Twenty miles outside of Chicago in Glenview, Ill., you will find Valley Lo Club (VLC) perched on the banks of a picturesque 28-acre lake. Members enjoy numerous amenities year-round including a beach with water sports, an executive golf course, tennis, paddle tennis, fitness facilities and a full-service clubhouse with casual and fine dining. From its start as a developer-owned sports club in 1961 to its current state as a successful, family-oriented, private member-owned club, VLC has evolved and transformed to meet its members’ needs.
Nancy Slatin, CCM, general ganager, has been at the club since 2001 and said that over the past 16 years, Valley Lo Club has used data from member surveys, Club Benchmarking, peer surveys, and auditor compilations to transform the club.
Renovations and Expansion to Remain Relevant
As all clubs do, Valley Lo Club eventually arrived at the point where its aging facilities needed refurbishment or replacement. Slatin said the club wanted to do its due diligence and identified its first task: a comprehensive member survey in 2002. That survey, conducted by McMahon Group, collected the baseline data, which provided the guidance for club leaders to set priorities for the first phase of renovations. The survey results showed that members wanted to update and expand their clubhouse and create casual dining spaces to accommodate the increasingly family-friendly environment at the club. Enhancements to service, food quality, and programming were followed by the addition of two more paddle tennis courts, hardscape and landscape improvements throughout the grounds. With these minor projects completed, planning began in 2007 for the clubhouse renovation. The project was approved in 2008 and completed in 2010.
This $5 million clubhouse renovation reconfigured VLC’s special event space, enlarged the restrooms, added a bride’s room, incorporated a two-story foyer, provided a dedicated meeting room for board and committee meetings, expanded office space on a new second-level, and created a year-round casual grill along with a children’s game room.
The renovation not only enhanced the club environment, but Slatin points to other benefits, “Those improvements allowed us to rebuild the membership, which had declined due to the assessment levied to fund the project,” she said, adding, “For the first time in many years, we once again showed a profit in our food and beverage operation.”
With the clubhouse renovation deemed a success, club leaders surveyed members in 2010 to gather data to help plan the next phase. The master plan, revised at the 2011 board retreat, began a process which led to implementation of the priority projects.
Slatin explained, “We asked ourselves ‘What investments must we make now to secure our relevance and success in the future?’ Our survey results showed dissatisfaction with our seasonal snack bar, inadequate paddle tennis facilities, poor fitness facilities, and a structurally deficient/undersized pool and locker rooms. So, we had some work to do.”
As a result, Valley Lo Club formed a Long Range Planning Committee, which was tasked with validating and updating the master plan, developing concepts and budgets and recommending solutions. In 2013, the club conducted a needs assessment survey, which determined that there was overwhelming support for new facilities.
Member Feedback, Support and Long-Range Planning
Planning continued into 2015, when a member vote handily passed to fund a $9.5 million renovation, which would address a variety of issues, such as a kitchen addition, a four-lane indoor pool with spa, state-of-the-art fitness facilities, updated locker rooms, enhanced snack bar concessions, a new fire pit, an outdoor dining space and an adult-only sundeck. Over the past nine years, Valley Lo has spent $16 million dollars on facility renovation or replacement. Looking back, Slatin says, it’s clear that the data gleaned from surveys in 2002, 2010, and 2013 set the course for all the club improvements that followed.
While club-wide surveys helped transform VLC’s physical plant, Slatin asserts that data from Club Benchmarking, peer surveys with local clubs, auditor compilations, nightly F&B reports and post-event surveys guide the club’s way forward.
“An area we closely observe is the satisfaction and comments from each of our 45 club events. Post- event data is immediately discussed and events are changed to correct any missteps. In our a la carte restaurant, we employ nightly management reports to review any service or production problems and adjust our strategy accordingly. At weekly F&B meetings, we review dining data and event feedback to discuss how we can quickly turn problems around.”
Valley Lo Club relies on Club Benchmarking to provide committee and board members with peer club data relevant to the on the operational recommendations or changes they are proposing. The reports, based on clubs with total sales of $5 to $7 million, give context to where the club ranks in relation to the median on a variety of metrics such as dues, membership count, employee compensation, food and beverage program, cost of goods sold, gross profit and employee benefits cost. Slatin adds, “With our club at membership capacity and attrition at below-budgeted levels, we are using Club Benchmarking for guidance in recommended practices for our operation.”
Continuing to Transform
As of this writing, Valley Lo is conducting another comprehensive member satisfaction survey to gain member input on club policies, membership levels, and the ranking of future capital projects. Valley Lo Club’s members are choosing from a variety of exciting improvements to slot into the evolving Master Plan.
Slatin credits the club’s leaders, “We are blessed with a dedicated board of directors who strive to continuously improve Valley Lo and actualize our vision: To be a successful, thriving, private club which provides our members and their guests an array of recreational and social activities to enjoy in a unique, casual, lakeside setting.”
Data-driven decision making has made Valley Lo’s vision a reality. The club looks forward to having the 2018 survey data, and utilizing it to plot its course for the future to remain the vibrant and relevant club that its members cherish.
Club Trends Winter 2018