We used
to have a very vibrant, dynamic club a few years ago and I was very proud to be
a member. But over time we lost members, and weren’t picking up new ones.
Attendance suffered, and then we got down to below charter-strength.
This had
me worried. I love my club, and I’ve been in it for several years. We tried new
things to bring in more members, without the kind of results I’d been looking
for. Then our regular members started to not show up, and that’s when I knew we
were in trouble.
So what
could I do to try to bring the club back to its former glory days? I had to stretch my imagination back; and
came up with a solution. Every year we have 2 membership drives, so I would
plan one. We used to have special guests and food and really advertise it.
Looks like I’d have to take it back to basics!
First I
had to think: what local celebrity could I possibly get, for free, that people
would like to see? In the past we had Brian Cody and Richie Phillips from local
radio stations, and that theme worked really well. With that in mind, I sent an
email to a young gentleman who goes by the moniker J Will, from Jamz 96.3: #1 in Hip Hop for the Capital Region. Lo and behold: he agreed to come and speak to
the club, for free (or at least lunch J)! I was very excited, since we’d
lost several of our younger members. I was hoping that a young, successful
local celebrity would be the ticket to enticing young people to visit us today.
Thanks to
the rest of my board members, we were able to use our non-existent budget to
print up flyers, table tents and a couple of posters with J Will’s photo. Then
with the rest of our imaginary money we had a member, who is a wonderful
caterer in her other “career”, make her delicious pulled pork and homemade
black forest cupcakes. My friend Andi
brought in her delicious French Vanilla homemade cupcakes. Another member made
the yummiest pasta salad around, 2 members brought in chicken wings; and we
bought decorations and little gift boxes that we stuffed with candy and a
glo-bracelets to give to the people who showed up. Well, that would hopefully
show up…
And low
and behold: it worked! Today the room we reserved was standing room only. The
food was delicious! They enjoyed their gift boxes. And the man himself: J Will,
our special guest, even brought in some giveaways from the radio station. We gave those away to volunteers for "Table Topics".
And let
me tell you: he spoke very eloquently and had the crowd eating out of his hand.
He was very personable and answered all of the questions our group had for him.
He was a GREAT guest speaker! Well-educated, family-oriented: we could certainly use more young gentleman like him!
I have to
say: in spite of the headaches and sweat and crankiness that went on right up until
5 minutes before we kicked off the Membership Drive meeting: it went off pretty
flawlessly. I was so proud of my club; and we’ve already signed up 5 new
members!
Now the
only problem is: how do we top this in March????
Shout-out
to J Will! Thanks for everything and don’t be a stranger J
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