Ask the Ice Moms: My Figure Skating Club Is Dying. Now What?

This week’s question comes from a mom whose club is disintegrating. Here’s what she wrote:

My club is falling apart even my coach agrees the club will be done by winter. It only has one night of ice time a week and only one BS class a week and it is only half ice (while the other half is FS ice). The club is dropping ice time and changing the times every two months and it is very frustrating. Nobody cares about the club anymore. Many of my friends have left the club all together and started skating on rink run freestyle sessions or gone to another club that is about 15-20 min. farther away. Also there is another club being started in the area, but nobody knows when it will get ice time. What would you do if this were happening to your club? Would you leave and become familiar with another club or stay and try to save the club you belong to now?

Allison Scott, mom to an Olympic figure skater, survivor of many rinks, professional communicator, and blogger at Life on the Edge.

I personally wonder about club boards that scramble to make these kinds of changes. What did they do – or more importantly NOT do – to reach this situation? There had to be early warning signs of failure, not the least of which was financial failure. Failure to attract new skaters means failure to bring in money to pay for ice time. It sounds as if the club has a few very dedicated coaches but with no students and no ice time, they are failing to make money and I suspect they have to be looking at options, too.

Here is a link to the USFS page about starting a club http://www.usfigureskating.org/Clubs.asp?id=331. There you will find some hard questions your present club has to answer. If the answers are “no” to most of the ones being asked of startup organizations, I think a reevaluation is in order. Sometimes the best love is tough love.

C.L., mom to a 10-year-old skater (who just landed her Axel) and a club vice president.

We personally know a club can be saved, but you need you a coalition of people to do it.  First I would recommend she meet with whoever is in charge right now and offer to help.  Next, I would recommend some type of formal communication from the leaders of the club, i.e. letter, explaining the situation and why things are changing (this gal might have to write this herself if nobody is “running” the club).  Sometimes there are outside reasons to why things are changing and membership should be clued in.  Maybe if members understood what was going on they wouldn’t panic and run.

If the situation is really bad financially or not enough manpower, then it’s time to look at other possibilities…can they merge with another club?

Xan, adult skater, figure skating coach, parent of a Junior Nationals competitor and current show skater, and blogger at Xanboni, Sconeday, and Mahlzeit.

This is as much a legal as a management issue (and my other hat, as a consultant for not-for-profit organizations).  If this club is incorporated as a 509 or 501 organization through the IRS, and/or registered as a club with USFS, by no means should they just “let  it go.” Keep the legal aspects of it at least going– Board of Directors, including official meetings as required by their bylaws, Annual Rpt to the Scy of State, annual fee to the Atty Gen’ls office, and IRS tax filing (yes, tax-exempt organizations also have to file a tax return, called the 990 form).  This is cheap (a few dollars a year), not time consuming, and will make it easy to revive the club in the future if needed. The legal creation of a tax-exempt organization is onerous and expensive; if you’ve got one, keep it. If you choose to dissolve it, you must do it right (that’s statutory), including donating any assets (bank account, ice contract, any equipment that is not fully depreciated) to either the state, or another nfp organization (which can include a municipal rink or school, or another club). If you dissolve a nfp organization, you lose the rights to the name.

As far as the management issue, you might think about reinventing the club, for instance as an organization raising scholarships, or a booster club, or a girl scouts type organization.  Check with a wonderful organization called Lawyers for the Creative Arts (http://www.law-arts.org/welcome.html) on the issues surrounding changing, dissolving, or hibernating a not for profit organization. Also call the USFS committee person on clubs and ask their advice. Be completely honest with this person, (being careful not to slander anyone).

I have to say, I wonder why another club is being organized if this one already exists and already has ice. Have they contacted the people forming the new club? This is the one thing in the question that raises a big red flag for me.

If they’re not actually incorporated, I’d say let it go.

Pairs Mom, mom to 1/2 of last year’s Junior Nationals intermediate-level pairs gold medalists.

If you have “roots” in your current club and would like to see it continue, then try approaching a core group of parents that have a similar mindset and see if you can collectively come up with ways to improve the current situation. Ask around other clubs to see if they are having similar problems and it might help to set up a meeting with rink management or at least the figure skating director. Once you develop that “partnership,” then the rink could begin promoting club membership, activities, and other events.

If you see that the “end is near” then sometimes you have to step away and look for a better situation, especially if there are no parent volunteers willing to step up and help the club survive. Although this has not happened to us, I have seen it happen to an area club where key coaches left a certain rink and then their skaters followed them and eventually the club dissolved.

Good Luck!

PairsMom

Sk8rmom p, mom to an intermediate-level male figure skater

I feel for you! It is really sad about your club. Our club is going downhill too, but not as dramatically as yours…yet, since the rink management and the skating club can’t see eye to eye. I am afraid that sooner or later our club will go the way of the dinosaur. As for your situation: if you are stressed and the situation is not a good one, then by all means, save yourself from the hassle and leave. If things are going well for you, then stay. If you want to help save your club, get involved. Clubs are run by volunteers and the only way to keep them alive is if people pitch in and help (unless there is an overhead problem like rink management that is hard to work with).

In our situation, the coaches can see the writing on the wall, and they are hedging their bets by teaching at other rinks with other clubs. Unfortunately many families of mid-level skaters are leaving the club to go to other clubs. In our area there are tons of clubs around, part of the reason why our club membership is shrinking, people want to join clubs that are closer to where they live. I might get slammed for this, but I am a lower member of our BOD for our club, and now that I know the politics and the futility of the situation, I am really tempted to sign up as an affiliate member of another club (Originally I was going to do this just to help out and support this new club, but now…).

The second club is new and the skating members are young, it has the cooperation of the rink and it has programs in place that benefit the skaters. Unlike the current club that has a bunch of problems and no time to set up new programs because it is so busy trying to get/keep the fundamentals in place. We’ll stay with the current club and help out as much as we always do, but if things continue to slide (as I imagine they will despite everyone’s good intentions), I will not hesitate to move if it is in my skater’s best interest. His coach is at both rinks now and the second club, since it has sponsorship actually has funding in place for higher level skaters going to qualifying competitions. The atmosphere at the newer club is nice, it is smaller and since it is in a smaller town is friendly. Unfortunately, they don’t have many high-level skaters. I don’t see anything wrong in getting familiar with other clubs in your area if you are not invested in helping your club sustain. If you find something that fits your situation better, go for it. If the club really is going downhill that fast, then you won’t have to wait long to make your decision.

I’d love to help save our club, but the situation is out of my hands, even the higher up officers are having difficulty dealing with the rink and this has been going on for years. It just escalated in the past year, so given this level of roadblock, I think it is only a matter of time…sometimes the decision is made for us.

Good luck to you!

What would you do if you were this mom? Would you stay and try to rally the members or would you jump ship? I’m sure many of you have been in a similar situation. How did you handle it? Did your club survive?

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