Following a few suggestions in that direction during the progress of Manners, I tried to find the evidence that curling is a business. It's difficult.

1. Building a curling rink requires substantial funding from sources other than investors. Although there are rinks that are privately owned, nowadays they are built with public money that will not be repaid.
2. As curling rinks age, money from donations or public sources, not to mention tremendous fund-raising efforts by curlers, is required to replace or repair developing problems.
3. Most curling activity relies on the services of volunteers.
4. Curling is seriously underfunded, with ice fees too low for reinvestment. Compare this to golf clubs where fees do cover reinvestment and members are required to provide the shortfall.

Will this ever change? I welcome your comments!

Running it as a business does not mean that it is a business. The RCCC is a non-profit company limited by guarantee. The NCA is to be run as a charitable trust. Many rinks are council owned (and subsidised).

That's fine, fff, but the money used to expand the sport comes mostly from sportscotland, not from the members. Modern rinks might have to function on the business principle, but does that make curling a business? What I'm trying to understand is whether curling is something other than a business, although its parts may well function on business principles. Churches function as businesses, but they are not businesses.

The problem is this: To build a rink, you need money. Investors will invest if they can make a profit, which is clearly not a good option for them. So public money builds curling rinks and so make the rules by which they're built and run. I'm very happy for any group, including your own, that can find such funding and build their rink, but even Fife CT is set up as a charitable trust and not a business.

JM - any ice rink or even a curling club has to run on a business footing. If a curling club was not correctly run the members would soon ask why and create hell.
The RCCC was always taken to task by the members at the AGM about its finances and as time has gone by it has become bigger and more professional about this. Duffy did a great job setting this up.
If it did not do this, producing business plans etc, sportscotland would not even look at it for grants and help. 
Similary Murrayfield (and others) are run as a business or else we would have no ice in the Lothians. Ice rinks for curling are not charities or for the benifit of icemen wanting to make perfect ice all the time and at each session.

This is developing into an interesting discussion. I don't know what the situation in Scotland is, but I'll try to give you an impression of how Swiss curling rinks sustain themselves.

Should curling rinks be run according to business principles?

My answer is: Yes, to a certain extent. Measures include for example:

• - ads at the walls of curling rinks bring in some money (to start with: if the rink is big enough, there's bound to be members who have a business of their own or know people who may be interested in putting up an ads during the season)
• - alternative use of rinks during the off-season should be considered and, when building new rinks, already be part of the planning. Alternative use can for example be: Facilites for exhebitions, possibly for functions as well (if there is a restaurant attached or a big enough kitchen which a catering staff could use)
• - corporate curling has to be advertised and promoted on a large scale. Whenever there is a free rink (afternoon or evening), efforts should be made to hire the rink out (including an instructor) to companies who want to have a team event or something like that. If possible, work out a deal with the club restaurant / a nearby restaurant to give them diner after the curling is done.
  This effort may go as far, as sheets set aside for corporate curling during the evening (depending on the size of the rink and the amount of curlers playing). Instructors are recruited from the local curling club and get paid a nominal "thank you for your time" sort of thing. There's bound to be retired curlers around who will volunteer their time in the afternoon for this. Also university students who curl will jump at the chance of lifting their pocket money while doing something they enjoy!
• If possible, have a club restaurant (self service or staffed). Given the opportunity, many teams and single players will stay for a couple of pints after the game and a sandwich (or even a whole meal) and thus create a surplus which can go towards the cost of running the rink as well.

To do all this, normally the rink in Switzerland will be a company/trust/some other sort of body, which is owned by the club (or clubs as we often have several per rink). While the club does own the rink, it does also pay rent for the sheets it uses (altough much less than a corporate curling event would pay). In some clubs, curlers can use free sheets anytime they want for free, in others they will have to pay a fee, depending on the setup of the rink.
Same applies for tournaments, where the rinks charge the tournament organisator fees for the sheets.

So I have no idea wether this is all "old stuff" for you guys, or wether there is anything new to it.Matter of fact is simply, that a curling rink can neither pay a full-time ice technican over a longer period of time (e.g. several years), nor sustain the curling rink when it's working up a constant deficit. At the same time, I don't know any rinks who can thrive on the ice fees paid by curling club members alone (because the fees would be too high and therefore too few curlers would still play). So the rink needs to find alternative means of earning money (ad, corporate curling, restaurant, etc) and renting out free sheets.

The goal of all this alternative money making is simple: To provide good curling ice at a reasonable (as low as possible) price for the members of the local curling club(s) and for tournaments to be held at the rink.
At the end of the day (season), the rink should have made enough profit to invest in necessary maintenance/renewal work and (in good seasons) have built up a small reserve for the future.

So yes, rinks should be run as a business, but it should also be kept in mind, that while the "main customer" may be the curling club, it should also be the "main benefactor" by benefitting of the low ice-fees which were made possible by the way the rink was run!


cheerio
Zuschauer

Don't be too quick to knock necrophilia - nobody gets hurt and they never complain   

Zuschauer makes some excellent points, most of which are already in place here. The essential difference between Switzerland and Scotland is the social structure, with the cantonal system and democracy very strong over there. The result is that the rinks tend to be smaller with fewer curlers, but there are many more of them, and with easy access almost anyone can reach a curling rink. Profitability is a challenge with so few members, but they do manage to achieve it and keep their rinks going, and like many other countries "volunteer" ice making is not unusual. Curling there is very much a social thing, while here it is becoming so centralised that the social side has suffered.

Zuschauer, my wife is half Swiss, her mother's family have a vineyard not too far from Cully, so we go there when we can and always delight in the country and its people (not to mention the attention to quality and responsibility!). Maybe I shoulkd find a Swiss rink that needs an ice maker! Is Stefan still yours?

I'm still laughing at Necrophilia