Why Membership Helps Keep Glasgow Community Sauna Going

A wee love letter to our members.

Glasgow Community Sauna is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, and running a sauna turns out to involve quite a lot more than buying logs and getting the stove hot. There are staff, maintenance, cleaning, repairs, cold plunges, site improvements, community sessions and the steady stream of things that break when you run an outdoor site in Glasgow.

Individual bookings pay for a lot of that. Memberships give us something slightly different: a bit of certainty. Knowing that some income is coming in every month makes it easier for us to plan ahead, keep investing in the site and continue the community work that sits alongside our regular sessions.

So yes, members genuinely help keep the fire going. Not in a literal ‘please-report-for-log-duty’ way, as much as we’re sure a few of you would!

Why regular membership income matters

Like most small organisations, our costs don’t conveniently appear at the same time as bookings do. We need to think ahead about staffing, maintenance, repairs and what we can afford to improve next.

Having members means we have a more predictable base of income each month. That makes a real difference when we’re deciding whether we can replace something, improve the site, put on a community session or commit to a bit of work that will make the sauna better in six months rather than tomorrow.

It also means we can keep trying to make sauna accessible to people who might otherwise be priced out of it. We want regular sessions to remain affordable while still paying people properly and running the site safely. Those things have to add up somehow.

Membership helps them add up.

It’s also cheaper if you come regularly

There is, of course, something in it for you too. If sauna has become part of your week, or you’d like it to be, membership brings down the cost per session. We currently have three membership options:

• Toasty Flame: 4 sessions per month, £36 a month, which works out at £9 per session.

• Sauna Patron: 5 sessions per month for £48, plus first access to things like merch drops, events and giveaways.

• Roastin’ Flame: 8 sessions per month for £66, which works out at £8.25 per session.

Some people come every Monday after work. Some use it as a Friday night alternative to the pub. Others appear on a Sunday evening looking like the week has finally caught up with them.

However you use it, having sessions already included each month makes it a bit easier to actually go rather than spending another evening thinking, “I really should book the sauna.”

Where the money goes

We’re not building a luxury spa empire.

Money that comes into GCS goes back into running and improving the project. That means the obvious things like staff, wood, cleaning, maintenance and repairs, but also the less visible work involved in running community programmes, making the site more accessible and working with other local organisations.

Anyone who’s spent much time at the sauna will also know that there is nearly always something we’re fixing, changing or trying to make work better. Sometimes that’s a big improvement. Sometimes it’s considerably less glamorous.

Membership gives us more room to do that work properly rather than waiting until something becomes an emergency.

Supporting community sauna in Glasgow

One of the reasons GCS exists as a not-for-profit is that we don’t want sauna to be something only available to people who can comfortably pay full price every week.

We run dedicated and supported sessions with organisations and groups including Freedom from Torture, Quarriers, Queer Black Scotland, LEAP Scotland, Camp Trans Scotland, immunocompromised groups and local women’s groups.

That work costs money to run. It involves staff time, coordination and making sessions available at a reduced cost or no cost to the people taking part.

Membership isn’t the only thing that pays for this work, but regular income from members helps give us more confidence to keep doing it.

More than discounted sessions

We also want membership to feel like being a regular at the sauna rather than signing up to some complicated loyalty programme.

That means things like access to selected events, member sessions and occasional extras when we can make them happen. Nothing too corporate. No shiny lanyards. No points system where you eventually earn a branded water bottle after 74 visits.

Mostly, it means you come to the sauna quite a lot, you pay a bit less for doing so, and your monthly membership helps us keep the place running.

We think that’s a fairly decent arrangement.

Help shape what comes next

We want membership to feel like a two-way relationship. Members are usually the people who use the sauna most often, so their feedback is useful when we’re deciding what to improve, what to prioritise and how the site should evolve.

We’ll regularly ask members what they think through surveys, conversations at the sauna and occasional feedback sessions. That might be about the facilities, session times, events, accessibility, new ideas or the small things that would make the experience better.

We won’t be able to act on every suggestion, and some things will always be limited by budget, space or what’s practical. But where we can, we want members to have a genuine say in how Glasgow Community Sauna develops, rather than us making every decision behind the scenes.

Become a member

If you already come regularly, membership is the cheapest way to book your sessions. If you also like what GCS is trying to do, it’s one of the most useful ways you can support it.

To everyone who’s already joined: thank you. The regular income genuinely helps us plan, maintain the site, run community work and keep improving things without trying to turn the sauna into something it was never meant to be.

And thank you to everyone who books a session, brings a pal or tells somebody else about us. That all counts too.