Making the most of your calendar
By RBM Nick Twining
Making the most of key dates in the calendar is a convenient way to achieve growth and ensure the quieter or wetter months of the year are more sustainable. If these key dates are planned properly, they can be quite fruitful for our clubs. Check your calendar for the common State public holidays and reflect on and emphasise the elements listed in previous articles on the SWOT principle analysis.
Also take note of key sporting dates; please keep an open mind with this, though it won’t appeal to everyone, there is a market for it now. These start with cricket in November, to tennis in January, NBA, NFL, AFL, NRL, English Premier League and world football events, The Champions League, Formula 1, V8 Supercars, boxing, UFC and non-mainstream sports.
Things like The Superbowl, The FA Cup, The Stanley Cup and NBA Finals series are a great way to grow social membership. Social members don’t need to bowl, but spending money helps support the viability of our businesses.
Please broadcast bowls events. I have walked into numerous clubs to find replays of old NRL games, when bowls was on live. This is no way for a bowls club to promote its own game. As a general guide, LIVE sports only on your TVs, knowing the result vs getting hooked into waiting for a result keeps people in our clubs and bars for longer. Wet weather also puts a dampener on our clubs (excuse the pun). We know it’s coming, but how prepared are we? Every year in the North we run into issues with stock not getting through due to the highway being cut.
My suggestion is to always have a plan B. At the time of writing, Townsville & Mackay had copped a lot of rain, which caused flooding and a major disturbance to businesses. My hat goes off to the people cleaning up, your resilience is a great credit to your clubs!
As always, your QLD RBM team is only ever a phone call away, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to your local RBM if you need us. Thank you and I would like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year!