LEON ROOMBERG:  Why I'm Running For The WRA Board Again.  DRAFT  0.1 NOT FOR RELEASE.

The WRA continues to be a place I find friends, rest, and enjoyable activities.  During 2010, I worked with fellow WRA board members to address four difficult challenges.  Those challenges were (A) Recruiting New Members, (B) Holding Down Dues, (C) Cutting Expenses, and (D) Maintaining Hours, Facilities, and Services.  In 2011, I am again volunteering to help the club continue to improve in these areas.

(Challenge A.) Recruiting New Members

For more than 50 years, the WRA has depended on between a quarter and a third of families moving into Woodcrest to join the club within two to four years to replace families who naturally "age out" after their youngest child leaves for college.  This means we are and always have been dependent on the turnover of the local real estate market for new members.  While the total number of new families joining the club is down, it is still the same percentage of home sales as ever.  That means we need to adapt while the housing (and employment) markets recover.

Two years ago, the board made a decision to improve the swim and dive programs on the assumption that word-of-mouth would lead to more members.  We have great coaches, increased parent involvement and supporting activities.  As a result most kids report they are having so much more fun than in the past, some are pressuring their non-member friends' parents to join the club.  Sure enough, this year saw the largest swim and dive teams in many years.  A review of team members show a larger percentage are composed of children from new families than ever.  Our efforts are starting to produce results.

With regard to recruiting families in Woodcrest and the immediately surrounding areas, I led the "Adopt-a-Block" program which drew in multiple new families by giving referral fees to WRA members who handed out flyers to their neighbors. Even though we will be issuing multiple referral checks to members at the end of this season, this program also helped cut our marketing expenses.  In 2011, I would like to expand the Adopt-a-Block program as well and continue as a resource to Marc Raiken who has done most of the work speaking with and emailing prospective members and helping them with forms and payment details.

In addition to drawing from the immediate locale, this year we also drew families from South Philadelphia, Haddonfield, Voorhees, (and also two Cherry Hill families who left other local clubs to join Woodcrest).  Evidently, we are doing a few things right.  In 2011, I would like to work with board members and other bond holders to reach out to more families in Haddonfield and Voorhees.

(Challenge B) Holding Down Dues

As part of the membership committee, I have taken many calls over the last two years from members who are experiencing financial difficulties.  It was clear that for many members, paying more was just not an option.  It does not matter that over a three year period WRA has one of the lowest total costs of any large club.  Many members just don't have more to give.  The entire board worked together for two years to change our tax classification.  We kept our increase in dues lower than the decrease in sales tax. As a result, every family's renewal invoice was a few dollars LOWER in 2010 than in 2009.  In 2011, I will continue work with others to keep dues as low as responsibly possible.

(Challenge C) Cutting Expenses

With fewer new members replacing those aging out and dues almost frozen, the only way to prudently operate the club was to seriously slash expenditures.  This took two years of effort and a board composed of people willing to make these hard decisions, but we did so.  We laid off our book-keeper who had done a great job, but including expenses, was costing us almost $12,000 a year.  Her responsibilities were divided between John Doyle, my wife Susan, and myself.  We now do those tasks as volunteers.  We laid off our groundskeeper.  Frank Segrest contributed more than 1,000 hours to do most of the work himself as a volunteer.  Lesser amounts of time were contributed by other members as well.  Instead of purchasing new Nok Hockey boards or benches, I rebuilt the ones we had.  We deferred maintenance of two of the four tennis courts and the parking lot for a while.  (We have less than half the tennis players we used to and the remaining courts have not been crowded.)  A few years ago, we spent about $20,000 resurfacing the two tennis courts now in use.  The delay in doing this maintenance on the other two prevented us from raising dues by about $71 per family in a tight environment.  There were also areas where we could not avoid spending money.  The state changed their rules and we were forced to unexpectedly spend $8,000 on a brand new filtration system.  Unlike some other clubs, we did not want to make a "special assessment" to tax our members.    We have four years left on the mortgage for the big pool and in 2011, I will continue to look for places where it makes sense to delay or cut expenditures.  I also worked with Greg Young on the WRA web site this year.  Next year, I would like to investigate selling ads on the web site as some other clubs in Cherry Hill have done.

(Challenge C) Maintaining Hours, Facilities, and Services

Despite all of the challenges above, the club opened every day this year at 11:00 AM and stayed open to 9:00 PM except for our 11:00 PM Friday late closes.  The pools are clean and clear. There have been no complaints about pool temperature.  Members bring in their own food or order in at any time.  Toys and clear rafts have been a lot of fun at all times in the medium pool.  With help from others, I ran Crab Night and we all had a blast with more than 110 adults attending.  We fielded THREE volleyball teams, women's softball, and an adult basketball team. More than 120 of our children joined the swim or dive teams (or both).  Thanks mostly to Frank Segrest, the grounds look the best of any club in Cherry Hill.  Our movie nights were a success with better sound thanks to Jim Thompson's donation of his stereo. 

Rob Kolmins and Ken Wasserman are but two of the multiple members who approached me with ideas for more social events and/or ideas for operating improvements for the membership as a whole.  Whether these or other individuals are on the board or not, I look forward to assisting them in 2011 so that we can continue to improve the club.

It is because of the positive contributions I have made and am willing to continue to make to the club, that I ask for your vote this year.