when I tried looking online for lodge memberships there seemed to be none. but now after talking to several lodges it seems there are many spare memberships available around the place. many lodges have a few memberships spare in the committee's pool.
very poor advertising, poor web presence, lack of communication skills and incorrect or inactive contacts makes it difficult to track down info and appear there aren't many memberships available out there, but there are. this is to be expected; the lodges are non-profit entities, the committee are all volunteers, and the age group of most lodges is pre internet.
every lodge I have seen has a reasonable member limit to prevent flooding the rooms and disappointed membership. so I think it extremely unlikely to find a 150 member 20 bed situation. that'd be pretty stupid really, 100% of member base would be dissatisfied.
because its shared, you cant just book out the whole thing tho. ive seen different strategies, but something along the lines of where the lodge opens up a booking date for members about 2 weeks before the public, eg in mid may, but you can only book so many nights to make it fair for everyone. then after the first week, once everyone's had a chance, you can book unlimited more whatever's left. then it opens to the public.
weekends and school holidays seem to fill up fast, with midweek stuff lasting longer. imo midweek bookings should be given priority access to weekends rather than having an empty lodge. i think some lodges do this by accepting bids of what you want somehow?
both our lodges have school groups that have standard bookings to book out the whole lodge in one week of the school holidays. these are some of the most profitable times for the lodge, and are required to maintain the running costs, so you won't be able to book during this time.
lodge memberships I've seen and overheard are between $3.5k and $13k here at Hotham.
I chose a lodge further away from the local pub on purpose, and so it seemed memberships and nightly rates were cheaper, yet ironically because of davenport access trail, its more ski in ski out than some of the closer more expensive ones. priorities i guess.
I've never heard about not being able to resell them. the two lodges ms pink jacket and I are members of allow reselling your share, so does our neighboring lodge, but it requires permission and coordination with the committee/secretary. they want to vet the potential members i think, im not sure what they're looking for, but it bet its mostly just to set expectations properly beforehand to avoid disappointed members.
as you can sell the membership for the price you bought it for (or more) then its almost mute (except for tied up cash assets). makes the math heaps simpler; if you stay enough nights to make up for the ongoing membership fee ($300 ish for mine), then you're ahead in $. considering the peak season costs here, you'd only have to stay like 4 nights to break even.
many lodges waive the membership fee if you attend the work/cleaning weekends during the summer.
lodges seem to allocate beds not rooms. so if you want a private room you may need to book/pay for 2 or 3 beds instead which will effect how long itll be before you break even.
I dove right in, sight unseen, untested, at a resort id never even ski'ed at, and got a membership. and it worked out great! pretty good lodge, absolutely great people, at a great resort, with friendly people everywhere we turn.
But I just stayed at a night at a lodge in falls creek, with less friendly visitors, in a creaky aging lodge, with no hot water left after 6pm, in a ski town that seemed to be filled with snooty unfriendly punters.
So I'd recommend staying at a few lodges first and choosing your favorite. as
@Annabuzzy says, the lodge will pretty much choose you.
