282: Maximizing Club Membership through Innovative Youth Programs w/ Elliot Freeman
Our guest, Elliot Freedman, the Youth Program and Aquatics Director at Northridge Country Club, not only answers that question but also reveals how he turned Northridge into a family-friendly hub of activity. He shares details of his innovative practices, rooted in his experiences with the Disney Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line. Through his engaging approach, he enriched the club atmosphere, added value to memberships, and even boosted food and beverage sales.
This episode is a journey into the fascinating mind of Elliot, a visionary who successfully grew camp attendance by 200 percent. He talks about his unique strategies, like devising engaging programs for children of working parents and orchestrating family events that enhance the club's appeal. He also discusses the importance of having a diverse staff in childcare and maintaining a safe and trust-filled environment, contributing to a more satisfying member experience.
Lastly, Elliot opens up about managing the expectations of club members, parents, and kids while designing these programs. He emphasizes the significance of learning from failure and underlines the need for creativity and consistency. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in maximizing club membership through youth involvement. Tune in to explore Elliot's successful approach to creating engaging and enjoyable youth programs at the Northridge Country Club.
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Hey everybody, welcome back to Private Club Radio. I'm your host, denny Corby. This episode is all about club youth programming and I get to sit down with Elliot Freeman. He is the youth program and aquatics director over at Northridge Country Club in Raleigh and we have a fun conversation because youth programming is getting very, very big, as we all know. We've talked about it here on the podcasts, talked about it here on the podcast that clubs are becoming more resort style a little bit and catering more to families and just how about and just how clubs are catering to a lot more youths and a lot more families. So we talk about how Elliot started doing youth programming. He went to school for education and for youths. He also was on the Disney cruise line for years, which is a very hard and very prestigious gig to get you know. We're going to talk about how family focused programs have positively impact membership experiences. He shares with us their innovation and then he shares with us his innovation. He shares with us his innovative approach to creating unique engaging programs at his club while catering to the lifestyle. We also chat about how to measure the success of the youth programs. We explored creative ways to measure the success of youth programs without relying solely on surveys, and discovered how to balance the expectations of children, parents and club members while also developing these programs. At the end of the day, it really boils down to the importance of creating an engaging and enjoyable atmosphere for everyone involved, and he also shares valuable insights on learning from past failures to create successful programs. While further ado, welcome my friend from Northridge Country Club in Raleigh, the youth program and aquatics director, elliot Friedman.
Speaker 2:What's in the crazy industry? For a good period of time I started off my career in God's Green Teaching and I came out in 2008. Of course, 2008, that whole housing crisis came around. I was like, all right, there's no teaching, there's jobs available, let me find something different. So I went and worked on Disney Cruise Line. I was a youth counselor there. I worked there for a long period of time. I found my current wife there in my same department and we went and traveled a bit, went to a Norwegian Cruise Line. We worked in various positions, from youth activity staff all the way through the youth program manager, and we went back to Disney. So we worked on Disney Norwegian Cruise Line and you think the country club industry is hard. That cruise line industry that will make you. It's a brutal industry. It's a lot of fun, like in your own.
Speaker 1:I was performing on some cruise ships for a hot minute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's intense, it's no days off, it's four and a half month contracts, but I enjoyed it. It was a great period of my time. It gave me a great standing in the industry and understanding youth activities as a professional environment, especially with Disney, they're the best in the industry in terms of getting you set up and understanding what is to be a safe program and what you need to operate and do correctly. Again, you're the grid of ground grounding. On top of that, I did that for around six and a half years and then I ended up in real life like, oh no, in the mid-20s, what are we going to do with my wife? So we decided to make a go of it in America and I've been in the country club industry now for like six years or so. How did you find the? How long was you on a cruise ship for?
Speaker 1:So my background is I also. So I have the private club radio show, but I also do a stand-up magic and comedy show, primarily for private clubs and corporate events, but got set up with the cruise ship agent back in like late 21. So I only started during, like during the pandemic. Oh, that was different.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a really interesting experience for Disney cruise line. For example, when I worked on them, we'd have 500 children checked in in our spaces, so that's 500 children that we're in control of, making sure that they're staying alive. And every child is an individual. They have their own needs and stuff. It was definitely a good base to start off. The ship was like brand new. It was about a month old when I joined the ship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how fun it is. No, we were definitely on around that time. Oh, very cool, you had a good experience. Oh, it was fantastic. So I'm the mistake in my family. So I'm 34, my little sister's going to be 21 and my little brother's going to be 19. So when I was, you know, it was really a lot for them. But you know, when I went, I was early 20s and they were like younger.
Speaker 2:Most people think Disney cruise line, you're not going to have a good experience unless you're a kid. I mean, we were a tool on Disney when I worked there. It's like everybody's a VIP and that's something like definitely owned and like everyone is an individual and that's what we call them. We call them very individual people rather than important, because that's what it is Like. They know it should be as important as everyone, because you'd be expected to deliver the same service to every single person as an individual.
Speaker 1:Well, it's actually more mental brain energy to try and not be the same for different people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's harder.
