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Recruitment: Part 2 “Retaining Your Members” |
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Written by Administrator
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Once you have recruited members, players or volunteers to your club it becomes very important to retain them. It is essential that the club communicates effectively with it’s members and involves them as much as possible. Members should never be taken for granted and should be consulted whenever major decisions are required to be made.
Some good ways of improving communication within your club are to make use of your club website to make announcements and to advertise events at the club. By keeping your website up to date and providing engaging content for users of the site you are not only generating interest amongst your membership but also showing prospective members what is going on at the club. It is important that you project the correct image through your clubs website and any other club publications and that the tone and type of articles show your club in a good light. A monthly email newsletter sent from your site is another excellent way to promote your club and engage your members. Involve your members as much as possible with the club consult with those who have relevant skills / interests, organise social nights for the whole club (not just the players), try to be as family friendly and as inclusive as possible. Ensure that if a member wants to get involved in helping out at the club there is lots of help and support for them in the long run. For players and volunteers you need to show them that they can develop with your club. For players that means access to good coaching, facilities and equipment. For the senior players in your squad they may want to move into coaching. Again you should look at how you as a club can support these guys, by finding the correct training courses, paying for them to go through the courses and helping them as they start out coaching. Maybe getting one of your more senior coaches to mentor them in the beginning. For the volunteers at your club show that they too can develop their skills. Organise courses to get them involved in refereeing, coaching, touch judging or improving whatever skills they are good enough to help out at your club with. Most importantly for all these groups make sure that they realise that they are an important part of the club and that the club appreciates all their hard work. In the following two articles we will look at “Recognition” and “Reward” and how these are very important aspects of retaining members, volunteers, players and staff. People like to be appreciated!!!!! |
