agents in the NFL or MLB.

Look, we do provide business for the bars, but let's not kid ourselves by thinking that we're giving them the most business (in some cases, this may be true, but I highly doubt it happens most places). If they didn't get it from us, they would get it from somewhere else.

As far as the "burden" being on the players, we are talking about a whopping $28.00 per season (2.00 per week, .50 per player on a 4-player team), and $5.00 per year on membership (a $25.00 membership is the same for rival leagues, comes out to .07 per day for a full year, .90 per league night for 2 seasons). I understand that times aren't economically sound, I work 2 jobs myself, but when it was first brought up, you would think that the fees were going to 125.00 per week and a 200.00 membership fee. The numbers I just figured come up to 19.00 for a year (Fall/Winter, add another 7.00 for us idiots that play summer). To go Sally Struthers on everyone here (just not with the massive weight gain to make it seem that I'm the reason the Ethiopeans are starving), that translates to .053 cents per day. We don't even blink when we drop 4.25 for a pack of cigarettes (I don't smoke, but I sell a lot of them. Classic to watch someone gawk at 1.99 for a half gallon of milk, then buy a pack of Newports for 4.98. Sadly, I live for these moments) or drop 1.25 for a cup of coffee, but an extra 20 bucks over the course of 52 weeks is obsurd? Just last night I collected 1.42 sweeping the floor in pennies and nickles that people thought nothing of. I tossed it in the register because I didn't find the sum life-altering, either.

Fortunately for me, I don't smoke or drink coffee, but I do play darts, and love playing. Maybe it's that love that blinds me from seeing the negatives of raising fees for the players.

I should also add in that the bars are different than the LEDA. LEDA is a non-profit organization.

Gotta agree with Dboy, you have to pay to play. And that kind of money isn't much.

You know what would be really cool is to take the bars entirely out of the picture and for the club to actually establish a clubhouse where all league functions could take place. I'd pay extra for that.

Imagine how cohesive the club would be if that happened. Can't believe that no club in this area has ever done that.

Anyone who has ever attended a tournament at the British - American Club might be able to see how cool it would be to get a real Club going.

It kind of started like that if I understand correctly. That is how Shoot The Bull got started.

The difficulty is getting people to buy into the idea of this being a club. People think of the term league and automatically think NFL, MLB, NBA, etc. The club thing is something that England has had going for hundreds of years. Their soccer leagues are actually clubs that do other functions as well, or so I'm told. Our Canadian bretheren up north actually run their club that way. They have a different type of format everynight. The downside is if you have an undesirable member in the club (face it, if you get rid of the least liked person, then someone else takes their place). Would you want to see that person every week, even though you hate them? (I can actually hear Mike and Tony's fingers pounding the keys at this very moment). You already do that at work everyday, and this is something that we do for fun. I don't mind the idea of showing up at the same place each week (even when they cancel the event), but variety is not a bad thing, either.

I like the idea of going to different bars each week. That way you get to see some bars you probably would never go to otherwise. Plus like the previous post, you don't have to see the same people each week, which I think is probably a good thing! :lol: