Need Ideas for Increasing Club Membership

[bwoodward]

Our club just got started about 3 months ago. We have about 16 to 20 people on the "rolls" and about 10 to 14 actually show up to fence. Aside from the coach, four of us had fenced before - everyone else was a beginner. There are no other fencing clubs or school fencing teams anywhere near here.

I've become the unofficial PR guy for our club. Since we got started we've had a local magazine story about us (not my doing), a local cable TV talk show did an interview with our coach, the local newspaper did a sports page feature on us (pictures and all), and the week before Christmas the local TV station sent a camera-man/reporter out to our practice and did a nice feature on us for their sports segment. We have a decent brochure that tells our story. We have a web site. Our coach loves to do demonstrations at high schools and youth groups. I think we've been given about all the free publicity we're going to get. (Unless we rob a liquor store. "A gang dressed in white robbed Joe's Liquors at swordpoint....")

What I would like to do is increase our membership. It would be great to have 40 people on the rolls and 25 to 30 who show up to fence. I need some ideas. What has worked to increase membership at your club? We don't have a lot of money to spend on ads and yellow pages.

[ThatReallyHurt]

Wow... looks like you're off to a good start... that's a pretty good PR blitz you've had so far, methinks.

One thing you may want to consider would be a poster or two in local schools, college dorms, or churches... they do cost some money, but I think you'd get more mileage out of them than you would pamphlets or something similar (I think you'll get better results if your adverts require no effort to find or read).

Have you had no luck bolstering the ranks with your current advertising, or are you just trying to keep momentum?

[drippingwet]

Also, think about offering the first few sessions for free.

Anyway, once you've got a crowd, if you want to keep them, then it might be a good idea to maintain their interest. You might want to try having a competitive approach at the club, like a league where the fencers have to try and work their way to the top. This could determine who goes into a club team for external competions. Maybe offer free sessions or coaching to the top 3 fencers to add more incentive. Make sure students are getting enough coach attention, so they don't feel disillusioned and non-progressing. Letting some of the better fencers teach (might need incentive) may be a good way to give more attention to people who won't pay for private coaching.

And try and have a few boxes. The box is used in modern competition, therefore it's important to spar with the box too.

[Alain]

First off, congratulations on starting up the new club. That's an amazing start by the sounds of it, with all that publicity.

A few random notes to do with running the club, if they help, with experience from the one where I train...

- Make sure that your pricing range is well thought-out; affordable and flexible. At our club, we have memberships for: U17, U20, Student, Senior, Veteran, and Country (Country is for infrequent visitors, 2 visits/month).
- First evening of attendence is free. After this, visitors pay us £10 which is priced high, so it encourages them to join.
- The bigger clubs in the UK set up Standing Order payments. Not sure if you have these in the US, but basically the member sets up monthly/quarterly payments. This saves on the bother of collecting money from your point, and from the members point it encourages them to turn up and fence if they've already paid.
- If you can, try to make your membership prices include other benefits, apart from fencing. When you join our club, we pay for affiliation to British Fencing, as well as membership of Duellist. Where I trained in France, the membership also included discounts in local shops.
- Keep your website up-to-date!

I hope some of this helps. In any case, best of luck with everything and let us know how you get on

[mlr2fence]

What a great start for a new club! Are you geared to adults/kids recreation/competitive? Having a clear 'vision' of where the club is headed is helpful in targeting your potential members. I think that growing and maintaining membership is a problem most clubs have. One idea is to offer camps for the kids during school breaks. Parents are always looking for things for their kids to do and it can be a great money maker for the club/coach. Odds are that a few will continue with lessons after the camp is over.

[The Armourer]

Continueing on where Alain left off just two other suggestions:
Try and run a beginners course - price it sharp if you can, these are a great source of new members.
Dont try and do everything yourself - you really need some sort of organising committee (I am sure you have this already)

Good luck with your club

[MikeHarm]

My advice is to have discounts for C rated fencers, and waive the floor fees for A's. It'll make your guys get out to more tournaments in hope of winning the discount and if you have high raters coming to fence that'll be a bigger draw for competitive fencers than any marketing you could do once the word gets out about it.

I helped with marketing a fencing club once myself. Public demonstrations were good. If you were in a college putting little ads up in the dorms and such were a good thing. Another place to put ads up are in the martial arts supply stores. In Michigan for instance, there is a store, Kim's where people from all the local martial arts places go to buy their stuff and a lot of them were interested in giving fencing a whirl.

