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Club member surveys

Questions to ask club members, by club and by moment.

The questions to ask club members of sports, golf, private members’, social, community and health clubs: by type of club, by moment in a member’s year and by theme, ready to copy.

Then build a short survey of your own: twelve questions or fewer.

Ask members about the welcome, the fixtures, the clubhouse, the committee, value for money

Build your club survey →Copy questions by club type

Five moments to askone member, one year

  1. 01Joiningwhy they chose youWELCOME
  2. 02First seasondid the club keep its promiseSETTLE
  3. 03Mid-seasonfacilities, fixtures, peoplePULSE
  4. 04Renewalvalue, and will they stayRENEW
  5. 05Leavingthe one reasonEXIT

Each settwelve questions or fewer

82%
Club members likely to rejoin next season
Sport NZ Voice of Participant 2024–25, New Zealand ↗
75%
Rate their club good value for money
Sport NZ Voice of Participant 2024–25, New Zealand ↗
+44
Net Promoter Score across 12 club sports
Sport NZ Voice of Participant 2024–25 ↗
22.7%
Adults in England who volunteered in sport, 2024–25
Sport England Active Lives, official statistics ↗

01/ what members rate

Ask about the club, not only the facilities.

Members rate the people before the pitch. In Sport New Zealand’s Voice of Participant survey of 29,327 club members across 12 sports, clubs scored highest for being friendly and welcoming (76%) and safe (74%). Officials (57%) and help to improve (58%) scored lowest.

Research on why members stay points the same way. In two surveys of German sports club members (n = 1,238 and 975), feeling socially involved mattered more to staying than satisfaction with what the club offered. Among 1,395 members of 42 Swiss football clubs, 24.7% had thought of leaving where the team culture was more respectful, against 31.5% where it was less so (peer-reviewed).

So ask about belonging, fairness and the committee, as well as the courts, greens or gym floor.

Club members rating each part of club life highly

  • Friendly and welcoming76%
  • A safe environment74%
  • Encouraging fair play72%
  • Well-kept playing venues70%
  • Social environment69%
  • Quality of coaches67%
  • Information when needed63%
  • Helping fulfil potential58%
  • Quality officials57%
Sport NZ, Voice of Participant 2024–25 · national agency survey, New Zealand, 29,327 participants in 12 sports.

Questions to ask club members about belonging

“Do you have people at the club you regularly play, train or meet with?” · “How easy is it to get to know other members?” · “The committee listens to members’ suggestions.” More by theme.

Club members likely to rejoin next season (Sport NZ 2024–25)

Very or extremely satisfied overall (Sport NZ 2024–25)

New Zealand club sport; children’s answers mostly given by parents.

02/ club survey questions

Questions to ask club members, by type of club.

Every club shares two questions; the rest depend on what the club is for. Pick a tab, tap to add, then copy.

The Lawn Tennis Association’s membership survey guide calls two questions “golden”, to ask at every opportunity: how likely members are to recommend the club, and how likely they are to still be a member in two years. Both are already in the tray. Where the second scores below 7, the LTA suggests asking why.

Then add only what the committee will act on this year. A golf club asks about the course and the tee sheet; a private members’ club about the house and who else joins; a health club about classes and busy times. For questions by association topic, see membership survey questions.

Every club · tap to add or remove

2 questions in your club survey

Areas covered: 1 of 7 · Every club

  1. How likely is it that you would recommend [club] to friends, family or colleagues?
  2. How likely is it that you will still be a member of [club] in two years?

The two golden questions are from the LTA’s membership survey guide; the recommend question scores 0–10 to match Bain’s NPS definition. The rest are ours, written for each kind of club. Replace [club] with your club’s name.

Governing bodies publish templates too: England Athletics has a club member experience survey, and Sport England’s Club Matters built a club survey tool, Club Views. More on private members’ clubs and club marketing.

03/ by moment

Joining, first season, renewal: ask at the moment.

