Club boats

Just interested in......how do club boats at your club work?

Is it along the lines of:
1. old boats that get left/donated by ex-members that are still sailable get claimed by the club and can then be used by anyone.
2. appropriate trainer boats get purchased new for RYA courses with the aid of grants/club funds etc and can then be used at other times.
3. if a class is popular enough or if a club has just a few 'recognised' classes (e.g. Lasers) some more are bought new to encourage those not wanting to commit, before maybe then getting their own.
4. any other reasons?

In particular, for each of the above, are any charges made for each outing, do people sometimes buy their own sails when using a club boat, and how does your club manage the maintenance - volunteers, paid helpers, or it doesn't happen?

Hi
At Lee we currently have 18 club boats comprising
8 Toppers
4 feva
2 laser 1 with all rig options
2 2000 old yellow training version
1 RS vision
1 RS tERA
Plus kayaks which have proved useful for training/ coaching.
The Toppers and Lasers were all 15/ 20 years old and one of my missions when I became Rear Commodore was to upgrade the training boats so we have managed from club funds and fund raising to replace 4 toppers for better centre main ones( and changed the balance) upgraded 2 laers this year. We also got a sport England grant to buy 3 Fevas which help to change the balance of training as the RYA ignore those who dont want to helm and just crew.
By changing the boats we have reduced maintenance which is a nightmare with very old tired boats.
Still to do 4 Toppers, 2000, Rs Vision.
Somebody else's job I hand over in October after 3 years.
Gordon

We have an assortment of club boats (20 approx) from plastic oppies to year old wayfarers. 
They are used and usually purchased by the training center through grants etc and are used on courses. 

Club members can hire them at prices ranging from £5 to £15 per day but thi si susually waved if teh boat is going to be raced.  They are maintained by the bosun but the main problem is if something is broken it is not recorded so that when someone else goes to use it bits are missing :(

Am not surprised to hear that maintenance is the main issue - we are finding it a nightmare, esp with the older boats. Nothing puts off new enthusiastic members more than getting a club boat out and finding a few bits missing.

But in Hammersmith, with such little storage space, the club is looking quite seriously at going down a 'mostly club boats' route - which is actually the model that the rowing club that we share premises with uses i.e. all pairs, fours and eights are club boats with only some single sculls being personally owned. So we need to find an answer to the maintenance problem.

We charge £10 per person for club boat usage, whether single or double handers, which users seem to think is very fair for central London, and are soon to get some more Lasers, all with dual rigs, and some with triple.

I wonder whether any of the big retailers/manufacturers would run a mobile workshop that could be booked on a daily rate to help with service/maintainance....

We seem to have more issues with club Lasers than any other boat. The problem is down to the rig swapping which seems to cause bits to go missing all the time. In comparison our club solos seems to stay usable all the time. It might be something to do with the typical age of the boat hirer as well.....