Also if you're in a college sort of environment picking a tavern the college kids go to thats not too rowdy to visit after practice might be good for drawing additional members as well.

[esskreemr]

I have had personal experience with this dilemma.

There were some really good points already posted. I'll am going to brazenly reiterate them.

1) Beginners' class. This is the meat and potatoes of every club. $50+ for a 3 month class is well within most budgets, provided that equipment is available.

2) Start building equipment stocks now. Control them. Nothing is worse than buying $500.00 of equipment to have it gradually/not-so-gradually disappear over the year.

3) Buy electric equipment. Enough to have 2 people on 2 strips with 2 waiting. After an introductory class, let them experience electric fencing in a controlled, judged manner. This is where you will get your lifers. It's expensive, time-intensive to maintain, but will hook quite a few people that may have wandered off later.

4) Make sure they get what they pay for! This is important. Nothing will kill a club quicker than charging a fee (even a measely $25.00 a month) and then having free fencing all night. Warm up followed by group drills followed by individual lessons with controlled bouting in between.

5) Get them involved, keep them involved. Take a little time to go over the rulebook. Encourage them to fence. Encourage them to direct, no matter how bad they think they are. A round robin/king of the strip (5 touch bouts, winner stays, loser leaves with a 3 win limit before rotating the winner out so that better fencers don't dominate, next person up directs).

6) One Saturday a month have an intensive session. Put strips down, have a competition like atmosphere. 15 point bouts should be mandatory. Know fencers who are great at club only to go to a meet and get demolished 15-6? Fencing 5 point bouts preps you for 5 point bouts, 15 pointers are a whole new animal and require different tactics, etc. Make it a learning experience for everyone. Give prizes (ribbons or printed certificates are cheap but effective)

7) Ladder competition.

8) Have one night that is kind of a "family night" which means fees are cheap or waived and eveyone can fence (check your insurance though). This is important to keep the recreational fencers who support the club by telling 12 people a day that they are fencing at such and such club. VERY inexpensive PR. Be encouraging to non-competitive fencers, allow that particular day to be relaxed but make sure to keep it flowing so that it's constructive.

9) Keep it fun. Whenever there is money involved, politics rear their ugly head. Try to be part of the "middle" group in all affairs. Try to see everybody's side of the argument. It's hard but look at the big picture for the club first. As you're club grows, you'll see weapon "cliques" forming that at first start off with tongue-in-cheek banter which could later explode into a royal free for all. Try to encourage everyone to give each weapon a try. Watch for signs of dissent. Fencers are naturally competitive, combative, and creative people. This is an asset, but can also prove to be a liability.

Hope this helps. I wasn't able to implement all of these, but there were several that I did that doubled the "core" group of fencers and now keeps a steady stream of "fresh meat" from which the ranks of the more dedicated fencers arise.

[Phoenix]

My club has an "open house" where people come in and they have demos and tell people what they are about, how things work, and get to see some 5 touch bouts of the different weapons. They also supply food, lot of pamphlets, and sign up sheets. A lot of people come to these and they get really interactive, cheering for a fencer and asking questions. Then we let them walk around, ask questions with the fencers, and we let the younger kids work on point control with dry foils on the wall.

We have also done demos at festivals and I have heard of people doing ones in malls. Go to places where lots of people are. Maybe get some shirts or patches that your club members could wear and you definatly get questions on fencing.

We also host intermurals for our club members to experience what competitive fencing is like and get a feel for it.

Tv and newspapers are a really great start, and you have already done this, which is great. If your club starts to have competitions there, post the results in the newspaper so people see that fencing is really interactive.

Hope this helps ^_^

[bwoodward]

These are some great suggestions. Thanks everyone. Keep 'em coming if you have something new.

[LordTofuDog-jnr]

Import attractive female coach, it sounds lame and pathetic but it would work.

Especially if they were the one who graced all of the posters/pamphlets etc that you put out.

[mrbiggs]

I think that oftentimes the core, reliable members are very important, especially young ones, because they tend to recruit friends. I'm sure many people here started fencing after some friend suggested it to them.

[fluidfencer]

Lots of good advice here...

One of the most impotant thing you have to have is PATIENCE. It took us six years, under very similar circumstances, to get to 100 fencers in the club (45 the year before). All the stuff you are doing is perfect, but it just takes time for people to realize that you are there, for parents to get confortable with the idea of a new sport, and for word of mouth to get around. Add posters to what you are already doing and that should be plenty. We open the club to a free class once a month, and that has been helpful as well. But you know your market better than we do.

