Parents Does your gym Fundraise?

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mandkmom

Proud Parent
Does your gym expect you to participate in fundraisers for gym equipment? We have no booster club and no real parent organization.

Background: we just received the brochure and order forms for each team gymnast to sell $100 worth of product or provide a cash donation of $75. Now I have a few issues with this, but trying to decide if I'm the oddball.

1) Letter with materials say gym keeps 50% of profit, and goal is $100 in sales. So why do I need to provide $75 cash donation if I don't want to sell stuff? Shouldn't $50 donation be considered fair?
2) Why am I being asked to sell stuff anyway??? I agree that keeping up the equipment is important, but shouldn't that be included as part of the normal operating budget of the gym? I pay a lot for monthly tuition and all the other expenses of team (leo, warm ups, coaches fees, meet fees, banquet tickets, etc.) and this just hit me the wrong way.

This is our fourth year on team and we have sold some stuff in the past. This is the first time with an actual $ amount listed. I've never liked it, would like to understand the norms elsewhere.

If it matters - we are a middle sized gym - maybe 60 girls total levels 2-10.

Any experiences and viewpoints greatly appreciated.
 
i think maybe $75 is to encourage you to participate. in fundraisers like this, there is often a minimum to be met and bonuses at a certain amount of sales so they probably do need a certain number of people to do it.

just my guess!

i would NOT like the selling of stuff, period. i'm with you on that! sorry!
 
No. Our gym just got 2 new beams and some vault (training/stuff) equipment. There was not raising of funds for this equipment, beyond our tuition.
 
That would annoy the crap out of me. They need to do something else to cover the cost of equipment. I mean, would they say, "You need to sell $100 of stuff to cover our power bill"? Because it is basically the same thing. Cost of doing the business that they chose to do. Tuition should go up if they need it to; but a mandatory fundraiser for a for profit business would chap my butt.
 
This is how our gym does it too- same with cash being more than the fundraising is worth. In fact, there are 3 mandatory fundraisers for team gymnasts, they are optional for rec kids. Sucks for us b/c we live on a country road with few neighbors, and a small family that doesn't have much extra cash.
ETA: There are also a couple more fundraisers that are totally optional. We opt out!
 
1. Your math is absolutely correct. For all these types of things I usually determine if the product being sold has some value to me personally and if it's something I'd appreciate at the discount presented (in this case 75% off w/ what they are saying in the memo). If it's something I could use, I usually buy it all myself. If I have no interest at all in the product, I pay the buyout.
2. You are 100% correct. Why would you help buy equipment that someone else will own? Is that not what tuition is for? Does AT&T ask you to fundraise to help buy them more cell towers? No - that is part of their operating costs as a business. And if you DO help the business invest in equipment, should you not have an ownership interest in it - like shouldn't you should be able to get a return on that investment like a stockholder would?

However, the sad reality of it all is that these gyms can do what they want, cause really our only alternatives as parents when they send out such memos are to 1. leave the gym (and who's to say the next gym down the road won't do the same stuff), 2. refuse to pay (either by outright saying you're not going to, or by just not paying silently) and wait and see what they do, 3. unionize as a group of many many parents and as a group refuse not to pay and see what they do. Unfortunately, all 3 of these options could lead to a lot of disruption to our child's gymnastics experience, so most of us just pay the $100 or $75. These places in effect have you between a rock and a hard place because your child's activity is at stake.
 
How would you feel if they just raised dues? It sounds like it might be how they are asking more than the money itself. I read on another thread that gyms lose money on teams but rec is profitable . Different gyms take different approach to make up for that.
 
How would you feel if they just raised dues? It sounds like it might be how they are asking more than the money itself. I read on another thread that gyms lose money on teams but rec is profitable . Different gyms take different approach to make up for that.

If they are running their business properly, they would have anticipated this equipment expense and did exactly that - included a small increase in annual tuition effective with the start of the season. It's called budgeting.

However, doing that at that time might have risked a few families not resigning w/ the gym - or at the very least cause them to price compare w/ competitors. People tend to pay more attention to any increase in a large monthly obligation than they do a misc. one time expense.
 
Thankfully gym has never asked us to do this. The old gym did (sponsored this sponsored that), I said no.

primary schools often ask us to sell raffle tickets and do sponsored whatevers and I always send them back.

Really, 60 team kids @ $100 is $6000.

