Thread: Teaching at a Rec Center?

Rec centers aren't as popular or as organized in Philly as they are in some cities, and I seem to read about people who teach at rec centers on bhuz, so I'm hoping for some advice or info on how it works in your city.

My local rec center (only three blocks away!) was recently remodeled and will be opening in mid April. They are interested in having a yoga class and me teach belly dance (yay!), but the guys who run the center have only ever dealt with sports teams who use the adjacent fields. No other rec centers in Philly offer belly dance, or any kind of dance or yoga - it is much more focused on sports.

According to them, I have to do all promotion - make up flyers, post them, and network with area listservs, area people, etc.

They also seemed out of it when I asked about how to register. They pretty much said people just need to bring a check made out to the rec center - no taking names, addresses, etc - it seems weird to me to not take anything but their money. (Maybe I should do my own registration form for my records?)

Finally, they want to withhold 20% of each student's fee for the rec center - so 80% to me, 20% to the center - that seems fine to me, I just wanted to check if that was standard for rec centers and make sure it wasn't too much.

Thanks in advance!

Congrats on the new gig! I would definitely do your own separate registration so you can collect names/addresses/email, etc. I mean, what if you had to cancel a class? How would you let people know? Not to mention, you'll want to keep in contact with them so they'll keep coming back to class.

I wouldn't rely on them to do any marketing for you, even if they say they will. You know your class and your market best. If they know nothing about the dance, how will they know how to market it effectively?

As for prices, I haven't taught at a rec center in eons...but 80/20 sounds fair to me, as long as you're not paying rent or anything on top of that.

Good luck!
Mira

I think it sounds like a smokin' deal. A lot of our rec centers in Vegas pay a low hourly rate for classes. They also do one heck of a lot of marketing and mail out catalogues to the community every quarter too...so I suppose that's the trade-off.

80/20 is a great split. At the community center where I teach, my split is 70/30 (and for all new instructors after january of 07 it is 60/40) -- so consider it a good deal.

There are 6 rec centers in this area -- a YW and a YM, a local community center (non-profit org), and two Parks & Rec (one for West Lafayette -- where I teach and one for Lafayette) and a new church-based community center on the outskirts of town. The WLaf center has a wonderful line up -- art classes, exercise classes of all types, martial arts of many varieties, dance of all types, sports, our local senior citizens group, writing classes, pottery classes, bridge clubs, quilting clubs -- you name it! :-) The Lafayette center is more as you describe -- almost totally sports oriented. While my belly dance classes at the WLaf center have thrived, every time I've tried to introduce BD into the Lafayette center there has been little interest.

My community center does all the registration and provides me with a roster of all who sign up, including names, addresses, e-mail and phone (also, usually age!). What a joy!! All I have to do is check the rosters the first couple of weeks of class to make sure that no one is just monitoring the class without paying for it. At the end of each session, I get a check in the mail with my split, along with a breakdown of how much was taken in and how much the center got and how much I got. Makes my life a lot easier. My classes are also included in their brochures published 3x a year (fall/spring/summer semesters). However, I still make up tri-folds, posters, put a press release in papers, etc. in order to maximize publicity for the classes.

Maybe you can talk to the office staff at the rec center to see how they handle registration for teams or for sports how-to classes, for exercise classes or special group events. Point out to them that having a computerized list of all people who participate in their programs gives them a great opportunity to publicize new classes, teams and events. If you can make them see how THEY will benefit, you might be able to talk them into modernizing their registration system in a way that will also benefit you!

dont pay rent on top of them taking the 20 percent and be certain you know up front how much you will be able to charge. Many centers have very low prices for classes and 80 percent sounds good until its 80 percent of $4.00 a student. Also, will they allow you to use their paper and copier? Maybe you could make a simple flyer or hand out and use their stuff to keep your costs low.

One of my rec centers offered me an 80/20 split if I did all my own administrative stuff - registration, collecting fees, etc. So I think it's a fair split, and of course gives you a lot of control. This sounds like a great venue, especially with the lack of competition. As Patricia mentioned, though, make sure you're able to set your own registration cost, and I would add minimum # of students to run the class.

Personally, I hate dealing with registration and payment (drives me nuts for the few privates/semi-privates I teach), so I asked them if they would handle all that for me for a 30% share as opposed to 20%, and they were happy to do so. But if you don't mind doing it, it's more $$$$ for you.

Reading the thread on advertising in the Yellow Pages (in "The Rest"), I thought of another perk to teaching in a Rec Center, and something you might want to check out where you'll be teaching: ASCAP licensing. My Rec Center carries it for all their dance/exercise classes, not the individual instructors. One more thing I don't have to deal with for my classes!

Don't forget the right to cancel a session. You need to decide what the acceptable minimum hourly rate is and calculate how many students it would take to reach this given the class fee and the split. I work at two rec centers, but I am paid hourly. Based on this, each center needs to have six students enrolled for the session to go or else they lose too much money. Make sure that you can cancel the session if, say, only two people enroll.

Sounds awesome to me. I currently teach at a rec center. I love it, the facility is beautiful, they do all of my marketing and promotion, but the pay is low. It is only a mile from my house, and my family and I practically live there (my kids are registered in almost every class! LOL!). My advice to you is: Market the heck outta yourself - on the internet, through free online business services such as yahoo directory and such, make lots of flyers and pass them around to everyone, keep index cards and have each student fill out all of their contact info on their first class. Make sure to create an email list and send them out info on where to see you dance, upcoming events and shows and of course your upcoming classes. I wish my rec center paid that well. Congrats and have a blast!

Hmmm.... A big reason for the center to do registration is for the students to sign a liability waiver. You should have a chat with them about that.

How are they promoting the sports programs? Is it word of mouth? They should at least provide you the same kind of promotion.

80/20 is good. I'm currently doing 75/25, but my center does promotion, registration, etc all I have to do is teach.