Private Club Radio Show
Welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, the industry's weekly source for education, news, trends, and other current developments in the world of private clubs.
Hosted by the talented entertainer and industry expert, Denny Corby,
the podcast offers a unique perspective on the private club industry, featuring expert guests, product spotlights, predictions, and more.
Whether you're involved in a golf club management, yacht clubs, athletic clubs, or business clubs, the Private Club Radio Show is the essential podcast for
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Private Club Radio Show
428: Building Year-Round Engagement in Seasonal Clubs w/ Hannah Bradford Cedar Creek Club
Some clubs operate year-round. Others?
They pack a full year’s worth of hospitality into just six months—and that’s exactly what happens at Cedar Creek Club, where Hannah Bradford helps lead the charge.
Hannah didn’t take the traditional path into private clubs. With a background in sports science and hospitality, she found herself in membership services before taking a leap to join one of the most fast-paced, seasonal clubs in the industry. Cedar Creek isn’t just a club—it’s a tight-knit, summer camp-style community where members return year after year, expecting nothing less than perfection.
We dive into:
*How she transitioned into private clubs and what drew her to Cedar Creek.
*The unique challenges of running a seasonal club with a short, high-energy window.
*Keeping members engaged even when the club is closed for half the year.
*Why Cedar Creek feels more like “adult summer camp” than a traditional private club.
*What she’s learned about leadership, team culture, and making every moment count.
Hannah brings enthusiasm, adaptability, and a true passion for hospitality, and this conversation is full of insights on seasonal operations, member engagement, and career growth in private clubs.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs From mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light. Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show. In this episode, I am chatting with Hannah Bradford, who is the membership director at the Cedar Creek Club in North Carolina. Some clubs have a steady year-round rhythm, while others they go from zero to full throttle overnight, packing a year's worth of hospitality into just a few months. And that's exactly how Cedar Creek Club operates, and Hannah Bradford is right in the middle of it. She went from studying sports science to working at the front desk at a resort and then landed in private clubs almost by accident, but now she's leading one of the most tight-knit, fast-paced and unique clubs out there.
Speaker 1:At Cedar Creek, the season is just about six months long, with only about six weeks of true peak chaos. Six months long with only about six weeks of true peak chaos. It's nonstop programming, high energy, hospitality and an atmosphere that feels more like an adult summer camp than a traditional club, and in this episode we get into how she took the career leap to land at Cedar Creek. We talk about what it's like being at a very high functioning seasonal club what works, what doesn't and what makes it special, how they keep members engaged when the club is closed for half the year, and the summer camp mindset that makes Cedar Creek feel different from other clubs out there. This is a really great episode. Cannot wait for you to dive in Before we do quick. Thanks to some of our show partners You're going to hear about them a little bit more.
Speaker 1:In the episode. We have our friends Kenneth's member vetting, concert golf partners, members first and myself, the Denny Corby experience. So there's excitement, there's mystery. Also there's magic. If you are looking for one of the most fun member event nights, your club can have head on over to dennycorbycom. But enough about that, let's get to the episode. Private Club Radio listeners. Let's welcome Hannah Bradford. Now, how did you get into clubs? Because you were in hotels first, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, it was kind of a. It was an interesting ride. I went to college for like a semester and a half for sports and exercise science and then I was like I'm not going to be a physical therapist, I'm not going to med school, like I don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to touch these sweaty people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I didn't, I don't know. I mean it sounded interesting at the time and then I was like who really knows? And I was working in restaurants and I enjoyed it. Like I enjoyed hospitality and I was waiting tables and you know it wasn't a bad gig for an 18, 19 year old. You know, the hours are pretty decent and the pay was fine, and so I just kind of kept doing that. And then I landed a job.
Speaker 2:I moved up to Asheville, north Carolina, just because I thought I would like the mountains, and I got a job at the Grote Park Inn at the front desk and they had kind of a rec center there with like golf and sports and that had a membership and so I ended up there was a job opening in that department seemed interesting and so, um, I I took that and started getting into more of like the membership side of things.
