If you think of your club members within a set of concentric circles with those who most consistently contribute with their time and/or finances being the bullseye (the core) and then moving out from there with regular attenders, irregular attenders, and finally outside the circles … the public; it’s very tempting to go directly after the public in an attempt to increase your club size.
However, I’ve seen such a strategy lead to tragic neglect and/or overwork of the club’s core to the point of chronic lack of morale or even leaving the club. You end up inadvertently rewarding the club consumers instead of the club contributors.
Our club core has its own periodic newsletter and special core-only events (a couple of times each year).
Instead of focusing primarily on the public, we’ve chosen to prioritize growing the core (bringing members into the core from one of the more outermost circles) to where the core consistently represents between 35-50% of total club membership. Each core member owns a contributing role in keeping the club viable and growing.
As life’s events happen to all of our club members, and their ability for active involvement in the club ebbs and flows, so does the make-up of the core members’ group year by year.
Of course all of this means as the club grows, consistently providing a choice of significant opportunities – integrating members into the core as club contributors becomes an on-going challenge.
As I’ve said in previous posts, the core of any club will inevitably attract and retain visitors/members like themselves. It will also cause others to deselect themselves from membership when they feel like “these are not my people.”
With that strategic fact in mind (and assuming the club’s core is healthy and not toxic), having as a priority making the core increasingly robust makes sense to us.
Categories: Governance, Uncategorized
Magic Club Leadership Resources 