As we start to use our Club Locker booking system we are getting more and more data around the makeup of our community. And we *love* the diversity. Here are some excerpts:
A Diverse Set of Skills
There are as many beginners as there are experts. We have about 20 people who have “never ever” and it’s a smooth run up from there to the highest rating with a couple of “regular members” who are over 6.0 (that’s good enough to be ranked in the top 250 in the world).
A Sport for All Ages
Much like the ratings, the age of our membership shows the same smooth scale running from under 10s to over 80 years old! So no matter your age, you’ll feel welcome at The Manhattan Community Squash Center. If you look closely we are slightly under-represented at the university age group – many schools have their own courts – but the numbers flatten out again right after graduation encouraged by our “recent grad” discount.
Women
Historically, women are under-represented in squash, but at The Manhattan Community Squash Center we already have sixty women who have signed up and more are joining every day.
Economic and Ethnic Diversity
We are not capturing people’s ethnicity, but a quick look at our list of names that include Drew and Nieve alongside Yann and Virajj, and family names that range from to Cho to Rodriguez and Weisburger to Xu looks like we appear to be capturing the kaleidoscope that is New York City. We have more information on economic diversity as we give economic discounts. Over 20% of our membership currently enjoy a discount – which is an indicator that we are indeed expanding access to squash.
Diversity of Membership Types
When we planned our pricing structure we wanted to make sure that everyone would be able to get a court when they wanted to. And so we priced “off-peak” pricing significantly below all other membership types. This has proved an incredibly successful tactic. With five courts, we can probably support about 250-275 peak members. We are already at 257 members, but of these, 147 – nearly 60% are “off-peak”. In other words we only have 110 prime-time members so those who really really want to play at 5:45pm or 6:30pm right after work are going to be able to get their courts.
Thank you all for all your support – we are only a few short weeks from being able to open up to our full operating hours. We could not be more grateful to everyone for your understanding of our delays and your enthusiasm for our endeavor.
Now get back on court to burn off all those calories you consumed on Thanksgiving and remember, don’t boast – always keep it deep.