How to collect club subs on time, every year

Every club treasurer knows the pattern. Renewals open and a third of the club pays in the first week. Another third pays after a reminder. The last third is still being chased when the season starts. Most of that last third meant to pay. They simply never felt the deadline was real.

One renewal date for the whole club#

Clubs that let each member renew on the anniversary of joining have a renewal running every week of the year. Nobody, including the treasurer, knows who is due.

Pick one date for the whole club. The start of your playing season is the usual choice, because it is when members are thinking about the club anyway.

A member who joins part way through the year pays for the months left, then renews with everyone else. The sum is the year’s subs divided by twelve, times the whole months left. Someone joining with five months to go pays five twelfths.

The notices that make subs arrive on time#

Send the first notice a month before the renewal date to every member. Send the second a week before, only to whoever has not paid. A notice that arrives before the date reads as information. One that arrives after it reads as chasing.

1. A month beforeFirst notice to every memberHow much, by when, and how to pay.
2. A week beforeSecond noticeOnly to whoever has not paid yet.
3. Renewal dateSubs are dueThe same day for the whole club.
4. A month afterMembership lapsesBooking, competitions and teams stop until they pay.

The first notice says three things plainly: how much, by when, and how to pay. Change the words in brackets:

The last line matters more than it looks. A member who says no early saves you three reminders, and tells you something about the club worth knowing.

A lapse rule everyone knows#

This is the decision most clubs avoid, and it is the one that makes the rest work. Decide three things and put them in the club’s rules: the date a membership lapses, what a lapsed member loses, and how they come back.

Then apply it to everyone, including the committee’s friends. A lapse rule that bends for some members stops working for all of them.

Most late subs are not refusals. They are members who never felt the deadline was real.

Paying subs monthly or yearly#

A year’s subs in one payment is a large amount for a family, and asking for it in one go is a common reason members leave. Offering monthly payments by Direct Debit keeps those members, and the money arrives on its own each month.

Keep the yearly option too. Many members would rather pay once and forget about it, and some prefer to pay by bank transfer.

	Paying yearly	Paying monthly
Suits	Members who pay once and forget	Families, students, anyone on a budget
What the club gets	All of it at once	The same, spread over the year
Chasing	Once a year, for the late ones	Only when a payment fails

If you offer both, keep the total the same or close to it. A large discount for paying yearly pushes members back to the payment they can least afford.

One list of who has paid#

Most chasing happens because nobody is sure who has paid. The treasurer has a bank statement, the membership secretary has a spreadsheet, and the two disagree about the member who paid in cash at the bar.

Keep one list, updated as payments arrive, that the treasurer and the membership secretary both read. When somebody asks whether they have paid, the answer should take one look.

Chasing the members who still forget#

After the second notice, a short personal message from someone they know at the club works far better than another general reminder. Most will pay the same day. The few who do not have usually decided not to renew. It is better to know that before the season than to find out halfway through it.