Also... DON'T go cheap on the fees thinking that will attract people. Did I read somebody posting $50 for THREE months!!!!! We charge $60 per month (equipment provided) and people don't flinch (they can come twice per week, same for adults and kids). If you want the club to grow, you will need money to buy equipment and maybe pay for a better facility, and allow coaches to make something for their work. You don't need to give away your services. People want value, not cheapness.

[Alain]

Everyone has given some excellent advice

Beginners courses, as pointed out, are the bread-and-butter of most successful clubs in that they provide (a) new members, and (b) money.
Some tips for running the courses:
- Make sure that they're planned. Not just a plan for the course (lesson plan, class size, dates), but also what space and equipment they will use.
- Try to set an all-inclusive for the course, and ask the beginners to pay it in advance, it's a lot more efficient.
- Get the beginners to do some sort of grading/exam at the end. In England, we do the Grade 1 (really easy).
- If you can, try and run an 'advanced' course for them once they have finished, to introduce them to épée for example, but also more advanced techniques/tactics and how to use the electrical equipment.
- Put all your beginner course information up on your website. Have a look at ours for an idea: http://www.readingfencingclub.net/html/beginners.html.
- Keep all the beginner kit in good order, and reinvest the money from the courses back into the club!

I recently introduced monthly competition nights at our club, and they've been a great success There is a handicap system in place (like in golf); they add a little edge for the more serious fencers, making them work hard, whilst giving the newbies a good challenge and more of an idea what competitions are about. Ladder competitions are good too, but I've not run one of those.
Anyway, have a look at this page - http://www.readingfencingclub.net/do...%20Trophy.html - for an idea

It's a good idea to get some sort of committee together. Try to get a mix of people on there, from seasoned veterans to (keen) beginners. Meetings don't need to be often, but must be regular (arrange the dates in advance), and they're a good way of getting ideas together and planning the way ahead to where you want to go.

Fees. Everyone has different ideas about them, I'd suggest that you get your committee together and discuss what's best for you. As people say, they need to be set at a reasonable level whilst still allowing you to balance the books and even put some money back into the club...

One other random point. Try to get some form of clothing for your club - tracksuits, t-shirts, polo-shirts, whatever - and get people to buy and wear them. Once you get a good number showing, it adds to the 'club' atmosphere and improves your image as a whole.

Sorry for rambling. A lot of the stuff has probably been somewhere else, but the main thing is that you keep working for the club, plan ahead, and you'll be fine!

All the best

[hpfencing]

There are a lot of really good ideas and suggestions I see here. I'm going to use a few of the items to boost memebership at our clus as well...

One of the things we do to get the studnets to "buy-in" is a survey after they have been there 4 weeks letting us know what they like and don't like abouthte program, suggestions and a place for them to summarize what they have learned. this has helped me cater to our fencers and retain them which is a big issue in some clubs.

As far as other ideas, 1. get your local newspaper behind you and get some articles in teh paper 2. create flyers and get them to youth groups and fitness clubs. 3. continue doing what you are doing, don't throw the baby out with the wash water. Sounds like you have a lot gong for you. Relax and things should be fine. Seems like you are dong great.

[foilz]

Fencers are different from other people.

The fencing experience is different from all other sports.

As a marketer, I wonder what fencers have in common with each other that would help you (i) identify potential fencers in a crowd, any crowd, and (ii) shape and develop your approach to invite these prospects to try it.

Perhaps you could run a poll here to try to identify what defines fencers, or makes fencers different. Perhaps you could search this site for answers to threads like "why do I fence" or "why fencers are different".

Sorting those ideas would help you develop an effective "pitch" (for college posters, flyers, classified ads, etc.) that would seek out and connect with people who have an honest, but untapped predisposition for fencing -- high-potential fencers, if you will, those most likely to try it, and stick with it.

You could offer these promising candidates an introductory "fencing experience" at a discounted or nominal price. This would be an exciting immersion (maybe in four or six parts) that helped them catch the bug -- i.e., a program safely focused on the fun and excitement of fencing, rather than the rudimentary grind of learning.

Your coaches could expose them to the thrill of the bout by interpreting and dissecting live bouts between your best fencers (E, F and S). They could immerse them enough, safely, to feel what it's like to cross swords with an opponent. And so on. Your club members could work with you to welcome these people into the fold, share their own experiences, and help them feel at home.

