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Dear Lapidary, Gem and Fossicking Colleagues
May I introduce myself, I am the Caloundra Lapidary Club Inter
Club Relations Officer.
This year I want to attend other club's committee and general meetings
and also to have a look at a normal open day / evening.
The idea is to try to find out why some clubs do so well and others
not quite so well.
All my notes will be open and available to all clubs and club members.
Reports will be submitted to QLACCA for them to do with as they
see fit.
There seems to be a situation where people join clubs for a few
weeks and then are never seen again! My question is WHY? How do
we keep most of these people interested and happy?
The general feeling is that we all try (and rightly so) to increase
our membership. It has been suggested that if we (all clubs) managed
to hold onto more of our members, even a small percentage, we would
double our membership in three to five years. Just think about that
for a moment!
What I am asking for is an invitation to your club. Yes, I work
and so am not able to attend a daytime meeting in the week, but
I am more than happy to come to any meeting or normal open / working
day in the evenings or at the weekend.
In the name of Lapidary Clubs continuing membership I wait in anticipation,
for your invite.
Peter Dyson
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Peter
When I was the Secretary and President of the Mitchelton
Club, I too was finding that members were joining and then
basically vanishing. What I did was to run a thing, which
I called "The Gem Safari Mystery Tour", which I ran in the
August of each year. That way, if members wanted to go on
it, they had to rejoin. It is sort of like a mystery stone
location treasure hunt, where they end up at a mystery location
for either a dinner or a late picnic lunch and the teams or
individuals are judged and the winners are announced. Everyone
used to have just the best time. In that I increased membership
from about 80 to 120 and they stayed.
I feel that Clubs just have to provide gem related activities
of enjoyment for the new and younger members and prospective
members. Bingo nights will just not do it. If the older members
do not allow the younger members to pursue those types of
activities, which they really enjoy, I feel that many gem
clubs will fold or certainly will drop in numbers.
Regards Paul Clacher
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