The questions to ask club members change with the moment. One annual survey asks everyone everything; a survey at each moment asks the right people what only they can answer.

Sport New Zealand runs its club member experience survey twice a year, once for summer sport and once for winter sport. The LTA suggests the end of the season for a full survey, when members have used the facilities most, and says one part of the club per survey is fine.

Leavers are the hardest to reach and the most useful. Ask them soon, and ask one thing first: the main reason. The first 90 days are covered on member onboarding.

Club survey questions by moment

Joining · why they chose the club

Who
Members who joined this month
When
A few weeks after joining
Length
5 questions

Timings and lengths are our suggestions. Go deeper on new member surveys, satisfaction surveys and exit surveys.

04/ by theme

Seven themes every club survey can cover.

Most club surveys cover the same seven themes. Pick the two or three the committee has a decision to make on this year, and leave the rest for next season.

Ask value against use, not the fee alone. In Sport NZ’s survey, 76% of parents answering for children rated their club good value, against 70% of teenagers and adults. For a UK Community Amateur Sports Club, cost is also a condition: HMRC’s CASC guidance rules out fees over £1,612 a year, and costs over £520 need provision for those who cannot pay more (UK tax rule).

Name the committee. England Golf said the effectiveness of the board or committee, and how open it is to members’ suggestions, stood out in more than 70,000 golf member survey responses since 2021 (Golf Business News, 2023; trade press quoting England Golf).

Facilities

Statements to agree or disagree with, after the LTA’s sample.

  • All in all, I am satisfied with the club’s playing facilities.
  • The facilities are available when I want to use them.
  • The changing rooms, showers and toilets are satisfactory.
  • Getting to and around the clubhouse is easy for everyone.

05/ build your club survey

Build a club survey in twelve questions or fewer.

Pick your club and the decision the survey is for. You get the two golden questions, the goal’s questions, two for your kind of club and one open question.

Twelve is our ceiling, not a research finding. The evidence only says shorter is better: in Galesič and Bošnjak’s experiment, the longer a web survey said it would take, the fewer people started and finished it.

1 · Your club

2 · What the survey is for

11questions · our ceiling is 12
1open question
10closed questions
Who
All members over 16; parents for juniors
When
End of the season
  1. How likely is it that you would recommend the club to friends, family or colleagues? NPS 0–10
  2. How likely is it that you will still be a member of the club in two years? Scale
  3. Overall, how satisfied are you with your experience of the club? Scale
  4. How satisfied are you with the facilities? Scale
  5. How satisfied are you with the fixtures, competitions or programme? Scale
  6. How easy is it to get to know other members? Scale
  7. How well is the club run? Scale
  8. Is your membership good value for what you use? Scale
  9. How satisfied are you with the coaching you, or your children, receive? Scale
  10. How fairly is team selection handled? Scale
  11. Is there anything else you would like the committee to know? Open

Order: golden questions · annual health check · sports club · one open question to close.

Our selection, not a benchmark. The two golden questions are the LTA’s; twelve is our ceiling. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

06/ length, scales, anonymity

Short, consistent, and honest about anonymity.

Length. Answers late in a long survey are faster, shorter and more uniform than early ones (Galesič and Bošnjak, 2009, peer-reviewed). The LTA advises timing yourself before you send, and treats 15–20 minutes as the outer limit; most club surveys need far less.

Scales. Pick one and keep it. The LTA recommends 1–5 or 1–10 satisfaction scales used consistently, or agree–disagree statements. Score the recommend question 0–10, as Bain’s NPS does. Add one open question: in a Pew Research Center test, 58% chose “the economy” from a list, but only 35% named it unprompted.

Anonymity. Say exactly what it means. A survey linked to a membership number is not anonymous: the ICO says pseudonymised data is still personal data under UK GDPR. In a small club, a section and an age band can name someone, so report small groups together.

Is your club survey ready to send?

  1. 01Have you timed yourself completing it?

  2. 02Does every rating question use the same scale?

