With the falling number of incidences, life is gradually returning to the clubs in the Ebersberg district. For months, their members continued to pay their dues, but received little in return. Of course, this was not the clubs’ fault, but rather a consequence of the infection protection measures that were in place at the time. Now that something like normality has slowly returned, the question arises whether the members have remained loyal to their clubs. According to Ingrid Golanski, the district chairman for the district of Ebersberg at the Bavarian State Sports Association, the approximately 100 clubs in the district have lost around 3,000 members this year compared to the previous year. The sports clubs were particularly hard hit.
For example at TV Markt Schwaben, as Alexandra Rupprecht from the office says. The club had to struggle with many withdrawals. In the gymnastics department, the membership fee has even been cut in half at times, but those who have lost their job or been on short-time work in the past few months may no longer be able to afford that, says Rupprecht. It is normal that many members leave the club every year, says Dominic Mayer, managing director of TSV Ebersberg. The club’s own club has also seen a large drop in membership, but that is within the framework of normal fluctuation. However, the newcomers would have been missing. The Da Capo dance club from Ebersberg is struggling with similar difficulties. The loss of around 15 percent of the members was difficult, says Konstanze Gerlich. But “what will fall on our feet now is that we could not make any new offers”. The offspring are also missing.
With online offers and outdoor training, the Kirchseeon Taekwondo Association was able to keep almost all of its members and even gain some. But that made them one of the lucky ones, says Alexander Berghammer. He knew of 20 schools within the Bavarian Taekwondo Union that should have closed – but none of them in the Ebersberg district.
TSV Vaterstetten was hit particularly hard, although the number of layoffs was similar to the previous years, says Deputy Director Niklas Stumpf. There were just hardly any newcomers. The missing contributions were partially compensated for by the lower costs of the association. But it is also thanks to special payments from Bavarian sports funding that it did not hit the club harder. A point that Ingrid Golanski also emphasizes. The funds made available by the Free State for the association allowance were doubled this year and last year. Although this brought relief to large sports clubs in particular, it was certainly one of the main reasons that relatively few complaints were made to the state sports association by the clubs in the district.
There is more to complain about in cities, she says, and gives an explanation for this phenomenon: “The people of the village have different content.” In rural areas, clubs are generally not seen as just service providers, as is more the case in cities. Rather, they formed an essential part of social life. Many therefore did not immediately terminate their membership just because the offer stagnated for a short time. This can be seen above all outside of sport.
“It looks good, as always,” says Max Ascherl from the Club d’Angelbrechtinger Goaßlschnoizer from Poing. All 30 members have remained loyal to their association, even in the months when it was not possible to get together. The members of the traditional costume association “Ebrachtaler” in Ebersberg have also remained loyal, as Waltraud Wiefarn says. However, the contribution is not high either. Something similar can be heard from the Ebersberg-Grafing chess union. Your first board member, Georg Schweiger, has nothing to complain about, only among the young people there were perhaps two cancellations. The remaining ones could have bridged the meantime with the chess online league. However, the first club evenings showed that there was a lack of togetherness, said Schweiger.
Quite a lot could be cemented with online offers, it seems. Actually, the German Scouting Society of St. Georg lives from joint meetings. In spite of this, the Windrose tribe from Anzing / Poing was able to hold its classes online all the time. This is now paying off because, according to Dominik Hohl, all the children would come back. A summer camp is even planned for the beginning of August. Three of the supervisors have been trained in the meantime to take rapid medical tests. This guarantees the safety of all participants.
Johann Ametsbichler from the fruit and horticultural association Frauenneuharting is also relaxed. The past few months hadn’t bothered the club, at least financially. Two of the 180 members have died, but new ones have also been added. The work with children as well as any activity that makes up the club life, on the other hand, has ceased to exist. The horticultural association has existed since September 1893; That is more than 127 years. Ametsbichler is also in good spirits for the years to come.
Even the troubled sports clubs have every reason to be confident. Because over the past few months a lot of urge to move has built up among the population and now the locks are open. “The wires are glowing,” says Alexandra Rupprecht from TV Mark-Schwaben, saying that so many inquiries have been received in the past few weeks. At TSV Ebersberg, the numbers have also been increasing since May. Quite a few of the new registrations are children. Dominic Mayer was present at the first training units: “If you looked at the kids, they were just happy.”
Likewise at TSV Vaterstetten: “The boys are all on fire,” says Niklas Stumpf. But training with the children has also “never been so strenuous,” he says. The clubs are certainly not alone in their joy at this development. It’s hard to imagine what some parents had to go through the past few months.