At our club, we added 414 new members in 3 years, an astonishing recruitment success by any measure, but our established core of members grew by just 15. The club was getting stronger and weaker all at the same time.
The headline numbers were strong. Between 2023 and 2025, total membership increased by 39%, churn fell by five percentage points, and the replacement ratio tripled: we were recruiting almost three members for every one that left. The board was happy, and by every metric it reviewed, it had good reason to be.
But something didn't seem right. Even though churn had fallen by five percentage points, it was still too high, yet our member satisfaction survey showed that established members were happier than ever. I started looking at the data in more detail and found one striking figure: we had grown by 414 members, but the established core of the club had barely changed. In 2023, established members made up 67% of the membership. By 2025, it had reduced to 51%.
Two kinds of member
Established members are those who have been with the club for three years or more. After four years, the membership lifecycle data shows we lose just two or three of these members in every hundred annually: they have made the club a permanent part of their lives and rarely revisit that decision. They are the source of the club's most reliable revenue and its long-term financial stability. Our data showed they generated 56% more in fees and secondary spend than newer members.
Early-tenure members, those with us for two years or less, are a different population entirely. They are still deciding whether the club is right for them, and almost half will leave before making that decision. A club dominated by established members can withstand a poor recruitment year. A club dominated by early-tenure members cannot.
Same club, two years apart
Total membership grew 39%, but the established base barely moved
67%
51%
The issue was captured by three figures that each told the same story from a different angle. Total membership had increased from 435 to 605, but the established base had grown from just 292 to 307, a 5% increase against 39% overall growth. Early-tenure exposure had risen from 27% to 44%, meaning almost half the club was now concentrated at the stage where attrition is highest. And average member tenure had fallen from 9.1 years to 7.3 years, so the club's average member had been with us for nearly two fewer years than before the growth began. On the face of it the club looked stronger; underneath it was weaker and the risks were increasing.
This was not simply a timing effect: members recruited before 2023 should have been reaching the established stage over this period. Yet the core remained almost static.
When I plotted recruitment growth against early-tenure exposure year by year, the relationship was clear. The faster we recruited, the more the proportion of early-tenure members grew and the more the established base was diluted. Strong recruitment and increasing structural risk were not two separate trends pulling in different directions: they were the same trend moving together, and what we had built was not a pipeline of new members transitioning towards becoming established but a rapid accumulation of early-tenure exposure.
Despite recruiting 414 new members in three years, our established core had grown by only 15.
This changed the way I thought about membership entirely. I had assumed that because all members paid the same fees, all that mattered was managing the balance between joiners and leavers. The data told a different story. The long-term strength and sustainability of a club depends not on how many members it recruits, but on how many of those members eventually become established.
A growing membership and a strengthening membership are not the same thing.