5 Essential Steps for Successful Club Facility Programs

Our new 5 Essential Steps for Planning & Approving Successful Club Facility Programs is a handy and effective resource for any manager and/or board member

Whether you are just starting out or well into the process, our new 5 Essential Steps for Planning & Approving Successful Club Facility Programs is a handy and effective resource for any manager and/or board member looking to develop and achieve membership approval for a major club improvement program. It provides insight into our 30+ years of club planning experience as it covers a range of issues from how to identify the need for a program all the way through to what happens when the program achieves final membership approval.

All too often, well-intentioned club leaders make critical mistakes as they begin the process of developing a long-range plan for their club.

Some common mistakes:

• Failing to gather accurate member input to initiate the process. The tired refrain, “We know what the members want,” is all too often a call to do more of the same.
• Appointing a Facility Planning Committee comprised of technical experts (i.e., architects, designers, contractors, etc.), instead of a group of club members and/or spouses representing all age, member and interest groups within the club.
• Committing to an architectural firm to do the planning because they can also serve as the final architect. Long-range planning requires more skill and expertise than design. Firms that focus on final architecture rarely have folks with long-range planning skills and expertise on their team as their system gears toward implementation, not planning. Sometimes, firms will make it seem as if they have the ability to handle both the front and back ends of a project in an effort to secure an architectural contract and/or sell furnishings. Your membership will see right through this, see the project as “self-serving” and reject the proposed project.
• Driving the planning schedule to meet an implementation goal. There is no project until the membership says there’s one. So do your best in that area and let the building schedule develop itself once you know what is to be built.

This guide is meant to help you work through all issues related to facility improvement programs for your club including research, planning, funding and securing membership approval.

To get a copy of our new, 5 Essential Steps for Planning & Approving Successful Club Facility Programs, contact Alison Duffy at aduffy@mcmahongroup.com or 800.365.2498.