Assume 600 kids in the gym, averaging 2 hours a week that is 60,000 hours a year. That is a 10¢/hour fee increase !
 
Our parent group fundraises with open gym nights and this year we are selling wreaths and candy bars. The money last year paid for the end of the year banquet. This year it will pay for new leos.

I would rather just pay for my kids leo and not have to sell stuff, but it does help some families.

I wouldn't be okay with fundraising for gym equipment or just to the gym itself
 
We host 2 meets per year and a sizeable chunk of the profits from the meets each season go to the booster club as a donation from the gym and another chunk of the profits go toward new equipment.
 
Our booster club is financially separate from the gym. The gym owns the equipment and pays for it out of tuition. There has been virtually no fundraising in the past, but this year the booster club is experimenting with no-pressure voluntary fundraising (e.g., fundraising nights at local restaurants). All fundraising proceeds are applied to competition expenses. I was worried when the booster club first announced it would be fundraising, but so far it has been easy, cost-free, and only beneficial because the fundraisers are very simple to organize (I set one up), no one is being asked to sell things or to buy anything they don't want, and we are all seeing some small credits on our competition accounts.

Fundraising obligations similar to what OP describes factored into our decision to leave our original gym. Our total expenses for our daughter to compete last year at the new gym without fundraising were at least $1,000 less than they would have been at the old gym with fundraising, in part because we would have had to buy out of a major fundraiser in which we couldn't participate.

A gym is a business and should be run as such. If OP's gym can't afford the equipment it needs, it should raise team and/or rec tuition. A small increase in tuition will generate much less ill will among parents than demands that parents participate in fundraising efforts to benefit the business, especially if the increase happens regularly at the beginning of each season.
 
People tend to pay more attention to any increase in a large monthly obligation than they do a misc. one time expense.

I disagree--I expect tuition to go up a little every year because everything gets more expensive over time, but I really resent constant demands for additional fees, especially when they are not disclosed ahead of time. I don't mind paying separately for each meet because I was told up front that each meet would be billed separately and provided with an estimate of the cost, but I can't stand being asked to cough up an extra $75 here and there for expenses that really ought to be included in tuition. I also hate being asked to sell things, with the exception of Girl Scout cookies because people actually want those and they sell themselves.
 
The whole idea of paying out of pocket specifically for gym equipment doesn't feel right. That's a capital expenditure of which parents are funding, the owner gets to own and dispose of at their discretion and gets annual depreciation benefit from. Doesn't add up.
 
Two words -- private inurement. If your tax exempt parents association is buying equipment for the gym, you should look closer to make sure you're in compliance.

Maybe the gym should consider adding a $75 equipment fee. That's less than $7 a month.
 
We are required to fund raise $600 in profits every year, not just total sales. So if the profits on a fundraiser are only 50%, that means selling $1200 of that product. We can opt out, and just pay the $600 upfront, but most families choose to fundraise.
 
We host 2 meets per year and a sizeable chunk of the profits from the meets each season go to the booster club as a donation from the gym and another chunk of the profits go toward new equipment.

I always wonder where all the money from the meets we work goes because we still pay a huge assessment for competition expenses on top of all the work we do at meets. Maybe this is what is going on - our gym is using it to buy equipment. We do have a lot of nice equipment and it seems that every year we get something new. In fact, all the gyms in my area that have these overbearing booster obligations on top of very high assessments seem to have better equipment.
 
Our gym only does one fundraiser a year (thank goodness our old one did one like every month lol.) It's a pancake breakfast and you are only required to sell two tickets but the more you sell the more $$ goes on your account.

However, our gym is very much in need of new equipment, especially for higher level optionals, so if they wanted to do fundraisers for the sole purpose of getting some new equipment I would 100% support that as it would greatly benefit my dd and her teammates. I do think regular equipment that was already in place should be replaced at the gym's expense as needed, and from what I've seen it pretty much is, but I would be willing to fundraise for some cool things our gym doesn't currently have (foam pit, pit bars, etc.)
 
I don't like the idea of "You have to sell $xxx or pay $yyy" types of fundraisers. We have occasionally done a fundraiser (of actual USEFUL items at a great price), but it has not been required.
In the case of sell $100 or pay $75, unless the product is worth it, the gym (going with the 60 team estimate) would have been better off just raising tuition $5-6 a month.
 

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