Speaker 1:Like just be nice to everybody and make your life so much easier.
Speaker 2:And there's definitely some things that ingrained into you that you go into the real world and you're like, oh wait, this isn't normal. Like me and my wife, if we're going out for a walk or something and we see people trying to take a photo, we're instantly going to be like, hey, can we take a photo for you, we can do that for you. And they're looking at like stranger off and just take a photo for you. It just is naturally engaged in, like ingrained into your brain, like yeah, this is the sort of things that they taught you and that's a great thing to have. But it's kind of that brainwashing, but in a good way. So how'd?
Speaker 1:you get. So you've pretty much stuck in like the youth world, yeah. So how did that come about? Was that always? Did you want to be a teacher, like what was? Yeah, I spoke on my degree in teaching.
Speaker 2:I knew I wanted to be a teacher. Yeah, I got Well, my degree was education and PE. Like it was a double-sided thing and I was like, do I want to do PE? Do I want to do like primary school, elementary school teaching? And yes, I wanted to do it. But once I found out that, like, cruise ships were a thing and the whole youth industry is a thing, especially in America and the UK is not as we're from, obviously, as you can tell by the accent, it's not as predominantly big in the UK we still have it, but without the 12-week holidays it's not as like oh yes, camps, people go to camps Like that doesn't happen in the UK as much. So it's not like, oh, there's a youth director jobs. So finding that industry on the cruise line and then finding that you could do over here, potentially in the Y or Lifetime, fitness or Country Club industry, like I was like I hope. Now I was like, oh, wow, this could be something I can do. Absolutely. My goal growing up was always do I knew long-term I want to do something I loved and every day is different with kids. I feel like I'm making an impact with them, even if it's something small, just making them smile and again on Disney they ingrain the thing to you, saying that we create happiness. And that's really the truth. We are creating memories and creating happiness for all these kids and parents and adults. You may not think the things you're doing people are going to remember, but I'm sure you remember things when you were a kid, with camp counts low or just something small, but you don't know how small your impact could be. It could be huge. So that's kind of like where my mentality was out A, let's have fun in my life, let's do some fun and be creative and have every day different, and that's kind of my mindset. That's where it was at.
Speaker 1:What have been like some of your favorite accomplishments in this area, because you've done some cool stuff and if we can keep it to the club world, that'd be cool. Yeah, absolutely, but just in general, but it all probably relates to here too. But like, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:The country club is such a weird one. Right, it really is. I was not expecting it to be so family focused. Firstly, I was expecting coming into a country club, it's going to be a bunch of old men playing golf, just fine, and then we'd be like a sign of, like a kind of afterthought, and, honestly, what I found is the country club. From what I've seen, the country club industry has definitely changed, especially in like the last five to six years. It's no longer golf clubs, which is just men playing and drinking and eating, which is fine. There's still clubs out there and that works great for them. But in general, most people are families. Everyone in the family is as important. Every club is going to have golf courses and dig me wrong, some of them are nicer than others, but what can we make us stand out? And for me, the growth that we've had at our clubs since I've been here is crazy. Obviously, golf and the pandemic did help with that, of course, but ultimately clubs are a lifestyle. They're not just a goal. It's very much changing and for me, that gives me the ability to be able to create what I've created, which is completely different to what I inherited To give you perspective when I first came into my club, for example, they were doing the typical country club style. They were doing one event at maybe four or five weeks of camp and that's what it is. Now you come out to the club any day of the week and there's some sort of youth program going on, and it's great. I mean these kids now can? This is their second home, long window loss, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, no, no no, this is perfect, this is perfect.
Speaker 2:You're talking about individual things. As my club, I mean my camp usage. As I said, we did four weeks a year. I'm very lucky that my wife actually is also a youth director and she works at a different country club in the area, so we don't stop.
Speaker 1:It is like color war at home. It is just the most brutal. Yeah, we got home.
Speaker 2:Tonight I've got a swim meet against her team. Oh man, oh, they're going to be us. But it's okay, it's not about that, it's about having fun. No, it's funny.
Speaker 1:It's really funny.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that definitely helps. I mean we switch off, but we don't switch off. We still bounce off ideas and I've been very lucky to see even the youth industry is different depending on club to club. Like my club, I'm very lucky that we are family focused. That's within our kind of DNA of our club. We're focused on family entertainment, family experiences here. Her club is more traditional right now but they still, they're still getting there and the improvement, but it's different program investors, your club. So just because I'm my club, I can offer these. For example, my camps. Right, I have three summer camps going on during summer, all last in Monday to Friday. They go for 10 weeks and we have over 120 kids coming a week, which is a lot Kids.
Speaker 1:Now what's a lot like age range, like how is, that Is anywhere from four to 13?. And then are they? All doing the same thing? Are they broken up? How no?
