Chenal CC revived a slow month at the club with daily, innovative programming for members of all ages.
With kids going back to school, last-minute summer vacations and holidays, the month of August has historically been an inactive one for Chenal Country Club in Little Rock, Ark., says Membership Director Shannon Webre.
To bring more members to the property at a time when traffic slows significantly, the club’s management team challenged itself to create “Awesome August,” a month-long effort to introduce a slew of new activities that would display the full strength of the staff’s creative muscle.
Last year, the Chenal staff began planning for Awesome August in June, conducting Google searches for obscure observance days, such as “Wiggle Your Toes Day,” and building member activities around them.
The Goal: Increase member activity among the young and old at Chenal CC during one of its slowest months, August.
The Plan: Offer innovative “Awesome August” programming each day of the month, incorporating obscure observance days, in addition to new weekly offerings. |
“There’s a day for everything,” Webre says. “August 23 was ‘Eat a Peach Day,’ so we offered $1 peach smoothies in the Tavern.”
With 27 days to fill with programming (not counting Mondays, when the club is closed), some activities were simple—such as a complimentary lemonade on National Lemonade Day—while others took more planning. For “Play in the Sand Day,” the club hosted a bunker clinic on the golf course, and the maintenance crew built a large sandbox for kids beside the pool.
On “Eat Your Veggies Day,” kids who finished all their vegetables at dinner got ice cream. On “National Thrift Shop Day,” members could trade in their logoed shirt from another local club and receive a gift certificate for 40% off one in-stock shirt at Chenal’s golf shop. For “National Senior Citizens Day,” members over 65 received a complimentary cart rental or a $10 credit in the golf shop for private cart owners.
The list went on, and on…and as an unexpected side benefit, “Awesome August” became a pilot program for new potential club events and offerings, serving as a great way to test out what worked, and what didn’t. One special that stuck was the Kentucky Fried Chicken Day offering—the event fell on a Sunday last August, so the club offered a to-go fried chicken special that has become so popular, the meal is now available every other Sunday throughout the year.
To make the special activities available to as many members as possible, the programming was spread across the entire property. “We tried to touch on every area of the club—we had a lot of stuff out at the pool, on the golf course, and incorporated a lot of F&B,” Webre says.
In addition to daily activities, the club offered specials throughout the month that coincided with specific days of the week—Two for Tuesdays (two guest fees for the price of one); Wino Wednesdays (half-priced select bottles of wine); Thrifty Thursdays (complimentary golf cart fees after 5 p.m.); $5 Fridays (specials varied by week); Sippin’ Saturdays (all-day happy hour); and Suds Sundays ($2 domestic beer).
To entice members to attend, the club created an 11×17 calendar that was folded into the monthly mailer, posted all events on the website, sent out a weekly e-mail, and used what Webre refers to as “captive audience signage”—posting half-page signs in bathroom stalls.
“Some of the events brought people out specifically for them, so we had a lot of people come out who would not have otherwise,” she notes. “For others who were already coming to the club, seeing the extra events was just a bonus for them.” The month proved so successful, in fact, that Chenal repeated the concept for its next slow time, through “Fabulous February.”
To view the club’s Awesome August calendar of events, click here.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.