Late Thursday afternoon Pete finished up his daily routine and peeled off to visit his club. He followed a light snack with a squash lesson—charging both to his account—before he headed home. Pete is a relatively new dues-paying member at the Country Club of Virginia in Richmond, Va., and he’s loving it. Not only is it priced right, but many of his friends and family are also members. He uses the club frequently, gets great value for those dues and imagines that club membership might just become an indispensable part of his lifestyle for the foreseeable future. That future, by the way, stretches out rather expansively before him, as Pete just recently celebrated his 10th birthday.
The account here is only partly fiction. The Country Club of Virginia (CCV) does in fact extend membership privileges to the children of its members as early as 8 years of age. Members are officially recognized, receive instruction and guidance about the roles and responsibilities of membership, and, yes, are responsible for paying their monthly dues.
Their status as members is neither a fiction nor is it a patronizing gimmick to flatter either the children or their extended network of family and friends. In truth, there are plenty of Petes (and Pattys) at the CCV because the club values these young people as members, and the larger philosophy and mission of the club places the importance of family and community at the center of its culture and its daily operational rhythms.
Current General Manager Phil Kiester credits past GMs, John Hightower and Skip Harris, who more than 30 years ago, had the vision and imagination to lead the club toward its now long-standing family orientation with its distinctive approach to building membership through the cultivation of multigenerational ties.
For many generations, the Country Club of Virginia has provided the social context and lifestyle backdrop for countless families that have grown up, matured and extended their numbers throughout the community and beyond. In this sense, the club is not an institution that is merely “friendly” to families, it’s actually a constituent part of family life. It is at work in the larger intention of weaving family activities into a larger social fabric.
The club offers new experiences and broadening one’s vision—especially for the young. It is building a bridge to the future. Although many clubs have legacy programs, few are as carefully conceived and managed as that of the CCV. The club has proven its value to past generations, it helps fit and smooth the fast-paced, activity-driven lifestyles of modern families in the present moment, and thus offers a promise to maintain its relevance and centrality to nearly any imagined future its current members might hold.
As a result, it makes perfect sense that children at the CCV are present and engaged in most aspects of club life. Their presence and role as members mean not only that they are participants in shaping the future of their club but that the club is also working its magic to shape them: to equip them with skills and sensibilities, with expectations and responsibilities, with relationships and a social inheritance that can last a lifetime. This process does not happen easily or quickly. It takes ample investments of social and physical capital and it takes the habits and rituals of a lifetime. So, all-in-all, 8-years-old seems like a good time to start.
The CCV has been at this for decades. Here is a partial list of the lessons it has learned about providing value to families and individual members—both young and old and those in-between—and offering a membership that is built to last a lifetime.
- Facilities must keep pace with shifting needs and evolving tastes. Scale and scope will allow for some necessary sorting out. The CCV has the size so that a diverse membership can have their own favored spaces. Children move freely throughout the club and are in no way segregated to a designated “kids’ zone.” And still, older members can still find the appropriate time and space for “child-free fun.”
- Staff must have both the aptitude and skill to work with kids. There are security and safety issues that are paramount, but so too is the fun factor. Spontaneity often depends on the imagination and creativity of staff that love to work (and play) with kids. At the CCV, pop-up events are frequently conjured up to address the gaggle of kids hanging around the campus.
- The aforementioned factors underscore the need for club to be far-sighted and strategic in its planning. The CCV and its leadership knows it must make continued investments to stimulate membership. Phil Kiester and Anne Stryhn, the club’s assistant general manager, conducted a periodic survey of membership needs and knew precisely how various club activities and services were rated and ranked by the membership—and how those have shifted throughout the years. For example, golf—though very popular and strongly supported at the club—tends now to rank lower in importance than dining, fitness and aquatics.
- Club offerings and services should, whenever possible, provide the flexibility and affordability that young people need and value.
- The legacy program is not an after-thought or a well-intentioned gesture to current members. It’s core to the club’s business model and its philosophy of membership, demonstrating a canny insight into the planning and incentives that will potentially nudge a member’s ultimate decision. Membership in the CCV is an important investment for that member and so the club’s legacy policy thoughtfully explains when, why and how the younger member can become a fully vested adult member. The club endeavors to make the membership decision a decision that makes excellent sense—both financially and socially—for an adult as young as 21 years of age.
- For their part, older members are all-in. They, too, value a club that is vibrant and financially healthy. Many of the activities at the CCV are multi-generational. Fitness and wellness programs are capable of customizing offerings to fit both the preferences and requirements of different age segments. The club even has the flexibility to offer physical therapy, Reiki and other non-traditional services.
What the CCV has achieved serves as an important lesson about the potential value of club membership as it continues to evolve in the coming decade. And it also carries with it an interesting mix of traditional wisdom combined with timely relevance. The Country Club of Virginia’s perspective on membership—what it is, what is does, what it requires of members and leaders alike—challenges the private club industry to think both carefully and creatively about how it can deliver value in new and even unexpected ways. This will be especially important to the next generation of club members and, by extension, the future of the private club industry.