Speaker 2:So again when I heard the department, they had kind of one camp and one that was like a drop off daycare sort of thing. I was like right, let's change this. This drop off daycare is now going to be a camp for younger kids. Let's make it towards that age group. So, like the four or five year old, for example, they can't, they can't play tennis very easily, they can't play golf, especially in a group setting with so many people. Yes, they can get instructions, like of course you get some like mini Tiger Woods and they're going to be next to the star, who knows but typically they can't last more 30 minutes in commuting stuff. Let's, let's break it down to 30 minute increments. Let's model it towards that child so they don't get bored, they don't get distracted, and let's make that camp just for them. So here we have a four or five year old group, age group. We have a sports camp which is very country club, but we've added different sports like pickleball, like soccer to it, basketball, just different sports to make it different. And what I say is this isn't the camp for you to learn, this is a camp for you to try sports, be engaged, enjoy your friends, really, really just have fun. If you want to do those camps, we can offer those. You can go to golf. They can offer you a private golf camp with a fifth year of you and that's no question because those primalitions basically Basically successful. And then this year we've added a third camp, actually inspired by Ben in some ways and they had Ben on your show a few weeks ago but we're going to do a creative camp. So it's for those kids that are maybe they like sport but they can't do 10 weeks of camp doing soccer, tennis and pickleball. So they're going to do things like a whole day where they're making a movie, they're writing the script and then they're going to shoot it on their phones and at the end of the day they have a premiere of it. Another day they'll be doing cooking and baking, another day they can be doing art. So it's really adapting and trying to figure out what works for our members. But, as I said, like I'm very lucky that I can offer these camps, I'm supported by the club. We have a huge forum that isn't very well booked in the summer, so we can use it. And just because I have this doesn't mean you can't do anything. Other clubs, like my wife, has smaller, smaller camps where they have 20 kids. But it's all about engaging those children and finding what works for your club at the end of the day, and because I'm lucky I'm in North Carolina, whoever who knows what the club could be up in North? You could have a whole ropes course you can join in. And for me, if I was to leave this club and I was to go somewhere as one day which does not something I'm looking forward to doing right now but you've got to use the tools you have. Ultimately, like, of course, the big thing I found was my best tool is I have his staff. I found so many talents within my staff. Like one of my girls is really good at art and she actually had her own little car business. I was like, hey, do you want to do this for our kids? Like we can do art classes. I don't have to pay a professional artist 50 bucks to look like a Bayou, 20 bucks a kid. You can make money. We'll make money. The kick members get it for a cheaper price, which means more than want to do it when we win. And so I've done a bunch of those sort of things as well my staff, just trying to improve them and help them and their resumes, if not just help their pocket a little bit.
Speaker 1:Oh, of course. So what did I read? You increased your camp attendance by like 200 percent. There's probably more now at this point, yeah, so what? You went from like two kids, like 10 kids.
Speaker 2:So I have reached like came, came to camp, we would have around yeah, we'd have around five. Come into camp Bluebird, which every week now is around 30 kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was totally kidding.
Speaker 2:Our sports camp was around like 30 kids average and now it's around 70.
Speaker 1:Oh snap.
Speaker 2:OK, yeah, the best thing I ever did though the big, the biggest thing we ever did was I started looking at what could help our membership and it was what is our typical member? That our members kind of mid, obviously any country club members, well off. But most of our members work. They're not people to stay at home necessarily, so the amount of teacher workdays they have throughout the year where they don't know what to do their children, I was like this is something that could offer value to the adults so they could, even if they all work and stay at home, then go play golf or play tennis. So we start off doing those and you got to think these, these daycaps, they're 100 percent profit. All you're paying for is your staff and the food costs, which is minimal. If I'm getting 40 kids paying $60, that's two and a half grand nearly for for for a single day of thing, which I know in the industry isn't huge. But in terms of youth activities as a budget it helps a lot. By making that money it means we can potentially spend that money on other things to make your other programming cooler, which then makes that advance.
Speaker 1:It's all kind of like a cycle I found and then I mean you know, I don't know how much of an expert I am too, but then it's like you know how many of those families might stay there for dinner with the kids. And now there's, you know, food and beverage.
Speaker 2:Like you know, and if the kids are saying, and perhaps we got to somebody, Yep, oh, absolutely, I mean we offered, so I got. I actually figured out. We offered 152 days a year of camp last year.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so pretty much half a year you could have had a child be dropped off here to be looked off of between 8 and 4. It's a lot that doesn't include like things like kids clubs. We have the kids clubs in the evenings where parents can go eat and drink. We have kids corral, where our kind of houses walk around and make sure any kids that are weighing in with their parents can go off to a playground with them, and I think to enhance that member experience because I think a lot of the clubs yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, we impact every department Community of activities is one of those really small things that people don't realize. You have such a big impact on your membership. If you can create things for the kids to do, then the parents are free to do what they want, and it doesn't necessarily need to be that. You can make amazing family events as well, of course, but with this fruit and drink to be sold there too. But yeah, I mean it's definitely. I think the industry started to see a little bit more and it's a big passion of mine to make the industry realize, yes, you're not going to make a huge amount of money off you, but the value it adds to the immunity it adds can impact the whole of your club. Our club currently has like a 70 person waitlist, 70 family waitlist. Every single one has kids. Every single person we've let in has in the last four years, majority have had kids. It's a good place to be in terms of the industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and then you know, I don't know if I'm just like thinking of like being a kid too. Is you know, if I'm always having fun at the club I want all my parties to be there, like I just want to have all the if that's where, if I just recognize the club with fun when I go there I'm not thinking, oh, club, stuffy dinner, like now I'm like let's go, do it Exactly and eventually hopefully I mean one day you might create a legacy.
