A Wall Street Journal article from April 2, 2007 got me thinking.  Believe it or not, golf is kind of in a funk.  Of course golf is a sport, and the sport supports many surrounding industries.  It's in the interest of those industries (equipment, apparel, travel, golf courses, and golf pros) to maximize "golf" to maximize their profits.  To do this, they've been trying to increase new golfers, capitalizing on one of the most entertaining professional athletes of our time, Tiger Woods.

While the strategy has been somewhat successful, they've gotten about 3 Million new golfers out each year (in a sport that boasts 28 Million annual participants), there's a problem.  Golf looses about 3 million people a year, mostly the new folks.

About 14 million are what they call "core golfers."  These are folks who actually play golf at least eight times a year.  The amount of golf they've played has decreased by 11% while the industry courted new golfers.  A lot of this can be attributed to post 9/11 travel restrictions, but travel is over pre 9/11 levels, and golf did not rebound.

The current marketing strategy is to get more rounds of golf out of core golfers.  The marketing rule of thumb for ages has been that the top 20% of your customers bring in 80% of your revenue.  And the golf industry has been courting the bottom 20% for years.

OK, Todd, what the heck?  You can't possibly care that much about golf.

From the moment I read the headline, I knew this story would tell me something about NAVHDA in general, and my chapter, Sebasticook in particular.  The Sebasticook Chapter has had about 90 members each and every year since it began.  However, I'd bet that 50 or so are new members each year.  And the handful that "stick" replace the core members who leave. 

OK, I guess I'd better define what I think a core member is.  A core member is someone who is training for the Utility Level or better.  They might have a Natural Ability level dog today, but they have the desire to take that dog to the finished level.  I guess that's the key to my definition the "core" members are those pursuing a finished hunting dog.

My chapter spends a lot of its "resources" catering to folks who haven't "bought in" to the NAVHDA system.  Many are folks who are testing because they promised the breeder (which is good that they are giving it a try) and others who are "just looking around" without any real intention of producing a finished hunting dog.

Our most precious resource is volunteer time, followed by training grounds during the few hours we get to use them.  The only way to "manufacture" more volunteer hours is to either make the volunteers work more hours, or get more volunteers. 

So at a typical chapter clinic, you have several hard-core volunteers trying to service dozens of folks who won't be there next year, and will not volunteer their time at all.  Most of the core members leave their dogs at home if they come at all.  I once met up with Danny, accidentally.  He was running his dog the day BEFORE the clinic because he wouldn't have any time AT the clinic.  Danny is our Director of Training.  (I showed up because I didn't know the clinic was a Sunday clinic.)  They have the option, spend eight to ten hours (travel time included) to train other people's dogs, or spend two hours at home training their own.

If our core members had the opportunity to get some meaningful training in at a clinic, they'd probably come and stick around to help other folks.  But driving two hours to wait all day for 20 minutes of training isn't my idea of a productive day.  A volunteer organization that doesn't provide any benefits (other than feeling good about one's self for having volunteered) to its volunteers is going to loose them, and that's exactly what happens to us.

Oh, sure, we always seem to get a half dozen or so folks to help out at the clinics, but notice the number never grows, and the faces change slightly each year.  This is the result of burn out.

So what do we do?  I propose we cater to the core membership.  And we do that by having training clinics targeted to Utility Level or better work.  Steadiness Clinics, Force Fetch Clinics, Duck Search Clinics, Invitational Clinics.  Before the spring test, it's all NA work, after the spring test, all Utility+ work. 

Now as a breeder, and many of the folks running every chapter are breeders, this is a tough pill to swallow.  You see, we want and need Natural Ability Breeders Awards.  It's nice having the framework of NAVHDA clinics to train our puppy purchasers, even those who will use the fall tests.

So it'll be tough to get the chapter to finally say, "No, there won't be anyone available to help you introduce your pup to birds at the clinic," and "No, you can't spend a half hour in the field trying to coax out that first point."

But if we say the top 20% of our members do 80% of the work (OK, they do 100% of the work) then it behooves us to grow in that top range.  I'd like to see half the club be "twenty percenters."  In order to do that, we need to stop catering to the folks who show up, use our services, and leave.  I don't advocate total cessation of services to new folks, merely to stop making them the primary focus.

I am a Charter Member of the Sebasticook Chapter of NAVHDA and a Life Member of NAVHDA.  I was the chapter's first Secretary and have held the office of President and Director at Large.  My primary achievement as secretary was the crafting of the by-laws.  The chapter operates on the guidelines I wrote.  As president I presided over the most fiscally responsible period in the chapter's brief history.  I consider myself a "founding father" of the chapter, although the chapter has made me what I am today as much as I've made it what it is.