The New Member Retention dimension of your GMLB report measures what happens to members in the years after they join. It tracks survival at 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 months from each member's joining date, producing a retention curve for your club alongside benchmark comparisons drawn from comparable clubs in the dataset.
This is the foundation of the lifecycle analysis. The curve tells you not just how many members you have, but how successfully your club converts new joiners into long-term, established members — and where in that journey you are losing them.
How to read the curve
Your retention curve shows what happens to 100 members who join your club, tracked annually over five years. Each data point represents the percentage of that original joining cohort still active at that milestone.
The three most closely watched points are the 12-, 24- and 36-month marks — the first, second and third anniversaries of joining. These cover the period when attrition is typically highest. Across the GMLB benchmark dataset, these figures run:
Your report shows your club's curve plotted against this benchmark. The steepness of the curve — and where the steepest fall occurs — tells you where retention risk is greatest. Clubs with strong retention show a flatter early curve and a higher proportion of members reaching the five-year mark.
Early-tenure exposure
Alongside the retention curve, your report includes a figure called early-tenure exposure. This is the proportion of your current active membership that has been with the club for less than two years.
Early-tenure members carry the highest retention risk. A club where a large share of its membership is relatively new is more exposed to future attrition than one where most members are long established. The benchmark sits at around 27%. A figure significantly above this means your membership is carrying more forward risk than is typical for comparable clubs.
Early-Tenure Exposure · Members under 2 years tenure
Retention by age band
Your report breaks the retention curve down by age band. This often reveals significant variation that the overall figure obscures. Younger members — particularly those in the 18–39 group — typically show much lower 36-month retention than the membership average. Across the benchmark dataset, this group retains at around 16% at 36 months, compared to 41% for the membership overall.
Younger members are frequently the most important for long-term demographic health, and also the hardest to retain. If your recruitment is skewing younger, your overall retention figures may understate the risk your club is carrying — because a higher proportion of your new joiners belong to the lowest-retention group.
The handicap split
One of the clearest patterns in the New Member Retention data appears when the curve is broken out by whether a member has obtained a handicap index. Members with a handicap retain at approximately three times the rate of those without one at the 24-month mark.
This is the strongest single predictor of retention in the dataset. It does not mean that obtaining a handicap causes members to stay — rather, it reflects that members who engage deeply enough to pursue one are far more likely to become long-term established members. The report uses this split to help explain where retention is being created and where it is being lost, and to set up the Handicap Engagement dimension that follows.
The risk rating
Your report includes a risk rating for New Member Retention — Strong, Moderate, Moderate-Elevated, or High. This reflects how your club's retention curve and early-tenure exposure compare to benchmark clubs in the dataset, adjusted for club size and member profile.
A Moderate rating indicates that retention is broadly within the normal range for comparable clubs, but that specific areas — typically early-tenure concentration or a particular age band — warrant attention. A High rating indicates that the pattern of attrition is materially worse than benchmark, with real implications for future membership stability.
The retention curve is the starting point for the rest of the report. Understanding how successfully your club converts new joiners into long-term members shapes how every other dimension should be read.