Speaker 2:Who knows Like? I know a lot of clubs for a short time. We do look at legacies and if you're using the club regularly, you're not going to leave that club In the vision. Kids use it. You're not going to use it. The value is there absolutely.
Speaker 1:So you know what's the process like developing a program that increases 200, 300, 400, you know like like two to five.
Speaker 2:I know, I didn't realize there was no point for that. It's the big numbers.
Speaker 1:But like, no, like. What does that?
Speaker 2:process look like, as I said, I'm very lucky.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's. What was your first like when you, when you got there, what was your first thing? You're like, okay, I have to start with X. Or like what was the first thing that you did?
Speaker 2:I obviously I came from Disney my last job before coming to this right. Actually I worked for the YMCA in between that, but I came. My my call background was Disney and I was like I came into the thing and I was like this country club. They didn't have policies, policies and procedures in place for youth activities like child handling guidelines very boring stuff but they are the fundamentals. You can get the safety right and the cool values of I feel safe leaving my child with you. Then you gain that trust and if you get some trust and you do a good job, then they're going to come back and build and build, and build. That's really the key part of it, like I know it sounds boring, but that is the great thing.
Speaker 1:that's just the trust of the member right there. That is the golden nugget, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, at the end of the day, children are the most valuable thing to most of their parents and if they can't feel safe in the program and you're offering, they're not going to drop them off. Now, how cool is? They're not going to drop them off because they don't feel comfortable with their children. And the big way I do that is in this training and getting the right people around me. I never, I never take advantage in terms of staff. I don't have like one staff member to 25 kids. We keep our ratios are like one to six. It's purely because A I don't see us as babysitters. We're not babysitters in my mind, we are entertainers. It sounds like glorification there, I know, but I see us as entertainers and that's why I don't also care for under four year olds, because they can't necessarily be entertained as well as they need to be cared for. When they do need to be entertained, they don't know what's going on as much.
Speaker 1:They're more likely to leave the room potentially, whereas Sorry, so I'm just trying to wrap my head around it too. So, basically, you differentiate childcare from like this is like oh, wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. We're not your 16 year old baby cell watching a movie for kids. Like I'm not saying it's never going to happen, like there has to be some downs on where the kid wants to watch a movie or whatever, but we're not paid to do that. Like I don't. You can do that. Yeah, basically do that at home. We should be making an impact every time we have a child, even if they come into the cab. We need to be engaged and that's why I tell my staff when I'm hiring them like you need to get on the program if you want to work in this in my department. You have to be engaged and you have to be proactive. That's two things, because the one thing that makes children bored is that on time and not being engaged. The end of the day, people are the biggest, biggest assets, as I said you have. I prime example is me and my wife. We're both. I was class as let's get this on arrogant. My class was great in terms of childcare and industry, but we're very different people. You put me in a group of and I've done this before you put me in a group of 50 kids. I can hold that, you know tension for hours and I can run games like that and I love it, it's kind of like my thing. But you put me with like four or five kids and want to do imagination play. I can do it, I'm good at it, but it boils me to death. It's not just. It's just not a cup of tea. My wife is the opposite. I'm the opposite. You put her with like one or two kids. They're going to love her, they're going to gravitate to her, but put her in a group. Yes, she can do it and she'll be fine here, but it's not going to see her thing. So, and when you're hiring a group of staff, that's really when you're looking for. You can't just hire the biggest extravator in the room every time. You want to find some quieter but still stronger leaders that have good communication skills, that can kind of gravitate towards the quieter kids that get a bit scared and love it. What is this going on? I can't like I can't deal with this Because everybody like it's like the real world, so everyone has different preferences and different personalities. At the end of the day, and that's really important for me is to kind of find a variation of people to work for the kids.
Speaker 1:So where do you find your talent? Not talent like that sounded bad, like where do you find? Your like well, actually it is talent, because they are entertainers, so like how do you like? So honestly, they're not friends.
Speaker 2:I'm giving Charles. I'm giving Charles. He's the 16 year olds. 17 year olds I yes, I get some 20 year olds, but I am 100% when I'm hiring people. It's all about their personality. I don't care. I do care a lot about what they've done past, because we have to, of course, but do I feel comfortable with that? I can mold this person to do something. I feel like everybody in the world, no matter where you are, you're trainable to do stuff. We can train you to do stuff. Just because you don't know how to run games right now doesn't mean you can't be the best game player ever. Just because you don't have to be golf doesn't mean you're not going to be a scratch girl for one day. That's really my key. Like I get a lot of referrals. I've lost my staff state for years. Currently my second in command. I hired her when she was very young. She's now been at seven summers. This is her seventh summer, so I mean that speaks a lot that they want to come back and normally when they leave it's kind of like I'll go do an internship now because I'm trying to get an article, so I can't just have you have activities on my resume, but I like a lot of referrals. So I'm like you know friends, bring them to me, because you're not going to recommend someone that you don't like and if you do, you're going to have to work with them. And that's why I tell people like, do you really want to eat? This may be your best friend, but do you really want to work with them? So typically, most of the people that get referred are great. Of course, there's always some, some duds there. There's going to be some duds, but that doesn't mean they can't be turned around Again. Training and having patience with peace that was my key thing. I can say for my staff anyway.