Speaker 2:Um, and then I was there for a while, like four years, um, and then you know, I wanted to. There wasn't a lot like it wasn't really, it was a. It was a resort first and then club second, so there wasn't like a ton for you to do within membership there. And then I found like a job opening up in Northern Virginia for a member experience director position, which is sort of how I really got into the club world. So there I was doing like member events, sort of membership, member relations, that kind of thing, and I really loved it. But I did miss the mountains and so about two years in I like packed up my bags and moved back and didn't have a job and just kind of like I got to get out of northern Virginia and it just worked out that there was an opening at Cedar Creek Club like right at the same time, and so it was definitely like one of the riskier things that I've done and my family wasn't like super stoked that I was just like throwing away my job and moving back.
Speaker 2:But it worked out because I really love this club and it's been super fun. It's such a cool little club. You know. I went from one that was golf with like almost 3000 members to this little racket and social and dining club in the middle of the mountains with 250 members and it's it's really cool, like everybody knows each other and, um, it just has a good vibe. Um, everybody's, it's the mountains. So, yeah, we're all happy to be here.
Speaker 1:What, uh? And the club? The club's not open year-round either. It's a very like niche-specific club. I feel like it's a small familial.
Speaker 2:Exactly. No, it's kind of like a summer camp, honestly, because it's open May 1st through October 31st. Our peak season is maybe like four to six weeks, and it's like between late June to like early early August is when we're like super, super busy, um, and we'll pick up a little bit like in the fall when people come to look at the leaves, um. But yeah, I mean it's a it's a six-month season and only about six of those weeks are really like just I mean we squeezed probably a year's worth every single day and it's really fun and it's really fast paced during those six months and there's like nothing else that you can focus on other than like getting through the day and getting through you know the next week of activities. But now I have the off season to kind of like prep and plan and it's, it's cool, it's different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it has to be fun like the. The excitement must build too and you can probably feel it between, like you, the staff, the members just have, and I think, having that much time too, it's like the, uh, like a rubber band almost. It's like you know you pull like the tension, then all of a sudden like release, it's like ah yes, and like everything's like going into place. What's the hard part about planning that that way?
Speaker 2:I, I don't know, like, I kind of like it.
Speaker 2:I think that, um, you know, I was so used to a club where we had a lot going on year round and we tried to pack every single minute of every day and I just always felt like I was a little bit behind. And so I like this, like it's it's not easy, like the six months. You know where we're open, it's fast paced and it's exciting and it's like something every single day. And this year was different because I didn't get the planning period. You know, I started in April and so I started and we were opening in two weeks and I had no clue, like you know, what was on the calendar, what was planned, and so it was a little bit more challenging. I think, like now, like we already have, I sent out our calendar to the members on Friday, so I already have for the to the members on Friday. So I already have for the six months for next year, so I already have our calendar built out for next year.
Speaker 2:You know there are some things that will require, like some you know, obviously, like putting together the BEOs and booking all of the live music, because we have a bunch of space for live music, where I haven't necessarily booked everybody, but I have like basically the entire off season to do that and get myself ahead for next season. I think the challenging part is kind of keeping that momentum with the membership and keeping communications going because, like in season, I'm sending out an email every single week with like all of these events coming up and, um, you know, keeping the excitement going, uh. So what I'm trying to do in the off season is sort of keep that. Like with the calendar going out Friday, I'll probably start dropping hints to activities and things and entertainment, um sort of as we go through the off season I'll keep communications going, like wishing everybody happy holidays and um, just so they don't forget about us, because I feel like when people go home, um, because this is not most people's primary residence, this is like a summer home or a vacation home, um, where they're only here maybe a month or two out of the year, and so just kind of keeping Cedar Creek Club fresh in everybody's head, um, sending out communications and um I'm trying to be more active on social media. We had no social media when I got here so and there weren't really like any pictures and so like I spent the entire season trying to put together as much content as I possibly could to have enough to sort of get us through the off season. But it's hard, like you know, because I didn't have that prep time.
