Understanding Your Club and Members
As a club, you need to think about what you need to be offering potential members and guests at your club, both on the pitch an off the pitch.
Understanding Your Club and Members
Do you want to be known as a clique, a club for just the chosen few or do you want to be known in your community as a welcoming hub.
Likewise what kind of Rugby League do you provide, is it performance-based, recreational, social and informal or a mixture of these?
What do your current members think?
It is useful to gauge what your current members think of your club, as they are likely to know your club better than anyone else.
It can be extremely beneficial to complete an annual survey to see which areas your members like about your club, and more importantly, what areas they think can be changed.
Our suggestion is to undertake a simple customer survey amongst your members, players and parents.
It is important that the survey is fairly simple and doesn’t take too long to fill in – this way, you are more likely to get a larger amount of replies from your members.
Alternatively, you could set up the survey on an online platform, such as Survey Monkey, and email the link to all club members.
Additionally, you could share this survey via your social media streams to boost responses from club members.
If you want to increase the number of club members and ultimately grow your club, you must cater for “tomorrow’s members” and recognise that they will probably have a different perspective and different needs.
The biggest threat to club growth is complacency – the way forward is to rejuvenate and introduce new thinking and behaviour – keep the fire burning and fight complacency.
Top tips to help rejuvenate your club
- Start the “movement” now – don’t procrastinate!
- Invite new people to your club and ask them what they think – act if they flag up any issues
- Keep going – some people at you club may initially oppose the changes but a time goes on, more and more people will support you and the momentum will grow
- Send people out to visit outstanding clubs, organisations and businesses and learn from them. Ask them about what they did to improve their surroundings
- Do not accept the “this is the way things are done around here” attitude – it will only hold you back
- Learn from your failures and successes and then your hit rate will improve. Gradually you will increase your knowledge and understanding and become more successful
- Be patient and persistent – as the old saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day