Speaker 1:If you were to man, I want to go into so many, so many different directions right now. I'm always man. No, I know this is so good. So you know you're getting referral, you know you're getting these people come in. What would you say? People, kids, you know what I'm saying what are like your little, like like tails?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or what are you like looking for? What are their little qualities? What are like? What For me?
Speaker 2:is enthusiasm and the ability to like communicate that enthusiasm I need to be able to have. Like, if I'm having a conversation with you and you're looking to get a job and you have your melaton, you don't look bought, you look bored. Like do I? I'm a kid. Kids are very reactive based on expression and emotions. People don't realize that they think it's more about being strict or being nice. It's not, it's emotions. If you are an embracing person and the friendly, are going person you can, you can become the most like person to the kids. Also, I also look for some sort of understanding. I'm looking to make sure they're interested in that. Asking questions At the end of the day, like I. Every time I need to do someone, I explain everything about the job to them because people so focused on us hiring them. It should be them hiring us, it can't be I. At the end of the day, I don't want my staff coming into the role and being like this is how I don't want to do this job. I'm so it's it's well, these kids are annoying me, like no, if you don't like, this is the job I've told you up front. It's the best job in the world. You're getting to play soccer. You get into going to the pool every day, like what else can I give you? And if this isn't your job, then that's fine. I don't want you in the job. I very rarely get that. You'll get occasional complaints about the heat and there's not much I can do. That it's North Carolina. It's 100 degree heat. You gotta be hot. If you work with the little kids, they can't tie the shoe laces, they can't articulate why they're tired and upset and need the potty. You can have some patience. It's going to be mentally exhausting versus physically exhausting depends on the age group you're working with. So I mean, for me, those kind of tells what I'm looking for is is kind of just that conversation. If they can't hold a conversation with me, if they they're not very enthusiastic, if they're not giving me a reason why they want to work with kids or what interests them about the role, then that's like, well, I'm not really interested in hiring you. Like I'm not saying I'm looking for the best because I believe we can train the best, but I'm looking for people that genuinely want to be there. That's the biggest thing for me. I've had people that have started off really rough and they've not been great and they've ended up like I've given them some trainings, I've gone over things and clicked and then bang, they're there.
Speaker 1:Now, how do you gauge or like measure the success of like your programs or activities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a hard one, right? Because we don't do surveys, because surveys are there in my opinion, very much my opinion there just to complain to people. People don't tend to highlight the positives in surveys more than the negatives much of the time, actually, unless you're at Disney, which Disney's a different level when we're on there. But I don't do surveys typically. I mean, I'm very active in my membership. I'm there to greet them in the mornings. I'm very much involved in camp. I'm not a manager, I'm a leader, and that sounds really arrogant again, but I like to be with my staff. I don't want them to know that they've just been told what to do and it's not something that I wouldn't do. I'm very much involved in that and when I'm with that I get to see the members. Sometimes I'm like to. These kids like me, and then it's not about loving me, but do they like me? And now I go to the point like Mr Elliott. Mr Elliott, I'm like, okay, they like me, it's okay. But I mean the biggest thing is the numbers. Numbers don't lie. Like if people like your program and they're going to come back, if people like your program, they're going to refer guests. That's the biggest way I can say. I mean, I've had some really cool events. Like outside of camps that's locked. They've been really good. I'm like, why is this not locked? You don't know. Sometimes. Sometimes you put something rubbish on, like a per movie on my movie night and we have to stick it, stand up. I'm like it's just a movie. Why are you coming to this? I love it is out of your control. Sometimes you don't know when sports are going on or high school sports. Like you can't be the Google calendar for every single event going on in the area, unfortunately. My biggest way it's just member interactions, the biggest thing I could say I don't know if you've had anyone else show the set of lies or I just like to ask and see.
Speaker 1:No, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's hard. It's a hard thing because, as I said, surveys people tend to highlight the bad things or other than the positive things, so I try to stay away from them. A couple of years ago, like four or five years ago, it hit me that half these kids weren't that their experiences wasn't being shared with the parents as much, so we started adding cameras to all my. My counselor was like right, we're going to add it into the policy, so the parents know that we're taking photos and videos throughout the week. We're going to take photos every single thing they do and we take videos of it. And then at the end of the week we did a little slideshow on the last day for the kids to see so they can watch back. That week we sent all the photos to the members and ever since I did that, the members' reactions is like oh, I know what my kids doing every day. I can see it in their face, Even if they come home and they say what did you do? Nothing, Nothing Like no, look at the photos. You're having fun there, You're doing this Like I didn't know you did this. I know a lot of clubs are using that right now and it's the biggest tool you can have, because kids don't articulate what they've done, so you can show them on those videos and photos very much easily.