Speaker 2:This year was like just a whirlwind of like I, you know, I just want to try to get enough um done every day to keep going and make it to the next day.
Speaker 2:That, like I, you know, I think every club or every job that I feel like I've worked at, I feel, like you know, the first year is sort of that, just like grasping everything and like getting a handle on things and noticing things like what, what could be done, maybe better next season or next year, and then year two.
Speaker 2:That's when you can kind of like really put some of those plans into action, see, see what works because not everything's gonna work and, um, really try to use what you learned in the first season and and try to enact it a little bit more in the second season and then by the third season, like you, should just be fine and everything should go smoothly because you, you know what you're doing. Um, but it takes like three full years almost to just like really get a grasp um, especially like in the club world or in hospitality, because when you're in that busy season there's really not a ton of time to like learn and in your busy season, because it's you're like you're, oh yeah, you, and you only have six months to really do that.
Speaker 2:So that has to be that has to be wild, and you came straight into the fire, like you I did right in it was fine, like I really was trying to, because I have like that personality where I want everything to be perfect and, like you know, I I won't rest until it is perfect. So I really tried to like tap back into my mountain, living, like you know, super zen, like just let it go and like go with the flow and like it's all gonna work out. And fortunately the membership here kind of allowed that. Like they're not, I don't know, everybody here is pretty relaxed and so I was able to do that. Um not that it wasn't stressful at times, but it was a little bit easier to not like just for my head to explode, um.
Speaker 2:So I I think now, um, going into the second season, everybody's really excited because we have all these plans and I was able to like actually have ideas and um use some of the creativity. That's just like in there. Uh, because there was no time creativity was like out the window, uh in in June and July. So after that it was like all right, we can really start to think of like fun ideas for programming and things to do next year and ways to make the club, you know, and the experience better and um it that that part's fun for me.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I so did you all. You mentioned communications, um, did you also do so? So for current clubs? So I'm assuming communication you do, the email, the newsletter, all that jazz. Did you also do that when you were at Dominion Valley at your last club, or was that a new position? Like, was that new stuff that you took over when you came to?
Speaker 2:the new club, no, so I did it there. I did it at Grove Park for the membership too it was, you know, at Grove Park there were less systems in place because there it wasn't really. Again, it was resort first. I wasn't doing like the resort communication, so I was doing like any mass emails that we sent out to the membership basically. But yeah, I mean at Dominion Valley I was doing our um, like the emails to the members, the social media, that kind of thing, until sort of the end, I was allowed to hire a marketing manager and she took over that for me, which was great because it let me focus more on like the number, yeah, and especially of a club that size.
Speaker 2:It was hard to manage, and so I think I expressed it and I got the help that I needed. And so here you know, I'm doing a lot of the same things that I was doing there, it's just on a slightly smaller scale, and I have six months of prep, which is like I it's I can't even explain how good that is. Yeah, um so. So it's, it's fun, I enjoy it, but um yeah.
Speaker 1:How do you, how do you manage your days and time now? So so, since you're, you know I'm, I don't get to talk to too many people who have this type of position, who have like this. I don't want to say time off is not the right word, but this much I want to say buffer.
Speaker 2:Prep time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I mean there are clubs that book far out or they plan far out, but to be closed and to really have that time to build and plan things. So now that, because the club is closed, now right.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So what does like a day look like? You know? How do you time bank? How do you manage your time like what you know, do you? Is it like, okay, mornings I like doing communications, afternoon I like social? Like, how do you plan your days?