  3. 03Is the recommend question scored 0–10?

  4. 04Will the committee act on every question’s answer?

  5. 05Does the invitation say who will see named answers?

  6. 06Have you said when members will hear the results?

Answer the 6 questions to see where you stand.

Checks drawn from the LTA guide, Bain, the ICO and Club Matters. Not legal advice.

07/ getting answers

Get members to answer, then see who did not.

Tell members it is coming, keep the invitation short, and give a small reason to reply. A Cochrane review of 758 studies found that for web questionnaires a brief invitation, a picture in the email, incentives, a more interesting topic and a shorter questionnaire each raised the odds of a response. The LTA adds posters, booking-system prompts and a member who champions the survey.

Published club response rates are guidance, not benchmarks. The LTA’s guide puts internal surveys at 30–40% without citing a study; the supplier England Golf works with, Players 1st, reported 58% for its golf member survey (Golf Business News, 2023; supplier figure).

Then check who is missing. In Sport NZ’s 2016–2023 report, disabled participants were less satisfied (61% very or extremely satisfied, against 68%) and 19–34 year olds least of all (62%). Club Matters suggests asking parents and carers, or asking under-16s with their consent.

What raised the odds of a web survey response (odds ratio)

  • Brief invitation, not a long one3.26×
  • A picture in the email3.05×
  • Monetary incentive1.88×
  • A more interesting topic1.85×
  • Non-monetary incentive1.60×
  • Shorter questionnaire1.51×
Cochrane methodology review, 2023 · 88 trials of electronic questionnaires; pooled odds ratios, 1 = no effect. Mostly research settings, not clubs.
30–40%Internal survey response, LTA guidance
58%Golf member survey response, supplier-reported
7 ptsSatisfaction gap, disabled vs non-disabled members

LTA guide (no study cited) · Golf Business News (Players 1st) · Sport NZ 2016–2023 (61% vs 68%).

08/ volunteering

Ask who will help before the committee burns out.

Most clubs run on volunteers, and there are fewer of them than there were. A survey is the easiest place to ask.

Sport England’s Active Lives survey counts 10.9 million adults in England (22.7%) who volunteered to support sport and physical activity in the year to November 2025: 399,000 more than the year before, but 1.3 million fewer than in 2016–17. Men make up 62% of weekly volunteers (Sport England, 2026).

Ask who will help, in what, and for how long. A UK community amateur sports club can suggest volunteering but never make it a condition of membership (HMRC, 2.3.11). Then ask volunteers too: among 441 volunteers in 45 Swiss sports clubs, a sense of solidarity with the club kept people volunteering more strongly than satisfaction with the role. Roles and recognition are on volunteer engagement.

−21%−32%+33%+12%+3.7%+1.8%2016–172019–202020–212021–222022–232023–242024–25
  1. 2016–17 27.1%
  2. 2019–20 21.3%
  3. 2020–21 14.4%Pandemic
  4. 2021–22 19.2%
  5. 2022–23 21.5%
  6. 2023–24 22.3%
  7. 2024–25 22.7%
Sport England, Active Lives Adult Survey November 2024–25 · official statistics, England, adults 16+. Selected years: 2017–18 and 2018–19 are in the report but not shown here.

Adults who did each volunteering role, England, 2024–25

  • Organised fundraising for sport9.7%
  • Provided transport6.8%
  • Coached or instructed6.3%
  • Provided any other help5.6%
  • Admin or committee role5.3%
  • Stewarded or marshalled3.5%
  • Refereed, umpired or officiated3.0%
Sport England, Active Lives Adult Survey November 2024–25 · official statistics, adults 16+; every role is lower than in 2016–17.

09/ acting on results

You said, we did: close the loop.

Members judge a survey by what happens next. Club Matters advises recording, analysing and sharing the outcomes, thanking people, and telling them what you intend to change.

