From: jcooley@miracle.com (John Cooley)
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
Subject: Re: Membership Renewal ??
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 00:20:30 EDT
Organization: Miracle Computer Consultants

shapiro@cfsctc.enet.dec.com (Steve Shapiro) writes:

>The point was, I endeavored to make them feel welcome within the group and know
>that there was at least one person around who was glad to see them.

I'm not sure what you're saying here.  Should I decree that it be put in our
local bylaws that thou shalt always be nice to strangers & new members?  How
do I enforce this Oh Great One?  (So far, you've described something that
Steve Shapiro decided to do on his own; not something that can be pushed on a
group.  Or, if you know how to do this, please share this knowledge with me.)

>I have found that some new members need a 'reason' to attend something. For
>example, my wife (before she became my wife) was a member for several years.
>She finally attended a new members party because it was specifically for new
>members.
>
>In NTM (North Texas Mensa) there was (at best) 2 official new members parties
>per year, but as I recall, there were some years where there was only 1 and I
>seem to recall even having skipped a year.
>
>So, another thing which I would do is have more "new member" oriented parties
>or events.

In Boston Mensa, we've had many times over the years held new members parties.
The reason why we don't do it now was because of the effect this had on the poor
new members. (They'd be overwhelmed by all the attention and never come back.)

What we've found to work in Boston Mensa is that we hold a variety of different
events.  Some house parties, some resturant events, some museum trips, scuba
diving, paintball wars, visit the beach, mountain climbing, discussion groups,
gardening, visiting a farm, canoe trips, dancing nights, hot tub parties, bible
discussion groups, women's groups, pizza SIG, blonde SIG, games nights, etc.

New members tend to pick what they like and go to it.  They also find people
with common interests at these events.  So a LocSec, like myself, should
primarily be interested in getting lots of new and varied events for the
group's social calendar, right?  (Guess what, I've been Boston Mensa's Calendar
Bush Beater for over two years now...  I try to recruit lots of new and different events from local members.)

Should I stop doing this?


>Also, what about a SIG potpourri? Have a party where there are representatives
>for each of the sigs, weekly events, etc. are there so that new members could
>check out all of the active sigs within the group?

See above discussion.


>These are things that we as members can do to work to keep existing membership.

Please be more specific.  Details!  Details!  Details!

                                             I can't fix National,
                                             but I can fix local!

                                                 - John Cooley
                                                   LocSec, Boston Mensa

 ==========================================================================
       John Cooley              Zappa as a waste management engineer: 
                                  "Hey, there, Brother!  Whatcha
    jcooley@miracle.com            doing with that Cosmic Debris?"