Speaker 1:No same thing with our dogs when we would bring them to daycare they would message us and say oh look, they're having fun. There's big meat sniffing, you know fellas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife, perhaps she chooses those canals so you can see the camera, so you can watch the dogs running around. It's like, look at him, look at him. He's caught up. But yeah, you want to know they're having fun at the end of the day, and that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:Now how. This is going to be a slightly weird question, so give me a second. But how would you say, like, how do you balance? How do you balance the expectations and like desires of the kids, parents and like in the club when developing your programs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in a sense like you know how do you like when you're looking at yeah like, like.
Speaker 1:How do you balance, like, all those expectations with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because obviously country clubs are typically those that are well-off for the most part and they have a different level of expectation compared to those that aren't, just in terms of like the sort of things they work, their kids are doing, such as pre-cathillion. I've never heard of pre-cathillion until coming to America and I was like, oh, you need to teach your kids manners. Okay, that's just. I'm English, so that's ingrained to us in school. I'm from outside of the UK. That sounded like a bit of a butt-head about it. But yeah, I mean, I think what I did when I came in. I was like, well, I want the kids to be the first. Kids are the most important thing and the kids are a little bit of comeback to a program and this is fun. So we have to make it engaging and fun for the kids. But then you have to offer a nurse for all the members. It may not be something that I would want to do my kid myself, but pre-cathillion, the kids love it for some reason. Some of them absolutely love it, like our classes. I think it's finding the variation and it's really hard as any youth department I've seen it with my wife as well Most of us are a team of ones and you have a couple of stuff around you that are part-time and there's only 70 weeks in a year to offer. That Youth gap age group is so big. You've got toddlers, four-year-olds, five-year-olds like tweens, teens, and then you've got boys and girls and sometimes they don't like the same thing. So it's definitely hard to try and cover all, but that's okay. You just have to do your best and offer as much as you can to your resources and if it's been accepted well by the membership, you can add to it or you can go and find other ways to adapt it. The good example of that would be something like for my teens. Rather than doing like a girls' chill night or boys' dodgeball night, you just do something where you can kind of engage both. So we did like a glow-in-the-dark egg hunt for the tweens and it got like 50 tweens coming out and there's something you think, oh no, then I'll go like this is an egg hunt, but like no, you do something different, you make it glow-in-the-dark, you need to adjust for this age group and you kind of mix it up. I've done some other things that just failed. Like I did a whole art festival for a week where I did classes every day and I had led up to a big gala which had like people on the stage doing stuff. I had like 20 people come to it. I started just hunting, but it is what it is. I mean, there's a I'm a big into soccer and there's a big soccer pundit in the UK and he always quotes this quote, which I really like, and it's failure is a bruise, not a tattoo, and that's a really big thing, like it's okay to fail. It's not going to be there for advice. You can get a love from it. You're going to get that. It's going to be okay. Maybe your idea wasn't bad. It just wasn't done at the right time, or maybe you could. Maybe didn't advertise it the right way, and that's something I've definitely learned in the last year that I need to promote myself for a long time. We're doing so many cool things. The members need to know what's going on without bombardment of emails. Social media such a good platform for that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and Ben kills him with all of his stuff too, because there's so much fun, fun thing that they post.
Speaker 2:And I was in shock and awe when he was telling me and showing me everything.
Speaker 1:I made a joke about it. I'm wearing a t-shirt gun. He's like oh, you want to play with ours? Yeah, stop it, you don't have one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a hard industry as well, because people don't realize how much we do. I don't just use activities, I run my Cortex team and now I'm trying to make as many videos for that. So I'm kind of doing a marketing and you could say, well, why don't you have the marketing team do it? I'm like, well, if I had the marketing team did everything that I offered, they would just be a youth marketer because there's so much to it. And if we just put that all on the old club's page that's what I have a separate youth activities club page because we just look like a youth activity program, we wouldn't look like a country club. But yeah, I mean in terms of that, finding things for the right demographics and stuff is difficult, but trying things steal ideas from others that's another thing I learned. Like I was so focused before on like I'm going to create something original. And as soon as I create something original, oh wait, it's done before. But take ideas from other people, use them and enhance them that's a really big thing. Something small to you may be a big thing to add to something.
Speaker 1:What's one of the more recent things that you've stolen and put to use?