Speaker 2:sure. So I kind of plan like a week at a time. Um, I'm in the office two days a week at a time. Um, I'm in the office two days a week typically. So, um, like on my days here, I'll try to like plan things that I kind of need to be in office for. Most of that's like marketing because, like all of our um, like the calendar, for example, when I'm putting together the programming guide, it helps to have like multiple screens and like to be able to print things out and see how they look on our printers and um, and so I'll try to like plan or like if I need to meet with any members, because we still have members that will um, you know they're year round and they want to come in, and so I try to plan those things on the days where I'm in office. Um, and then everything else.
Speaker 2:I really just made myself like a list of goals before we closed and decided like I want to have the calendar done by the end of November, beginning of December. I want to have all the entertainment and everything booked by uh, you know, february. I want to have the uh membership packet for 2025 done before the end of 2024. I want to have our, because we didn't have, like a member, like a new member orientation packet, any kind of like new member guide, and so I was like I want to have that put together, you know, before the season next year. So I had a list. It was a pretty long list of like things that I just wanted to get done, and so I've been trying to kind of break those down into the weeks. But I mean really like and when I got this job, you know it was told to me and you never really know until you're here, but they, they said you know, in the on season you're probably working like 45 to 55 hours a week and then in the off season it's probably going to be closer to like 25 to 35, like it's not as intense. And I feel like right now I'm not doing that because I want to still try to get everything that I want to get done done and we had our member billing and all of that stuff that just happened. But I'm kind of noticing now it's like, ok, I can, I can take the time and it's really like a good flexible work schedule. And so I don't know. And so I don't know, I mean, my days when I'm not here are mostly just whatever project I've given myself for that week.
Speaker 2:I work on it and, but I have time in between to go like take my dogs for a walk or what kind of dogs you know. I have one that's like a he's a Brittany Spaniel, um, and then my other one she's a rescue because there's unfortunately, unfortunately there's a humane society like two minutes from work. Um, which was a danger for me because I already have a foster fail cat, um, that we took in as like an emergency foster during some natural disaster, like a few years ago there's a wildfire, and so they were like everybody take a cat, and then I just never gave them back. Um, and so, with the humane society down the road, I decided to walk in like one day in June after work to like pet some puppies, because I had a bunch of puppies and then I ended up just like taking one of them.
Speaker 2:But she is, she's a. Um, I got her doggy DNA. It's like mostly a pit and Chihuahua, which is interesting. Um, she's like a shrunken down pit bull, like she just looks like somebody took a pit bull and like left it in the dryer for too long. Um, she's really cute.
Speaker 1:Great way to put it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's adorable.
Speaker 1:Love doggies. They're the best. I like them more than people.
Speaker 2:And your job is strictly interacting with people. But I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Way to throw me under the bus there well, no, I was gonna say I feel like that's pretty common for like people and very people facing jobs, like when I'm at home, like I would. If somebody was like your weekend consists of just like staying at home with you and your dogs, I'd be like like that sounds.
Speaker 1:Double thumbs up. I'll do that all day. No, yeah, I know A hundred percent. It's a lot of immensely draining, a lot of peopling Cause. Like it's a year. It's like it's a different, like energy. Like, if you saw me in the airport, you I have like the worst RBF. I wear all black. Like I have my headphones in most likely a hat, like phones in most likely a hat, like don't look at me, like I'm just like the unabomber black backpack, like I'm just like in in my zone. So what's it like now creating? You said it's a, it's a new member packet. Like what's, what's, what's that been entailed?
Speaker 1:so they didn't have anything for new members who joined no, um and you were like, hey, this is not good, we need to have something yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2:I mean, we, you know it was just kind of this club it's. It's so small and it really operated more like a family type. Like you know, we have new people and we just get them involved, and which, very no, not at all. I just I'm more of like a systems person. I like having a system in place, especially because I think you know, when people pay for a membership and they join a club, I've, I think there's sort of an expectation that, like you're going to go through some kind of orientation process that's a little bit more formal At least that's what I would expect and some people like that and some people are way cool with just the version that they were doing before of like, hey, we'll just introduce you to some people and have fun, and so, yeah, I got here and that was kind of one of the things I added to my to-do list was just creating a packet that's mostly frequently asked questions, that'll lay out things like our dining hours and our amenities and you know how to access all of the amenities and you know what's open in the off season, because we have certain things that are open in the off season, like our fitness center and pickleball courts and and that kind of thing, our dress code, because that's a question that people ask a lot.
