Ghost club members, B.A.S.S. and Fed tourney opinions ?

[OREGON SMALLIES]

After reading the thread below how bout a little rainy day discussion about the topic. Have been in small clubs as a boater and now non-boater so it affects me more now. I know the stock answer, get your own boat and shut up. I mostly want to know if other small clubs are getting even smaller with less rides for non-boaters while having lots of names on the roster. Our club has had to make a rule that no boater shows up to fish alone with 2 or 3 non-boaters sitting at home, having attended meetings, got excited about the next tourney etc. etc. and none having been called. How many of you have got the news of how great one of your club members or teams did in a really big tourney, people you hadn't seen since the first meeting and are expected to be happy for. One thread below says some have no time for meetings and regular club stuff. They do find time to pre-fish travel, tourney travel, finals travel etc. Other club members are left to do habitat projects, casting kids, fundraisers , even the wife that sends homemade cookies to the meeting, you know the boring stuff thats supposed to be the reason for all this. How bout a rule that you show how you did in at least 3 club tourneys to use your club as a Fed qualifier base. Or just have a Ghost Club blanket org. that will cover this group and dues and entries paid there. The name would make for some great hats and jacket logos anyway. My 2 cents

[Mark Langner]

It sounds like you have a pretty frustrating club experience going on....which I'm sorry to hear about.

In our club, our monthly meeting preceeds the tournament for that month. If somebody is not at the meeting we know is likely to fish, we call em. Then we reconcile boaters and non boaters so nobody is left at the dock. A little give and take sometimes, but our club isn't very big and we want to insure everyone gets to fish.

[Noluk]

I used to belong to a neat club... ohh about 10 years back. They met every 2nd Tuesday. Old school guys on one side. new guys on the otehr. We were able to learn alot from each other. The meetings took a couple hours and were often fun. The problem for me with clubs is that they still function the same. Monthly meeting, monthly fishing outing and assorted other functions. Not too bad all in all, unless your club isn't local. Travel time has significantly increased the impact that a club schedule has on an individual. For the folks who regularly do team tournaments, even 1 or 2 trails, there are bound to be conflicts. In SoCal there are far more things I want to fish than I could ever afford or schedule.

So in the interest of your rainy day discussions, I would like to think about what clubs are and where they may end up heading. I certainly hope our clubs are more than a place to get cookies. The basic structure and format of clubs has not changed in a long time. Maybe we can look at ways to revitalize the memberships of our clubs at the same time. In it's simpliest forms, clubs were built to grow the sport. Many club members then went on to fish higher levels of competitions. Some folks were more confortable staying at a club level. We have to acknowledge the huge number of tournaments that occur on our waters every weekend. For a club to comete against that for membership numbers is going to require some innovative changes. Everyone talks about paybacks etc on normal tournaments so clubs should stress the returns that they offer. Watching a kid's face as he catches his first fish. Doing something positive to help fish habitat. That stuff all rocks. Getting fined because I missed a Tuesday evening meeting because of work or such is not.
Back to the cookie issue... I would hope that clubs can rewrite their rules to aggresively target family members of members as good potential members. My wife is my team partnet in about half my team tournament trails. Why would we want to join a club where she is paired up with someone else to fish? Clubs should recognize the potential of families and work for that to potential to eb realized. Heck, if 1 out of 4 members could get their wives to join in and be a part of the club then the Federation would grow by 10,000 members and have a HUGE potential sponser market because they can now target non-endemic sponsers who are looking for a family audience.
Ghost clubs: Ghost clubs are a benefit to the Federation. It may not seem like it if your wishing you had more real members in your monthly tournament, but I doubt many of the ghost club members would convert their membership to a "real" club in order to fish Federation tournaments. All a ghost club does is abolish monthly meetings. The members quite often use phone and e-mail to communicate with each other. The monthly tournament is the Federation tournament. So we boost the numbers of anglers participating in the Federation tournament trail, which is a positive for the Federation as a whole. We pay the same dues to the state Federation. We payed the same dollars to the parent orginization, BASS. We payed the same dues to fish a Federation tournament. Heck a ghost club is a regular club with different meeting rules. Bottom line is a "normal" club can only offer me a meeting in a remote location I may not be able to make and monthly fishing outings with someone other than my wife on a day and venue I probably can't make it anyway because I am fishing a team tournament with my wife.

This post is getting long, but I urge everyone who is unhappy with a club experience to define what they want to get from it. I know there are a TON of great clubs out there with members who have a great time fishing together. Heck I may even look for a club again around my home in the near future. But fisherman and our world has changed alot over the past 5-10 years. Maybe it is time we redefined what a club is and how it accomplishes it's goals or even what it's goals are. Things like promoting family membership, involvment with local tournament orginizations so that dual events can be held, clubs actively promoting the Federation tournament trail, getting involved with charity tournaments or teen tournaments. I KNOW lots of clubs are doing things like these across the state and country. But I think we can make an impact by stressing those parts of the clubs as well. Think about the things that drew you to a club in the first place and make sure new folks and strangers feel comfortable approaching you and talking about their oppurtunities to join and be a part of it. And finally, make the fishing fun for everyone. Don't let the chase for club angler of the year interfere with the chase for learning and sharing on the water. Just my two cents. Have a nice rainy day.

[bryanmc]

let's define a "club" What exactly is a bass club? Do you have to have meetings? officers? a treasury? a bake sale? When I fished the fed I belonged to a "ghost club" as you call them. What difference does it make if the club I belong to has 4 tournaments a month and four meetings a month or none? Do I have to fish club tournaments, go on picnics and sell cookies to fish the Fed? I think not. I quit the "real club" thing because I got tired of all the infighting and politics that inevitably goes along with any organization that has more than 1 member.

On the flip side, my brother runs one of the most successful clubs in the Yuma, AZ area. They fish 12 tournaments a month. They have an awards dinner. They don't have meetings. They put out a news letter every month. There are no elections... my brother is the pres and td... his wife is the vp sec and treas. They have about 100 members and usually have 30 boats per tournament.

PS.. they're not BASS or fed affiliated.