I just went through all of the horse clubs and have seen that the majority of them have less than $10mil in their banks. I've also noticed that it is halfway through the month and very little has been going on in any of them. Now, I do not know how many people are actually active on HP. Perhaps there are only a very few hundred or so that play on a weekly basis. I've found it incredibly boring to stay on HP after training my own animals. I'm sure many others feel the same way as chat is dead most of the time and there is basically nothing to do in the clubs. Now, I have -not- looked through the associations as those tend to come and go. I'm focusing on the clubs.

Is there a way we can have a fund drive for all the clubs? Perhaps it could be a raffle where tickets are $250k each or similar. The prize would be any number of things, such as a limited breed or maybe even a special Club Fund breed, or an upgrade of some amount, or maybe someone would be willing to do a free layout for the winner, or any prize from the Cash Shop... Basically, a prize that many will want. Then, the money from the raffle tickets would be evenly split between either all of the clubs or those most in need.

I would really really really like to see more activity here because we all love HP greatly. I know that most people are more worried about gaining money than donating to clubs, so I thought maybe bribing would help. I personally do not have enough money at this time to donate to all the clubs I would like to as I will be donating a lot to the Rare Horse Breeds club if I win next month's ballot.

What do you guys think? Do you think a fund drive for the clubs is a decent idea to help get more activity going in them and to make HP more exciting to be on?

when ever I run a club I put my own money into it. Always have? 

I'm with Maha, I always dump my own money in xD 

Last time I ran a club I put my own money into the contests and I did try to have at least 3 contests beside the raffle. And I know you said you weren't focusing on associations but just for reference, I'm also working on setting up contests for the Designer Dog Ass. and I'm planning on putting my own money into that as well (not only because the association doesn't have much money but also because, apparently all the donated funds and fees go into my bank account for some reason? I'm not sure if this happens with clubs as well). 

As for a Club Fund Drive, I'd be all for it. The only reason I wouldn't go all out buying a bunch of tickets is because I have a project horse going right now and my funds are getting low. I'm not sure if it would actually encourage players to make more contests in clubs but it might. HP has such a smaller community than HL that I think the players that do run for clubs actually want to run it and make it active. 

I do support the cause and think maybe it could be a regular thing as well. Like maybe every 3 or 6 months HP (or whoever runs it) could do another drive. Also, maybe it could be set up like the HP Secret Santa except to be entered as a contestent you would have to pay a fee and offer a prize. 

Well, I'm just throwing ideas around :)

Clubs have always been funded by the president.  There is encouragement for players to donate to the club, and that has happened in the past.  However, I wouldn't really hold the current banks of the Club's as what money it actually "has".  Most presidents keep the money on their account and then donate to the club when prize money needs to be handed out.

Personally, I think instead of running a Club Fund Drive it would be more beneficial for more players to actually participate in teh club contests/games/raffles going on currently.  Activity is far more valuable in the clubs than actual money.  All presidents that run for the club know that anything they run will need to be funded by them.

Now players!  Hurry up and head on over to the clubs and start participating and playing!!

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Also, to touch base with you on the dead chat.  Everyone had a crazy holiday season and it's really not abnormal to not have such an active chat this time of year. Everyone is recovering from the holidaies and getting back into the swing of things.  Just give it a bit longer and things will be poppin' again! :D

Good points all. I guess I just feel like I won't have enough of my own money to put in. I've never run for a club before so maybe I'm overestimating the cost of being prezzie?

Like Calisphere pointed out--I think funding to the clubs will encourage newer players to run them. Then they wouldn't have to worry about depleting their own scant resources. Of course, prize money for the contests is up to the president's discretion but it doesn't hurt to make it so they don't need to worry about it as much. 

Agreed with Tron! :)

Paints since 6-8-14

If players would participate in all the contests in the clubs they could gain plenty of money as well though.  A bunch of them have free raffles as well as participation/completion prizes.  The clubs need participation more than they need a fund, and by players participating they in turn get money.  It's a win win.

As someone who has tried to run club and association contests, it's much more lack of player participation than lack of funding. I send out mass messages about contests and activities and no joke. Only three players reply. For the Rottweiler association only ONE player ever messages me back and I basically throw things around for free all the time.

There's also the matter of the training contest going on right now. Any major fund raiser would likely be hampered by that.

Link Tree

i agree with tron and chao....ive done mascot contests and such with huge prizes and got hardly any entries....even had a layout contest with a billion dollar prize and had 3 entries....its player participation that sucks round here....i have a mascot contest on my assoc and its been like 2 months and not even one entry....even mass msgd about what members would like and never got any responses....so honestly isee no point in clubs or associations....they serve no purpose except for the extra 1k pt gain from clubs

Clubs have always had the same problem on here, and it's circular.

no one participates in clubs because the prizes suck (generally speaking).

prizes suck because a lot of presidents don't see the point because no one participates in clubs anyway.

so then no one participates because there's bad prizes or hardly any contests....

the only time I see most club contests doing well are when there are upgrade prizes (and not one month upgrades, either, but 6 months or more). Most of the time, for me, the small prizes aren't worth the effort I'd have to put in, so I don't bother. -shrugs-

Understood. Thanks everyone for explaining. I think I may try from now on to enter contests. I can't do layout contests or photo manips at this point, but other I may be able to. Maybe if I try and other who see this thread try, we can make a small difference.

I think the clubs/associations activity has been well covered, but I just want to say that there is usually always some or some people around to chat. So if you're peeking into chat and you see it's dead, try and say hi and get some conversation going. There is almost always someone lurking!

Thanks for the suggestion :). I think we can all agree that clubs are an area which are a constant problem on HP. New players don’t want to put the money in, so the same people are president over and over, and then they are tired of running contests that no one enters, and etc. It’s sort of a vicious cycle!

So! I really thinking a funding drive could be cool :). If nothing else, it would bring ATTENTION to the clubs which would be amazing. I think it would also be good for us to maybe have a way to call attention to the contests and raffles going on. I know even on HP sometimes when we have official events that not everyone knows about them or forgets to enter, and our prizes are usually pretty great, haha.

Maybe we could do a weekly club shout-out on the news or on our Facebook page or something? I think if we got people entering the contests it would help the community (and be a good way to win some money for very little or no effort!) and then if we did a club drive or something it would bring some attention and excitement back to the clubs.

And on the topic of not having anything to do after training, I think that is something that is a little less of an issue in other months? Usually we have a lot of contests and stuff for people to enter, but after out 24 days of events and the mascot contest things are a bit slow at the moment. But we have a ton planned for February and a chat party later this month :). It should all be lots of fun!

I do my best to pop into chat when I am on! I find that if I post a couple of times people see that it’s active and start to filter in :).

All of that being said, I would be over the moon if clubs and associations became a “real” activity for people. Or any other suggestions to help give people more stuff to do and spend more time on HP :).