Follow the survey with conversations. A governance guide for golf clubs suggests broad surveys first, then informal interviews with a handful of members to learn why they answered as they did. It reports that 20,000+ golfers in a Scottish Golf survey ranked club management second only to the course.

Ask the same golden questions every year. Of 17 sports in Sport NZ’s survey more than once, 13 raised overall satisfaction; the average rose from 62.2% to 65.5% very or extremely satisfied.

  1. 01 · Read

    Sort answers by theme and by group

    Juniors, new members and sections separately, so a loud group does not speak for everyone.

  2. 02 · Pick

    Choose three changes for this season

    Ones the committee can deliver and members will notice.

  3. 03 · Say

    Publish “you said, we did”

    Noticeboard, newsletter and AGM: what you heard, what changes, what does not and why.

  4. 04 · Ask why

    Talk to a handful of members

    Short conversations explain the scores the survey could not.

  5. 05 · Repeat

    Same golden questions next season

    Compare like with like, by group, not just the total.

How well does your club act on feedback? · 0/4 answered

  1. 01After the last survey, did members hear the results?

  2. 02Did the committee name changes it would make?

  3. 03Do you ask the same core questions each year?

  4. 04Do you read results by group (juniors, new members, sections)?

Answer all 4 to see your result.

Our scoring, not a benchmark. Nothing you pick leaves your browser.

10/ questions

Club survey questions: FAQs.

Start with two the LTA calls “golden”: how likely members are to recommend the club, and how likely they are to still be a member in two years. Then add a few on the themes your committee has a decision to make on: facilities, programme and fixtures, social life, value for money, the committee, volunteering and communication. Finish with one open question. Keep it to questions someone will act on.

The Lawn Tennis Association’s membership survey guide names two: “How likely is it that you would recommend [club] to friends, family or colleagues?” and “How likely is it that you will still be a member of [club] in two years?” It recommends asking both at every opportunity, and asking why when the second scores below 7. The first is the Net Promoter question, which Bain scores 0–10.

As few as answer the committee’s question. The evidence says shorter is better rather than giving a number: in a web survey experiment, the longer the stated length, the fewer people started and finished, and later answers were faster, shorter and more uniform. The LTA treats 15–20 minutes as the outer limit. Our own ceiling is twelve questions.

For a full survey, the end of the season, when members have used the facilities most (LTA). Shorter surveys fit moments: a few weeks after joining, at the end of a first season, before renewal notices and soon after someone leaves. Sport New Zealand runs its club member survey twice a year, for summer and winter sport.

It can be, but say exactly what that means. If answers are linked to a membership number or email, they are not anonymous: the ICO says pseudonymised data is still personal data under UK GDPR. In a small club, a section and an age band can identify someone, so report small groups together and tell members who sees named answers.

There is no reliable benchmark. The LTA’s guide puts internal surveys at 30–40% but cites no study, and Players 1st, the supplier England Golf works with, reported 58% for its golf member survey (Golf Business News, 2023). Compare your own rate year on year, and check which groups did not reply.

Tell members it is coming, keep the invitation brief and personal, and offer a small incentive such as a prize draw. A Cochrane review found a brief invitation, a picture in the email, incentives and a shorter questionnaire all raised the odds of a web survey response. Promote it at the club too: noticeboards, the bar, the booking system and a member who champions it.

The golden questions, then the course through the year, tee-time availability, the competition programme, the welcome for new and higher-handicap members, the clubhouse and catering, and the committee. England Golf said the effectiveness of the board or committee, and how open it is to suggestions, stood out in more than 70,000 member survey responses (Golf Business News, 2023).

Whether the membership reflects the people they joined to meet, the dining room, bar and house rooms, how easy it is to book, how the guest rules work, which events would bring them in more often, and how the club compares on value with other places they spend time. Ask about house rules and culture with an open question. More on private members’ clubs.

Sort answers by theme and by group, choose three changes the committee can make this season, and publish a “you said, we did”. Club Matters advises sharing outcomes, thanking people and telling them what will change. Follow up with short conversations, and ask the same golden questions next year so you can compare.