Meanwhile, you would be working hard (with a light, friendly touch) to channel them into a course of instruction, in classes or individually, when you sense the time is right.

The keys would be (i) identifying high-potential fencers, (ii) figuring out how to best connect with them, (iii) sampling the fun, excitement and experience of fencing (with an emphasis on experiential factors rather than sequential learning), (iv) positioning promising candidates for lessons, when you think they are ready, (v) signing them up, probably with another deal.

If you are successful, other clubs could adopt what you did.

Just a thought.

[fluidfencer]

Our experience has been that fencers are generally smart (quite a few in math and debate teams), not usually into team sports (if not fencing, they would probably be into swimming or track, etc.), and most often from a middle-income or higher demographic. Most start from age 9 to 14 (it is tough to get older kids unless you put a program into their school... they are just to busy with other stuff).

The closest marketable target is homeschool programs, and maybe private schools. Most everybody already knows that. Otherwise, there isn't an easy way to do this. Target elementary and middle schools, and places where they AND THEIR PARENTS frequent.

Our club is 50/50 girls and guys, and there is not a typical body type. Don't waste time looking at the wrong things. Just get to work with the flyers and demonstrations and other things that will get your name out in the community.

Originally Posted by foilz

Fencers are different from other people.

The fencing experience is different from all other sports.

As a marketer, I wonder what fencers have in common with each other that would help you (i) identify potential fencers in a crowd, any crowd, and (ii) shape and develop your approach to invite these prospects to try it.

Perhaps you could run a poll here to try to identify what defines fencers, or makes fencers different. Perhaps you could search this site for answers to threads like "why do I fence" or "why fencers are different".

Sorting those ideas would help you develop an effective "pitch" (for college posters, flyers, classified ads, etc.) that would seek out and connect with people who have an honest, but untapped predisposition for fencing -- high-potential fencers, if you will, those most likely to try it, and stick with it.

You could offer these promising candidates an introductory "fencing experience" at a discounted or nominal price. This would be an exciting immersion (maybe in four or six parts) that helped them catch the bug -- i.e., a program safely focused on the fun and excitement of fencing, rather than the rudimentary grind of learning.

Your coaches could expose them to the thrill of the bout by interpreting and dissecting live bouts between your best fencers (E, F and S). They could immerse them enough, safely, to feel what it's like to cross swords with an opponent. And so on. Your club members could work with you to welcome these people into the fold, share their own experiences, and help them feel at home.

Meanwhile, you would be working hard (with a light, friendly touch) to channel them into a course of instruction, in classes or individually, when you sense the time is right.

The keys would be (i) identifying high-potential fencers, (ii) figuring out how to best connect with them, (iii) sampling the fun, excitement and experience of fencing (with an emphasis on experiential factors rather than sequential learning), (iv) positioning promising candidates for lessons, when you think they are ready, (v) signing them up, probably with another deal.

If you are successful, other clubs could adopt what you did.

Just a thought.

[jBirch]

A couple of other suggestions:

Someone mentioned keeping fees high as opposed to low. It sounds odd but every time we doubled our fees, we doubled our membership.

Make sure your class sizes are big enough to make money but small enough to get coached. A coach can only really handle 12-16 students max in a group lesson. Any more and it gets unbearable. If you want to increase membership you HAVE to increase coaching staff.

Market yourself at U13. These are the people most likely to stick with your club for many years. It's also the source of your future coaches and accomplishments. Plus, you get one kid and you get two potential volunteers as well plus any other kids in the household.

Make bouting part of your regular night, but include lessons as well. The formula we go with is 1/3 stretching-games, 1/3 lesson, 1/3 bouting. Nothing worse then getting lessons and no chance to play the game. Or just playing the game and getting no lessons.

Get your fencers to competitions frequently and regularly. Have regular competitions at your club where you award meaningful prizes (medals, not ribbons, and some sort of overall prize. A $20 gift certificate or something). Let your members compete in their own skill categories so that your newbs don't get crunched all the time.

Get your members to buy high-use gear in the first few sessions. We require our students to purchase gloves and body wires through the club. Saves a ton on club gear and people tend to look after their own stuff where they'd trash club gear.

Hope this helps.

[Alain]

Originally Posted by foilz

Fencers are different from other people.
Perhaps you could run a poll here to try to identify what defines fencers, or makes fencers different. Perhaps you could search this site for answers to threads like "why do I fence" or "why fencers are different".

Done (as best I can)... http://www.fencing101.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14976

P.S. 100 posts, woohoo!