We ended 2002 with a decimated member list. Renewal notices had not been sent for most of the year. We had a very small pool to tap for board positions, and some positions were not filled. We lost three active board members due to career changes. Our first priority was to keep the chapter functioning in order to rebuild our membership.
The president-elect agreed to pinch-hit as newsletter editor and the president agreed to produce it until a volunteer could be recruited. Our beautiful web site was lost when the board member hosting it lost her job and couldn't retrieve the web page from the corporate site. Our past-president acting as membership chair volunteered to get us a non-corporate sponsored website and get us going again.
We engaged in some structured problem solving to address our declining membership. We agreed that our programs needed to contribute to the first three purposes stated in our bylaws:
Some of the suggestions discussed were:
Our specific plan was to immediately contact expired members for renewal and to clean the mailing list. We also planned a member survey to validate several possible theories for declining membership. The membership chair carried out several actions which improved renewals, reduced our mailing list, and updated our email list. He also got the web site up, posted board minutes and program announcements, and oversaw the development of a listserv to speed email notifications.
Our programs chair had her first two presenters cancel at the last minute. She recovered with two of our best programs of the year. At the end of the year, we decided that six of our programs provided solid "take-away" training tools. The other six were informational, giving attendees valuable information on community resources. We had programs that addressed needs of beginning trainers and others on state-of-the-art techniques. There were programs for our corporate training coordinators and programs for the independent consultants. Most of the programs were announced in The Huntsville Times. I believe that the inspiration generated by our leadership presenter was directly responsible for our 2004 board recruitment success. We had visitors at every meeting. We used offers of free merchandise and admission as door prizes to encourage people to bring visitors and join. By the end of the year, we had rebuilt the membership base and were able to recruit a new board that has a lot of promise. Attendance at monthly meetings improved.
We had significant feedback from the membership about the food quality. Our board member-at-large had extensive experience with the catering management and made some suggestions to change to a self-serve table which reduced complaints and eliminated some problems due to people who come without a reservation.
We wanted to do another Showcase, but felt that the leadership was stretched too thin this year. We did respond to feedback requesting an ROI program with a half-day event scheduled for this coming February. We gave away one free admission to a One Person Training Dept conference in Atlanta and had two other members attend.
We discussed two specific marketing plans, but were not able to follow through this year. We wanted to target National Members in the area who do not participate in the local chapter and companies that we know train, but have no local representation. We discussed having a program on the benefits of national membership, but have not scheduled that yet. We have been including information on national resources in most of our newsletters. We did promote the use of the chapter discount code.
We continued our practice of introductions for networking which fosters a very congenial atmosphere with no wallflowers. Given the challenges we faced at the beginning of the year, I feel that we have not just survived, but have made significant progress in addressing the foundational needs of a vital chapter.
Submitted by,
Carolyn Lord, 2003 Chapter President
North Alabama Chapter of ASTD, Inc.