Cashless clubs

The HISC system works really well. In exchange for giving the club money up front, cardholders get discount on food & drink. It means there's no need to take cash into the building, so no risk of theft from changing rooms when most peeps are on the water.

essential to have good database managers for these pre-paid systems, they're great and think that all clubs could benefit from them, but unless they're 100% reliable, completely user friendly for volunteers to operate then they shouldn't be implemented.

I think the UK is behind the times in embracing cashless society, although we are catching up slowly.  Having spent a lot of time in Scandinavia and more recently China - contactless/ card and even mobile phone payments are often more readily accepted than cash in many places.  It shouldn't be that difficult to have a contactless card reader in most sailing clubs for bar and galley payments.

Minimum spends on cards still exist in places, but they are hangers on, and outdated. Costs have come down a lot. I've had a lot of conversations with local traders since we lost our bank about whether they prefer cash or contactless payments. Nearly all favour the latter, even for sub £1 spends. By the time they take into account their time handling cash, paying it in and being charged for paying it in as business, cards are easier and probably cheaper for nearly any transaction. On a debit card the charge is 0.25-0.35%, plus and monthly charges. Size of transaction isn't really an issue, but you clearly need the turnover to cover the standing costs, but these days that's not much. Our club has just set up one to take cards in the bar, and is about to get another for food, and we're not a big club..

We have gone to having contactless card reader at Lyme Regis, it now means that my wife can monitor my bar spending.   No minimum transaction.