Speaker 2:So I mean Harry Potter, for example, big franchise. We don't call it Harry Potter, we call it as Wizarding. That's what we do Wizarding skill. So it's such an easy event. You can decorate like Harry Potter, you can put up candles or that sort of stuff. We get magicians. So I was like I want a magician to come to this, and a lot of people won't necessarily come to our shows if it's just a magician. No offense, I know your magicism is in Saw. Some of it. It was great. I think it just has a bit of a cliche sometimes in the industry, like I'm going to get to sit down and watch it, which it could be the best show ever. So we have a magician come to our Harry Potter show, for example. But during that we're like how can we enhance this? So we add, for example, we'll make potions class and then we'll have a little feast at buffet and then I do some magic with the kids to make them think they make magic. So during our potions class we get some water and we pour it into a styrofoam cup or any cup you have, and as long as you don't see through it, the bottom, you can get this powder. It's basically what goes in baby's diapers and when you put water into it it absorbs it and becomes a solid. And so you get the kids to pour the water in there and they're like, okay, and they don't see the powder at the bottom because it's white and it cuts. And they're like one, two, three and they pour it over and they're like, does something like that is something they're going to remember forever. They think they've made the magic and it's gone. Major event go from like something like okay, this is kind of just a magic show or some food, to oh, this isn't hard to do. This is like anything. I know it's a big buzzword in the industry, but it's enhancing the experience and it really is key Like there's so many little ways that not necessarily expensive that you can enhance the experience. Another example would be my daddy's order dance. Now, everybody does daddy's order dances, classic, every, from the YMCA to the schools. They probably all do them and we're reaching to our club. It was a DJ, that's what it was. It was a DJ, some food, enjoy it. We have a huge forum. I'm very lucky to be able to use it, but unfortunately to camp in there. We use it every day, they see it. So my main goal when I'm doing it nowadays is like how can I make this room not look like this room? So I use anything I can find from the club. All of the departments will have fun things in their department They've used previously, like pipe and drape or previous props. So I find anything I can that I can use to try and make it. So I put a bunch of pipe and drape up, I get some cheap flowers and all of a sudden that kid's imagination goes from an art and go to the bar and for a dance. They're like oh, I'm in a garden. It's just a different experience that's going to be in their brain.
Speaker 1:That didn't cost much. I say that so often is I love when just a even if it's just like like uplighting, it just adds. But if you can just pipe and drape a room and add uplighting, oh my goodness. You just walk in and you're like okay, something's going on here, Like it's just like an excitement thing, Like I don't know. Plus, I think a little bit too, it helps absorb some of that sound of like an empty room too, you know what I mean, so it helps like bring it in a little bit. I don't know. So, in your opinion, how many, how many water balloons does it take to really have a proper water balloon fight?
Speaker 2:Oh, a real one, cause those water balloons go quickly.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:They really do, especially the ones we bought. Now we can let you fill them up and they just don't do it. They'll all I would say a thousand. Wow, honestly, I and that probably went in last wall in 20 minutes I do a thing called water day madness. We get big slip and slide out. We get big slow machine out. We got a wall slide going on. We do a water balloon fight to the end. But, yeah, probably a thousand. And those water blends are not cheap. But and it also depends how many kids you have If you're talking 20 kids, a thousand, if you're talking a hundred kids, look out.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So yeah, man, what's like, have you ever had just like a really dumb or funny suggestion given to you from like a oh, from members or coast, I don't know. I don't know, I just feel like you got some really funny stuff or like a really good like complaint. Do you ever get just like a really good like like one of those you're like really?
Speaker 2:I mean anyone in the pool industry gets the complaint. Can't you make this ring go away every day? Well, why can't we get the pool, as it's fun to be?
Speaker 1:aligning out there, that's a common thing? Not necessarily funny, but it's a common thing.
Speaker 2:In terms of youth? I'm sure there is. I've got a whole literally my phone. We have a phone we give to the staff so the members can call the count phone and they just get the personal numbers. But my counselors in their downtime make memes and things on the phone. So it's like when ex-child is in the other room and it's just you two on check out and they're staring at you. But anyway, sorry, that's not necessarily a complaint, but it's always funny to think to my head.
Speaker 1:I love that stuff.
Speaker 2:When you get stuck on the late shift with it raining. I don't find these things out until the end of the year, and they've left me as well, and I'm, like these, creative butt heads.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. They're probably makes it that much more special.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean the best thing I've ever had. And again, this is back to your question. I'm sorry this isn't your question, but I find out my stuff being hanging outside of work. I'm like, yes, I've got them. They want to be friends. They would never be friends outside of this. But now that they're friends and they're hanging out in each other's houses and I'm like, yeah, we've made something here. If it's fun for the staff, it's definitely fun for the parents and kids. Complaint-wise, I mean, there's always weird requests, but on my head I know what's going to happen. I'm going to have this conversation. I'm going to think of something that would be like that's what I shouldn't tell Danny. Sorry, man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm drawing a blank there. Oh, it's okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I have one last question for you and then I'll let you get going. I appreciate you being on here, but always have to throw All right, so you're stranded on a desert island. You can only take three items from your club's youth program. What are you bringing and why?
Speaker 2:I could give a boring answer or give a fun answer here. The power of the boring answer be the parachute, because obviously parachutes are the best thing to survive. But that's not fun. That's not a fun answer.
Speaker 1:Well, you, do have three programs, three items, though.
Speaker 2:Okay, I mean parachute would give you shoulder, it would give you fun, because who doesn't have parachute games? Even if you're 35 years old like me, I still have a parachute game. I mean, half the things I couldn't bring because there's no electricity, which kind of sucks.
