rvbowler:

 sfurst,

Just curious, did you talk to anyone in association relations? If so what did they suggest?

I talked with a very nice lady in Association relations this morning, and she said that bascially I have to send written notice that our center is closing down, and that we have no other options to move the assocation to at this time.  She said we would then go on an 'inactive' status for one year.  At the end of that year, we would then be considered a closed association if we do not have a new center by that time.  She also said that the details of our situation can be evaluated as well (i.e. if the place is being remodeled in hopes of having active leagues in a given period of time, even though that period might extend beyond the year that we are inactive)

I'm going to go talk to the proprietor of our current center and also the gentleman from Walnut Ridge that is possibly interested in our center, before I send anything to official to USBC.  I told her I would know something definite soon. 

 What a predicament...I guess I had better start shopping for a new house to bowl in

 sfurst,

At least you will have some time to hopefully keep or reopen the center without loosing your association status. I wouldn't file anything with USBC until the center is officially closed if it does. That will at least buy you a little more time. Good luck.

sfurst, flying blind while knowing nothing at all about the population base, the number of lanes and number of active bowlers, and lots of other stuff needed to know whether or not what I am going to suggest has any hope at all of being acted on but will fire away anyway.

Years ago a good friend of mine had very little money but lots of ambition and wanted to purchase a 40 lane center no less.  Well, what he did was sell $1,000 shares to raise the necessary upfront money and within a year was able to buy out the shareholders and give them a little profit.

If there is real interest in keeping the center going you might find someone looking for a full time job to manage the bowling center, form  a corporation and sell shares to the men and women who want to continue bowling.  You might be able to sell shares to the home town companies that do business in the center, especially if there is an opportunity to increase that business if promoted well.  Rather than lease, buy the center and property it sits on outright if the cost is realistic; turn it into a community center owned by the community.

Don Gates

prunenow:

sfurst, flying blind while knowing nothing at all about the population base, the number of lanes and number of active bowlers, and lots of other stuff needed to know whether or not what I am going to suggest has any hope at all of being acted on but will fire away anyway.

 

Years ago a good friend of mine had very little money but lots of ambition and wanted to purchase a 40 lane center no less.  Well, what he did was sell $1,000 shares to raise the necessary upfront money and within a year was able to buy out the shareholders and give them a little profit.

 

If there is real interest in keeping the center going you might find someone looking for a full time job to manage the bowling center, form  a corporation and sell shares to the men and women who want to continue bowling.  You might be able to sell shares to the home town companies that do business in the center, especially if there is an opportunity to increase that business if promoted well.  Rather than lease, buy the center and property it sits on outright if the cost is realistic; turn it into a community center owned by the community.

 

Don Gates

 Don,

 Very sound idea and thanks for the input.

 I ventured into talks with the owner of the center, and found her less than open to an option of selling.  Had I been able to get to a point where she was willing to negotiate any price, I would have approached with an idea much like yours. 

The sad thing is, the center could thrive, if there was someone who would own/lease it that actually cared about making the proper improvements.  It's the only source of true recreation in the town of 10,000 and there are several small communities surrounding Newport that currently send a number of bowlers.  League size has dropped off in the last several years not so much because of decline of interest, but b/c the current owner did not want to put the proper maintenence into the house to keep it a nice shot.  So, over time, lanes have broke down, and true bowlers have migrated to other associations.  Since becoming the association manager, I have tried to talk with her about making improvements, selling me the house, etc. and have gotten no where.  Even the lease she wants is outrageous for the condition the house is in.

I've researched through companies an idea of what it would cost to improve the lanes, put automatic scoring, etc. in and brought these figures to the owner only to see her toss the figures aside and not give them a second look.  It's one of those unfortunate situations where you would like to make a difference, but really don't have the ear of the person you need to make it happen.

sfurst:

Mightyfish,

Batesville and Walnut Ridge or Searcy are probably very close to the same distance, and all of them are smaller houses (12 or less lanes) and have leagues pretty much every night right now as it is.

 Also, I replied to your email.  It's always nice to hear of someone out there from our little spot on the map :)

Dear sfurst:

Thanks for your e-mail reply. Actually, although my wife was born in Newport, I've never actually been there, although we visit your area (to see my wife's father, who lives near Cave City) at least once a year.

Prior to the next time we visit the Batesville-Cave City area, I'll contact you, and perhaps we can drive over to Newport and have lunch or dinner with you.

Continued good luck in your attempts to revive bowling in your community. 

sfurst,  the friend I posted about was able to pay off his investors so soon because he was able to get a bank loan to payoff the family that had held the paper and the investors, later convince Brunswick to finance a huge remodeling of the center when he turned the not doing so good center into a money maker.

If you do some more research and  convince Brunswick your area can support a new center of x number of lanes supported by the community you might consider doing  that instead, with Brunswick doing the financing for you..  If you get it all going and the lady who is hard to deal with might change her tune and as it gets closer to being a done deal you might get an offer from her you can't resis or not nearly as good as what Brunswick can offer for a brand new center.  If there are options in place the lady playing hard ball might just become more prone to listening to offers than when she owns all the balls, bats, gloves and field to play on.

If all new stuff is just too expensive I believe Brunswick also has access to lots of good used equipment from centers they may have foreclosed on.

Don Gates

MightyFish:

sfurst:

Mightyfish,

Batesville and Walnut Ridge or Searcy are probably very close to the same distance, and all of them are smaller houses (12 or less lanes) and have leagues pretty much every night right now as it is.

 Also, I replied to your email.  It's always nice to hear of someone out there from our little spot on the map :)

Dear sfurst:

Thanks for your e-mail reply. Actually, although my wife was born in Newport, I've never actually been there, although we visit your area (to see my wife's father, who lives near Cave City) at least once a year.

Prior to the next time we visit the Batesville-Cave City area, I'll contact you, and perhaps we can drive over to Newport and have lunch or dinner with you.

Continued good luck in your attempts to revive bowling in your community. 

 Sounds like a plan...we travel up to Cave City during the summer several times just to get the watermelons...as I'm sure you hear from everyone there, are the best ones in the state and maybe the surrounding states as well!

Thanks to everyone for their advice/opinions.  I'll keep everyone informed as to what actions our association, and myself, take with this center.  Hopefully it will be good news!

Well, here we are, a month later.  I've been in conversation with the gentlemen who has said he is taking over the lease on our house.  His bio is that he already runs 3 other centers in Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri.  He had told me that once he received the lease and made sure it didn't have any surprises, he would contact me so we could get together and discuss our assocation.  I faxed him a list of our bowlers from last season and I know he made an effort to call every single one of them individually to let them know what was going on and what his plans were (I'm judging that by the amount of phone calls I received from our members).

That was two weeks ago and I've not heard anything back from him.  I've tried contacting him a couple of time and had no luck.  I fear that there was something in the lease he didn't like (knowing the owners, I wouldn't be surprised).

 I've started a couple leagues in other houses around the area, and still hope to get something in our association.  I've also not thrown out the idea that if he doesn't agree to the lease, I may look into again myself now that the owner has sat on the empty building for several months.

Dear sfurst:

Thanks for the private e-mail, and I'll respond to it ASAP.