Junior Sports Club

Description

The Junior Sports Club Program is a “summer camp” available to members’ children, 2nd-8th grades. The program runs seven weeks in the summer; Tuesday through Friday; 8:30 AM to 1: 30 PM. The primary goal of JSC is to expose the children to the activities that our Club offers. For 9th & 10th grade children, our team developed a two-week intensive counselor-in-training program; molding our future staff.

The children are grouped by gender and grade. Sport professionals and summer counselors instruct and supervise the children in the following areas:

• Sailing
• Stand-up Paddle Boards
• Kayak
• Paddle Boat
• Canoe
• Swimming
• Water Polo
• Fishing
• Paddle Tennis
• Golf
• Field Sports/Team Games
• Archery
• Crafts
• Beach
• Lawn Games

Each day, the kids participate in 4-45 minutes activities and enjoy a hot lunch. To add excitement, we arrange field trips to the bowling alley, video gaming center, amusement park and water park for the older children. For the younger children, we hire magicians, game show companies and variety acts to entertain at the Club. Each week carries a theme that ties to the activities: Halloween, Shark Week, Olympics, Wet-n-Wild & Christmas.

Junior Sport Club has enhanced the club’s operation
The Junior Sports Club has enhanced our niche as a “Family Friendly” private club. We are located on the North Shore of Chicago and compete with six other private clubs located within a seven-mile radius.

Nearly 70% of eligible children participate in the JSC program; for a total of 350-400 children each year. We hire 70-80 counselors to work for our camp; 80% are members’ children who were campers.

After camp, we offer additional junior activities generating more revenue: PGA Jr. Golf League, Swim Team, Hip Hop Dance, Fishing, Archery & Sailing.

Implementation

The Junior Sports Club Program was implemented by a committee of “moms” and has been greatly enhanced under the Club’s management team. We have a year-round Recreations Director and hire an additional 70-80 summer employees to work, which includes five assistant directors. Our golf and racquet professionals aid instruction. The program has its own income statement and continually generates bottom line results: $90,000-$125,000 per year.

Club Members’ Reactions
Since the Junior Sports Club aids in retention and recruitment, our membership is very supportive. We maintain camp time from 8:30 am-1:30 pm four days a week for six weeks but remain open for our membership during those times. We schedule the JSC activities around adult tennis and golf leagues during those seven weeks, so everyone is happy!