Speaker 2:But I just wanted something that exists physically but also digitally on our website that anybody can go and reference. Like, even if you've been a member for a long time, you can just look at this member handbook and it says, okay, um, here are, uh, you know, just the, just the basics, because we have, like, our rules and we have our bylaws. But, like, who wants to read 40 pages of rules and 50 pages of bylaws?
Speaker 2:Like, I think it's a lot easier just to like reference this little handbook that's, you know, color coded and there's pictures and also really organized yeah, because it's like you can click on the links and it'll take you to the page and there's little tabs and I don't know I, I'm, I'm a little, I'm very organized, like that's my, that's how I operate. It's a touch, you know, like some tendencies there, but there's nothing wrong with that. But yeah, I think I like to have everything pretty organized and easy to find for myself, but also for the members. I mean, I just think it's more efficient for somebody to be able to click on the member handbook or open their member handbook and reference it to find out a rule or a guest policy or when the dining room is open, versus having to call the concierge every single time, which they're still welcome to do. That's why we have a concierge. But you know, some people prefer just looking everything up in their phone versus having to call. So I just like to have the option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who do you guys use for your like website and back of house stuff, for like all your?
Speaker 2:so we have our. Our public website is go daddy and then our um member site is club essentials. So um, which I like club essentials, I mean we've been. This is they're new to me. I used members first um at my last club and so, but they're all kind of the same. I mean they do the same stuff.
Speaker 1:So I know they're all. Yeah, I was working, I'm still working at it, I'm still working on a, on an episode I have to do it, uh, where I'm like trying to do like a higher level, comparing all like the different platforms.
Speaker 2:No-transcript yeah, I mean it was funny. Like here we use club essentials for everything um. I work when I was at dominion valley that's an invited club uh, formerly club corp and they have different systems for like everything um. So with that you got experience in all of these different systems. You also had to learn like 30 systems. So we used like cater pro for our videos and then you use members first for your membership stuff in your website and then you use um what was the? It was like Pardot for our emails and Salesforce for the prospecting and CRM, yeah. So it was like a lot of different um different things. Yeah, are you?
Speaker 1:also responsible for bringing in new members, and all of that at your current club.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. So, and we actually just added a CRM through Club Essentials, which that'll be nice to have everything kind of talking to each other.
Speaker 2:So I don't have to hand input everything. But, yeah, so our membership sales process is not like with invited clubs. Any club like, they have a membership sales director and that's their only job is just selling memberships. Here, like we have, it's a much more and a selective process. To find members and get them started at the club. They have to have sponsors that are current members and so it's a little bit less there. There are no like direct. We're not doing like marketing. We're not doing advertisement, like it's not, you know, but we try to get people and through, like our social media, um, and just keeping everything on the website looking pretty and word of mouth around the mountain. So, um, those are our big things, yeah.
Speaker 1:Mountain mouth. Yeah, that sounds weird.
Speaker 2:I will edit.
Speaker 1:Doing the edit for me. Thanks, yeah. You were saying oh, it's easy.
Speaker 2:This club, though we have our dining here is like actually the best on the plateau. The plateau is the area that we are located. It's um this cashers highland, uh, sapphire region of north carolina, but um, we have, like people come from other clubs there are a ton of clubs up here, um, and members from other clubs will come as guests of our members to come eat here, cause our food's the best. Like it's, this is an easy sell. Like it's like adult summer camp. It's beautiful, there's amazing food and fun events and just the setting and the vibe. Like it's just all. It's the easiest sales shop. Like it's not. I'm not really having to do a ton of work on the sales side Um other than just kind of like making sure that we we look good to the public, but our dining team, our chef and our athletics team and you know anybody up keeping the grounds here sort of does that. For me it's not um, it's not hard.
