Booster Clubs

[gymbabisMom]

How does the booster club at your gym work??? Our gym has a booster club and we are always looking for more effective ways to fundraise. It's hard to keep going to the same people over and over "now this week we are selling....." That could make you feel like an Amway person. Not to mention that I personally have very few people to sell to. I just don't contact many people outside of the gym.

[MomChefKathleen]

At our gym, we aren't required to participate in the Fundraisers unless we want to. In the fall, we did a Pampered Chef Fundraiser and each girl received 30% of what she sold. The families could also do a lot of their own Christmas shopping and have 30% of it go towards their competition fees. There were about 13 who participated and we sold about $5,000 total.

I hate hitting up friends & family over and over again. And it's not just gymnastics; we get them for school, baseball, etc. So we only did the Pampered Chef fundraiser last year and sold $1200 worth.

Our Booster Club is looking for other fundraising ideas, preferably something that brings people to us, instead of us going out door-to-door. One high school team here does a Gymnastics Clinic for elementary school kids the day after school lets out for Christmas Break. It's $15/child. Water & snacks cost extra or you can bring your own. It runs for three or four hours. One year they had 90 kids show up. Their slow year was 45. We are also planning on doing a "Children's Clothing Sale," like a yard sale, but just with kids' clothes & accessories. The booster club will keep a small percentage (10-20 percent) and the balance will go into each girl's competition account.

[pammyh1]

The way we run our booster club is as follows: At the beginning of competition season all parents are required to pay annual dues, this can range from $25-$45. Our fundraiser coordinator and other officers then comes up with four fundraisers for the year. We usually have 2-3 that are not required and 2 that the girls 100 percent to their fundraiser credits account (so on average 6-8 fundraisers). If the parents choose not to participate in the required ones then they pay a $15 opt-out fee per fundraiser or $60 for the season.
The Coca-Cola Company here works with us. We usually do 2 coke sales a year. Most people do this one because so many people drink cokes, water or gatorade. The girls get a percentage per case sold. This one does really well. We do Jambalaya and sausage poboy pre-sale tickets for meets. People are around during lunch so these do well also. Then of course we do the World's finest Chocolate. The 2 that the girls get 100% profit are the program ads for the meets we host each year. Quite a few parents went all season without using any out of pocket money because they had done so well with the fundraising they were able to use credits. The only issue that arises with this is the fact that the booster club is a non-profit organization, so any money that people earn can only be used for meets, comp leos, camps, etc. If they quit, I can not write them a check for the balance left. So, they either transfer it to another gymnast or it goes to the general booster club fund.

This has worked really well for us. We have been able to buy new equipment for the gym (new pro-pit), work out items for the girls (weights, etc.), spirit activites for the gymnasts, fully paid state meet entries by the booster club, end of year party with trophies and catered food, and Christmas/End of season bonuses for the girls coaches.

[littlegymchampsmom]

Pammy,

your booster club program sounds really great! Are you on the board? Did you take part in getting it started or was it already in place at your gym? thanks - lgcm