Junior members & their parents

I have a dilemna.

My club is trying to build up a junior section. We're doing pretty well and, this year, a couple of kids joined us as new members on the basis of the training & racing we're providing. Having kids join us as junior members is encouraging because most juniors come from families already within the club.

Although the club is really in favour of junior members - these guys were welcomed into the club - their parents don't sail and here is my problem.

Our club doesn't allow social membership. You only get to join if you're a sailor.

I think we need to have the parents involved in the running of the Junior section so we need to find a way of getting them into the club on the basis that their kids are sailing with us.

The committee asked me to propose a solution so my question is how do your clubs deal with non-sailing parents of junior members?

And what would you suggest if you were asked to propose a way of allowing them to become part of your club's membership?

(Bear in mind that the club won't want to open itself to "social membership" so the parents involvement is conditional on their kids being members)

Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions!

Exactly what I would suggest !

Sounds good to me to. We encouage such people to become full family members from day 1 and don't care whether they sail or not.

It is good to get the parents involved and they are there to supervise their children. It takes some of the responsibility away from the club especially if you insist they stay on site during sailing time.  

Last year we re-named our junior membership as junior and guardian membership.  So there is no option to just be a junior member.  For 2 reasons:

1)  We expect all juniors on club grounds to have a guardian on site as well to take responsibility for them.  For liability insurance reasons all people regularly visiting the club should be members or signed in as visitors.  It was easier to make them members.

2)  For the same reason as you're looking for it encouraged the parents feel some ownership of the club and encouraged them to get involved.  Since introducing this we have found a number of the junior memberships ahve been converting to family memberships.

You can charge what you like.  You just make it another family membership category with non-sailing parent / guardians.  They can use the club house but can't sail their own boats, (and still have to do their duties   )

I assume you differentiate on the boat stickers and membership card whether it is junior or full membership.

Say £120 for up to 3 sailing juniors plus 2 parents / guardians.