Speaker 1:You're dipping into your creative juices here.
Speaker 2:I know. I mean, I'm a big soccer fan. So soccer, like a soccer ball and any ball, even if it's just one ball, I can create a thousand games with a ball and that just keeps you entertained and keeps you sane. It's kind of like the movie where he's like well, son, his best friend, I wouldn't be having this my best friend, I just be playing with him all the time. But so definitely a ball of some sort, and then honestly, it'd be useless. But we do a really cool thing. Actually, there's two really cool things I want to share. Just one is related. I'll tell you what it is right now. There's another really cool thing I'd like to share. We do like a boat ride. So I like the idea of making a little box boat and trying to paddle out to the next island. It's failed miserably, but what a way to go. Another really cool thing we do during camps, which I kind of stole from Norwegian Cruise Line when we went to Norwegian Cruise Line, is our trash bag fashion show, and it really exemplifies what you can do with nothing. We give the kids a bunch of trash bags and crawl supplies and then we give them a theme. So your theme is, I don't know celebrity or it's advertising, or it's Disney or it's animal, and these kids come up with some of the weirdest things I've ever seen in my life and they make it like and we do like a little show at the end. So we have the freak free calcest be the judges and they're like oh, turn around. I really like it or I don't like it.
Speaker 1:I love it and it's just funny.
Speaker 2:America's got talent for our thing, yeah, but we've had people dress up like Mr Clean. Before they put a balloon on their head they had a toilet roll we had like in is the funniest thing ever. I'm sorry that is not related to your question.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I didn't want to share that.
Speaker 2:It is like an amazing thing to do and it's so cheap as well. Like you're just using forks, knives, balloons, trash bags. Like no one can tell me that's costing much money to do such a cool hour long program.
Speaker 1:The invitation's for creativity.
Speaker 2:Great praise, great praise. Sorry, I'm very long-waited. Sometimes I ramble so I apologize if I've ever been like that?
Speaker 1:Oh no, trust me, this is amazing the more you talk, the less I have to.
Speaker 2:And that's really just good for everybody. If you haven't done any birthday parties yourself growing up I know you do magic Did you have to do that?
Speaker 1:No, I never really got into the birthday party, like so I was like a really weird introvert and had a horrible stutter, so magic just kind of helped me get out of my shell, oh wow. And then kids made me nervous so I never really did kid shows, pretty much just did a.
Speaker 2:They can be brutal, they can be real real, yeah, yeah, no thanks. I remember on Disney we used to do a little interaction with Crush. He's a turtle right From Finding Nemons, so he comes on the screen and talks to you. I think they have it at Disney World as well. You can go do it at Disney World On the ships, we do it. And then you ask the kids questions for the turtle. He's like yeah, bro, I'm the loveless, whatever it is. But the kids would say sometimes to be like hey, we eat turtles. Oh, like these kids, they are brutal in terms of their questions.
Speaker 1:Especially when you get them away from their parents and around like other kid energy.
Speaker 2:That's your two guys. They can just say what they want. It's like when.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like when you get adults at the club after a few drinks. It's like the same thing you give kids some sugar and put them around other kids. Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely so. So that's pretty cool yeah. So and then I'm just interested now, let's just say there is in club Olympics, there's a Okay, there's a country club youth Olympics. What would your club win Golden? What would Northridge win it?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean.
Speaker 1:So it's, all.
Speaker 2:It depends what the Olympics was.
Speaker 1:So it's just all of your kids.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh.
Speaker 1:There's another camp's youths, youths.
Speaker 2:Against another camp's youth Soccer. Okay, soccer is. It makes me proud because I'm British and when I first went to Disney I worked. You work in different age groups. I worked with the teams and I try and play FIFA with the kids. They weren't interested at all but by the time I left six years later they were all into soccer and I brought it here and people were like, ah, there's some kids, but now that's all they want to do. It's my favorite thing to do personally is play me versus all the kids. I have like 20 kids.
Speaker 1:They were 11 to 12.
Speaker 2:It's me versus the kids and I have to play my best because they beat me. Nowadays I'm like I know I'm getting old, but these kids are getting better. Yeah, but then there's also a point where I'm getting too competitive and my stuff. So, Elliot, calm down, stop kicking the ball too hard, Like okay.
Speaker 1:I'm just busting out kids' teeth.
Speaker 2:But soccer, I mean honestly that is a big sport for us. We haven't got a soccer pitch, we've bought two soccer goals and a lot of open land. It's such a great sport because anyone can do it. Even if they're not good, you can still be on the pitch and kick the ball a couple of times. I love it. I would say that Again, being British, but Nah, I appreciate it yeah man Dude, this was so good.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm very youth-centric. I definitely want to increase my horizons. I want to try and start doing adult events, but obviously we've got great people. I've already run those. Any value I can add to anyone, I'm always happy to help, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Hope you all enjoyed that episode. If you have not done so already, would really appreciate a rating, a subscribe. Send it to somebody who you think might appreciate it. Until next time.