Is it time for change?

Talking to a guy a while ago and he visited the same CL for a week every month.  To cut costs he now visits the same site for two weeks every 2 months.  His solution to reduce travel costs.

A very political thread opening. What Armageddon is this, then?  The party governing has been elected, so leave democracy alone, please. Factually incorrect anyway and parliament on holiday so nothing likely to be happening. A complete and utter nonsensical and childish thread opening.

I called it " Time for Change " no idea who or why its been modified. 

The club has no control over CL prices so obviously my proposal would not benefit members who only use CL's however that is a personal choice as is the vast majority who pay the premium of utilising Club Sites, the membership fee allows use of both.

I reiterate my statement that the vast majority renewed their membership (as asked to do) when there were no Sites even open and then when reopened with very restricted conditions and no reduction in fee's. The pandemic was obviously unforeseen and the club had no control of government restrictions but the membership did as asked so I say again its payback time. The balance sheet at this time does not HAVE to show positive.

Leave it to market forces. The boom in staycations has bust and has already hit other forms of self catering with a reported 11 to 15 percent drop in the price of cottage rentals. In these turbulent times it will be very difficult to set a budget to break even. If there is indeed a downturn in the Clubs' fortunes, a more likely scenario will be an increase in offers to lure folk in especially to the less popular sites.

peedee

I'm just wondering how the club can forecast its income for the remainder of this financial year and the next as you suggest to balance the books? 

Won't speak for anyone else but I kept my membership going to ensure when the pandemic was over there would still be a club. That's my 'payback' and don't forget the discounted vouchers. 

People have had probably two chances not to renew their membership so if they were upset they would have left by now.

As I said and PD alluded to let people decide.

The impression given is that people remained members just out of loyalty to the Club. That may have been true of some but many have tie-ins with the Club that require you to be a member like breakdown and recovery plus other insurances. As to Club prices I tend to agree with what Peedee said that market forces will play their part. The Club have to cover their costs and in current circumstances that will be exceptionally difficult. We know from history that in some years the Club's site network has lost money and it has only be the sale of other services like insurance and ferry bookings that have stopped the Club making an overall loss. We are entering very uncertain times and it is difficult to second guess how the next year will pan out. It seems everyday we are getting higher and higher energy cost forecasts and depending on what support is given there could well be members who currently manage their site bookings comfortably who will be having second thoughts on whether they can afford to continue. So there are pressure on all fronts for both Club and Club members which might not be resolved just by reducing site prices. The problem could be much more profound than that?

David

The OP seems to assume that the CAMC is still a club.

Having been a member since 1979, I can't recall when it mutated into a business, but it certainly has been a gradual process, accelerated over the last 10 - 15 years.   As such, profit will come first.

Thank goodness there are no shareholders (yet).

Not all of us chose to renew. I didn’t, purely based on the fact that I wasn’t happy at the time with some of the decisions the Club took during the first few months of the pandemic. So ultimately, we had a few months as non members, throughout the time the Sites were closed and travel restrictions in place.

It’s up to the individual to determine their priorities, and deciding what is and isn’t important to them. Many will have chosen to pay their fees regardless, and if that’s good for them, then it’s nothing to do with me. The Club operates on a commercial basis nowadays, so my decision was similar from our personal point of view. We subscribe to a few Membership schemes, such as NT, HHA, Cadw, and we looked at what each were doing, decided what we wanted to keep, where we could save and took action accordingly.

Its going to be a lot easier for some to look at Memberships in the next few months. Heat a home, feed the family or ditch some of the extras that are desirable rather than essential.