Sunday, December 4th DeMolays & Rainbows from across Connecticut gathered to learn how to help their chapter's membership activities succeed.
Membership is an on going challenge to all chapters and assemblies. The minute one is going well and we relax we all of a sudden look around and realize many have moved on. Sometimes they age out, go to school or just lose interest.
Whatever the case we cannot rest on our past successes. If we want to build our membership for the future then we must do it one new member at a time and once that member is there we must instill the excitement to keep them.
The program put together and run under the leadership of SMC Paul Evangelista and GWA Darcy Needham, instilled experienced DeMolays & Rainbows, newer members and Advisors with the same types of information, but presented to each group seperately and made specifically relevant to each group.
Membership/Prospect Recruitment Events - Want to run that dynamic prospect event, learn where to get potential members from, how to invite them to your event and how to get them to sign a petition. All attendees were schooled in the most efficient ways these events occur. All members and Advisors need to be involved in event planning, from coming up with ideas, to fine tuning the idea, to carrying out the event, and each level (new, exeperienced and advisors) have different responsibilites for the events. New members help with the ideas, experienced members help finetune those ideas and advisors help support those ideas -- even Sky Diving.
Selling DeMolay - included the seven elements of a sale, how to close the deal and how to deal with objections. This is a critical piece of our recruitment efforts that often gets missed or not even thought about. This conference help train our members to be that sales person. A group activity included selling a water bottle.
Keeping it Fun - Keeping our members - So now new members have joined, how do we keep them. The conference developed ways to stay in DeMolay and Rainbow. What are the fun events, when is education about DeMolay culture critical, how should a chapters activities impact keeping members, where do the lessons and examples fit in to an overall program?
If your chapter would like assistance with their membership program, please contact Membership Director, Tyler Anderson at membership@ctdemolay.net , SMC Paul Evangelista at smc@ctdemolay.net or Dad Needham at eo@ctdemolay.net or 203-506-9840.