Ideas to improve a crappie club?

[crappiejigger]

So basically I was looking to you guys for ideas on how to achieve the above goals. I'm not on the Executive Board of said club. But I was trying to help out by asking the question of how to improve the club. Because in past meetings it was asked on ways to improve and it seemed as though everyone was out of ideas on how to get better turnouts at the multiple club events.

[Hanr3]

I'll tell you why I won't go/join a pay club.
I won't do club activities (tournaments) as a non-member if I have to pay membership dues to fish the tournament. I'm willing to travel up to several hours to fish a tournament that another club sponsors. However, I am not willing to pay membership dues to a club when I will never attend a meeting or reap any of the other club benefits. Basically, must be a member to fish the tournaments, I'm not going to fish the tournaments.

I also have a limit on how much I am willing to pay for a tournament. I am real hesitant about high dollar payouts. The higher the payout the more likely you will get a local guide who has been fishing the lake for a long time. Hard to beat a guy who knows the lake like the back of his hand. Lower payouts and the guides won't see the tournament as a worth while effort. As an average angler, I prefer low cost and low payback. Limits how much I am willing to lose. I view tournaments like I view gambling. How much money am I willing to lose? I walk into the tournament expecting to place out of the money. If I win, bonus. Will it cover my costs. Doubt it. Do I want it too, nope. I'm there to learn from others. I learn more from the conversation at the ramp after the tournament then I did all day on the water. I take that information and compare it to my day. What did I see, what did they see? What was the difference? Lesson learned!

Like I said before, many clubs are work parties. Not interested. I have too many of my own honey-do-projects. I'm married to my wife, not the club. Obviously my priorities are to my family first. IF I have extra time to work, it will be to benefit my family.



The best advice I can give is to define your goals. Once the goal is defined develop a plan to achieve that goal. You need to track metrics (progress), are you achieving milestones (intermittent objectives) on your path to achieve the goal? IF not, what actions do you need to take to get back on track. I do this for a living. I'm in quality. We have goals and metrics we track all day, every day. Doing the same for a club sounds like too much work for this guy. I'm not interested. If you want to track goals / metrics. Have at it.

[Hanr3]

Well I would like to see the club grow in all aspects of the sport.I would love to see the tourney side become something people desire to fish. The environmental side I like to see multiple projects throughout the years to improve the waterways and the community. I'd like it to keep the idea of recruiting the kids to try and enjoy the sport. And I would love to have the club bring anglers together for comradery and information about this great thing we call crappie fishing-- or fishing in general

Let's define a goal. A goal must have several things. It must be specific, measureable, attainable and have a timeline. Your "goals" quoted above are wishes.
Tournament- desire to fish, not a goal. How many competitors per tournament, how many tournaments per year. What is the goal of the tournament?
Projects- Environmental- how many, what aspect of the environment do you want to impact, by when? What organization is directing the impact to the environment- Department of natural resources, local lake management, local youth group, etc.?
Kids- Diversity- How many kids, by when, etc.?
Meetings- time frame (annual, monthly, weekly), WHY?, what factors will be used to determine meeting success, what are the goals of the meeting?

Change your wishes into goals, develop a plan, and work the plan. There is a simple methodology to improvement. Plan, DO, Check, Act!
Plan- Define goals, resources, methods to achieve goals, processes etc.
Do- implement the plan
Check- monitor the plan's progress towards goals/objectives.
Act- take action to correct when your plan is going off track. Your correction should follow a methodology as well. Determine why the plan isn't achieving the results desired (root cause analysis), develop corrective actions to address the root cause. implement the corrective actions. Review the effectiveness of the corrective action to verify it is fixing the root cause. Plan, DO, Check, Act, repeat.

As of today, your goals need work. Yes, this is work. It will take effort. Do you have members with the right skills? Rhetorical question.

Let's talk about Not-For-Profit requirements. Being as this is a not-for-profit organization you have legal requirements. You must have a board of directors. You must have by-laws. You must have elections. You must file tax records. You must do a host of other legal requirements. Like I said, this is work disguised as a fishing club.

Good luck!