Speaker 1:So well, it's hard in different aspects, cause I'm sure if other people looked at what you were doing, going like, oh my God, I can never do that Like, so it's uh, there's probably a definitely an art to it of making it look look easy and stuff what, um, what are some things that maybe you wish you knew sooner starting off in club? Or, uh, what are some things you wish you knew when you first started off in clubs doing memberships and communications, like you know, looking back, it's what you've been in the club space eight, six years, seven years, no, no, no, because I'm omni parks of four. Yeah, about what? Six, seven, eight years ish something like that.
Speaker 2:I guess I started in. What year is it? It's 2024 almost 25 yeah oh okay, so yeah, I guess like seven years what?
Speaker 1:what are some things that you know you. You know now that you wish you knew when you were first starting.
Speaker 2:There are no country club emergencies, and I've probably going to get in trouble with somebody for saying that, but I believe it. So hear me out. Like there we don't work in a hospital, like there's nobody's life that's on the line. Yes, country club emergency like that's a, that's a real one. Um, however, otherwise, like there are things that can be pressing, um, but in the grand scheme of things, like there are no country club emergencies that are worth like your mental health and sanity.
Speaker 2:Like I feel like I put so much pressure, especially in that job at Dominion Valley, like I put mostly the pressure on myself because I was like everything has to be perfect and like the members can't notice anything. No mistakes, no, nothing. Like everything just has to go. And that's me. Like I, it's like I'm a perfectionist and so, like I again, like nobody was telling me these things, if I messed up, it was kind of like, okay, well, you messed up and move on. But like for me it was like you know, on the communication side, like if I had an error in an email, it was like the end of the world. Or like if an event didn't go exactly as planned all the way through, like I really stressed out about that stuff and over time I was kind of like looking when the mistakes would happen or, you know, when things in an event wouldn't go exactly as planned, or like if my script got thrown off in a new member orientation, just like all these little things, and I'm like, did it really like affect the experience that much? Like we recovered it's not that big of a deal, like it's not an emergency, there's nothing like I don't know, they're just it's not an emergency. Because I had like a marketing manager at Dominion Valley and she would get really stressed out too and I think a lot of that was probably coming from me, because I was always really stressed out and so then I would tell her things like there's no emergencies, like if we don't work at a hospital and nobody's like going to die, we're fine. Like you know, the numbers are going to have a good time, and they're not paying attention to like these little things that may or may not go wrong.
Speaker 2:And um, then I had to actually believe that, because at the time I was not putting that into practice for myself, I was just kind of like preaching it. Um, but yeah, that's what I wish. I like believed at the beginning. Even at Grove Park Inn we work in hospitality you can have little mistakes happen and not be perfect 100% of the time and most likely no one will notice or at the very least least you can recover from it. It's not, um, the end all be all, uh. So I think that's that was the biggest thing for me, because it's hard when you like everything to be perfect. Um, because it's kind of my job to like notice the little details, um, but the recovery is big. Um, just like being able to kind of have mistakes happen and roll with it. That's probably the biggest thing. But yeah, no country club emergencies. Just don't let your general manager hear that, because he might disagree.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for coming on, thanks for sharing and appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having me. It was fun talking about this stuff.
Speaker 1:Hope you all enjoyed that episode as much as I did. If you do a like, share, subscribe, share it with a colleague, share it with a friend, share it on LinkedIn, share it on the socials. Give us a five-star review. Anything you can do to help move the channel forward means the world and costs nothing. That's this episode. Until next time, I'm your host, denny corby. Catch y'all on the flippity flip.
