Many Club and Societies go dormant every year; the information provided below will prevent your Club and Society from being one.
The most important thing when developing your group is remembering why you exist, take a look back at your aims and objectives you laid out in the beginning of the year and identify the areas you think you need to improve. Once you have identified why is your Club/Society exists you can get started on getting people to engage in it.
There are many reasons why people don’t engage and these reasons are laid out below along with how you can tackle them. If you are finding it hard to get people engaged in your Club/Society it's more than likely the problem is listed below.
Reasons why people don’t engage
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How to tackle it
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Perception
- Everyone already knows each other
- Some members not being able to spend as much money as others
- Members come across as experts
- Not drinking alcohol
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- Look to run beginner/Welcome sessions for new members
- Vary your socials to keep everyone interested
- Look at low-cost socials and activities to accommodate everyone
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Lack of Organisation
- Members are given short notice about activities
- Members not sure what plans are
- Lack of communication with new members after sign up
- Students don’t know you exist (Lack of presence at freshers fayre etc.
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- Plan ahead and have a termly plan
- Identify good communication methods that work for your Club/Society
- Organise weekly activities and let members know a week in advance
- Run introductory sessions or social at the start of each term
- Make sure the SU are promoting you Club/Society properly
- Make sure you book a stall at fresher’s fayre and make it stand out.
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Current members to Cliquey
- Current members don’t make the effort to welcome new members (remember you were all new once)
- Only advertising activities to a certain number of people
- Hold events but don’t give enough detail about them
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- Make sure all current members make the effort to welcome new members
- Make sure all new members know what the club is about and what type of activities you run.
- Fresher Buddy Scheme – Partner new members with current members
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Limited Opportunities
- Not running enough activities
- Running events that aren’t relevant to what the Club/Society is about.
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- Your Club/Society should be running weekly activities; they don’t all have to be big events, just a get together for a couple of hours a week will help keep members engaged.
- Make sure you are following your constitutions.
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Ineffective communication with members
- Failure to reply to emails or queries
- Website/Contacts information and content is out of date
- Email Spam
- Relying solely on Facebook
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- Make sure you answer all emails and queries. If you can’t make sure someone does on your behalf
- Make sure the information on the SU Website is up to date
- Emails concerning Social/Activities should be sent out a week in advance e.g if the activities are scheduled for a Wednesday to make sure people are informed on Thursday before.
- Create a group mailing list
- Don’t rely on one form of communication – Use emails, Facebook, texts, phone calls, posters etc, some members may miss an email but see the message on Facebook and vice versa, try to cover all bases.
- Face to Face communication is the most effective way to engage with members, so make sure important information is also passed on at training or get-togethers.
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Three Steps to more active members
Step One – How to attract more students
- Know what you're offering new members – What do they get out of joining your Club/Society
- Find a unique selling point – What do you offer that others don’t
- Make accessing information easy
- Balance the asks and the gives – Make sure they get out as much as they put in
- Know what your competition is
Step two – Keep them coming back
- Make your Club/Society welcoming to new and current members
- Create a community/Family feel within your Club/Society
- Identify peoples individual talents and use them
- Give members of your Club/Society ownership
- Make sure you share previous achievements with new members so they get a better idea of what you do. It’s also important you promote your achievements throughout the year as well
- Don’t be stubborn with your methods, be open to change and listen to people’s opinions
Step three – Effective Communication
- Create and promote club/society Facebook Groups
- Publicise events
- Share contact numbers
- Plan in advance
- Ask people to sign up for events and activities in advance
- Use Instagram and Snapchat as an easy way of keeping people in the loop