15 minutes · video or phone

Book 15 minutes on your club survey.

Book 15 minutes to look at what your committee needs to decide, and the shortest survey that answers it.

  1. 0115 minutes, video or phone
  2. 02Your questions, read back
  3. 03Who to ask, and when
  4. 04A plain next step
Prefer email? hello@membership.quest →

Pick a day that suits · live availability

Book 15 minutes · no obligation

Ask fewer questions, and act on every answer.

The two golden questions, a few on what the committee will decide, and a “you said, we did” members can see.

Book a call →Build your survey first

11/ related

Keep exploring

/membership-survey-questions

Membership survey questions

The full question bank, by category.

/member-surveys

Membership surveys

Which survey to run, and when.

/new-member-survey

New member survey

The first weeks, asked well.

/member-satisfaction-survey

Member satisfaction survey

The annual survey, in depth.

/member-exit-survey

Member exit survey

Why members leave, and the one reason.

/volunteer-engagement

Volunteer engagement

Roles, recruitment and recognition.

12/ sources

Every claim, and where it came from

Every source was read on 8 October 2026. Country, supplier and practitioner sources are labelled.

  1. Lawn Tennis Association — A self-service guide to membership surveys (October 2020) — golden questions, timing, scales, response ratesGoverning body guidance, UK
  2. Sport New Zealand — Voice of participant 2024–2025 — 29,327 participants, 12 sports; satisfaction, rejoin, value, NPSNational agency survey, New Zealand
  3. Sport New Zealand — Voice of Participant Report 2016–2023 — change over time; satisfaction by groupNational agency survey, New Zealand
  4. Sport New Zealand — Club member experience survey — runs twice a yearNational agency guidance, New Zealand
  5. Sport England — Active Lives Adult Survey November 2024–25 Report — volunteering series and rolesOfficial statistics, England
  6. Sport England — An intentional approach to volunteering (June 2026) — men 62% of weekly volunteersGovernment agency commentary, England
  7. Sport England — Sports clubs get helping hand: Club Matters launches (March 2015) — Club Views survey toolGovernment agency, England, dated
  8. Sport England Club Matters (copy hosted by CPGA) — Understanding your people (June 2020) — consulting members, sharing outcomesProgramme guidance, England, dated
  9. Golf Business News — England Golf and Players 1st continue to empower clubs through member insights (June 2023)Trade press; supplier figure
  10. England Golf with industry partners (copy hosted by BIGGA) — A Governance Guide for Golf Clubs, version 2.0 — member surveys and interviewsGoverning body guidance, UK
  11. England Athletics — Gathering member feedback — club guide and member experience survey templateGoverning body guidance, England
  12. HM Revenue & Customs — Community Amateur Sports Clubs: detailed guidance notes (updated May 2026) — 2.3.11, 2.5Tax authority guidance, UK
  13. Nagel, Sport und Gesellschaft — Commitment of members in sport clubs (2006)Peer-reviewed, Germany
  14. Schlesinger, Egli and Nagel, European Sport Management Quarterly — “Continue or terminate?” Determinants of long-term volunteering in sports clubs (2013)Peer-reviewed, Switzerland
  15. Buser, Schlesinger and Nagel, German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research — Which context matters? Member commitment in voluntary sports clubs (2024)Peer-reviewed, Switzerland
  16. Galešić and Bošnjak, Public Opinion Quarterly — Effects of questionnaire length on participation and response quality in a web survey (2009)Peer-reviewed
  17. Cochrane — How can response to postal or web questionnaires be increased? (2023)Systematic review
  18. Pew Research Center — Writing survey questions — open and closed questionsResearch organisation guidance, US
  19. Bain & Company — Measuring your Net Promoter ScorePublisher’s definition
  20. Information Commissioner’s Office — Pseudonymisation — pseudonymised data is personal dataRegulator guidance, UK