Im have been a member of my club for about 15 yrs, and have help the possition as Club President all the way to Club Sectretary & News Letter editor.
Recently I checked our attendance records and and out of 45 member only 13 to 17 members show up for meetings. I've even seen meeting attendence down to 7 members, the meeting still went on a scheduled.
My question is what do some of your clubs do to draw new & old club members to the monthly meetings and to the field to fly.
We've done everything from show & tell to raffleing off RC stuff to raise money for the Treasury. Anyone have any other ideas??
NEDYOB

Bring beer and babes!

Just kidding. We sometimes do a steak fry, or pancake breakfast, or a building seminar for what ever people are interested in. Sometimes a good video of some sort that interests everyone.

Sometimes just a meeting at a different members house to show off his shop and new toys.

Beer & babes is a good idea, but then the dirty old men will want the babes to take their cloths off, and that might get use kicked out of the public library where we have our meetings.
NEDYOB

Keep'em SHORT.

Yeah, says the guy who's club has their meetings just a couple of blocks from the Gentlemans Club! [X(]

exotic dancers

13 to 17 members in a club your size is a fairly high attendence in my opinion. In all of the clubs I have been in, the average is around 10 to 20% attendence, regardless of club size. The only time it really jumps is when you vote on raising the dues, or hold an auction.

Just do your best in keeping the arguments down, keep it interesting and short.
We used show & tell, raffles, videos, and still we ran around 15%. This covers about 40 years of clubs for me... from control-line to R/C..

If you ever figure out the answer, tell all of us!!!

Rick

Simple, start a new rule, whoever shows up, gets to decide who's on the field cleanup list.

Interesting thread, I just joined a club with about 150 plus members, only the usual 17 to 20 show up for the meetings acording to the clubs CD'S, would be nice to get more ideas here on how to make more members to show up, we have raffles and door prizes for those who show up, exotic dancers would be cool!![X(]

We have approx 125 members in the [link=http://www.americanturfflyers.com]American Turf Flyers[/link] and get 15 to 20 members to attend meetings on a regular basis. Most of the time what you will find is that you have a core group of members who attend all the work parties, attend all the meetings, etc. In general these individuals keep the club running. And least we not forget, do the majority of the flying!!!!!!

Thank goodness that we have people who care (as much as they do) about our club/field/facilities! My hat is off to them.

15-20? We are lucky to get 10 max, our club is 75 total Im glad though, there are never more then 2-3 planes in the air when its busy so more room for me to burn holes in the sky

Bring up the "No Fault Liabilty Waiver" issue. That'll make for some interesting conversation. Just make sure you bring it up before you go off to the local pub.

ha!

we have abt 125 members or so and usually only a couple doz show up. we try to have a different seminar each week. like from a beginners night, how to tune an engine, setting up for nite flying (last meeting as fri was our annual night fly) etc etc sooner or later you will get members to come to a meeting that interests them and for those that dont attend meetings they might find they are fun and keep returning.

Joe

We have over 300 members, and usually about 30 show up. I every night we do some kind of different fun activity. Last Tuesday, we all had a paper airplane contest. Wasn't that a hoot. There were all kinds of different creative designs, and, of course, prizes for the longest distance, most aerobatic, and hardest landing. Several months ago, one of our indoor free-flight guys gave a presentation about his planes. The sheer grace and slowness of them had everyone, even the 1/3 gas guys, grinning in amazement. I think most of the people show up just to visit with friends and discuss their lastest and greatest projects at our show-and-tell. As for movies, we've never tried them, but there's an idea. And we just do regular Board of Governors business and new club rules and such. Hope this helps, -Andrew

Only have one meeting a year.

That's alll our club does and it works out fine.

How can you get any flying done with 300 members?

In comparison to what I read of other RC clubs ours must be the great exception. We have 40 members and the usual attendance is 15 to 18. there is usually someone's new bird to show off. We keep the meetings short, usually less than an hour and once a month. This week we only had about 13 members but there were two new airplanes to show. Except for 5 or 6 members everyone flys often and the others fly occasionally. We fly everything from small electrics and park flyers to 30% 3d's & 1/4 scale.

Wish we had the problem of getting people to show up for lack of interest. Our problem is that we are all young, with families, sometimes holding two jobs, soccer practice, civic clubs, and church obligations, its hard to find a meeting time to get everybody to come. We've had meetings at 5 a.m. between shift changes at the local plants so that guys can do some fellowship and show off their new models. To keep our meetings interesting, we just advertise a hot cup a coffee and plenty of story telling.

I am in the same club as rcfireman and agree with him. Wanted to add two things, we also have hot dogs and hamburgers with chips before every meeting. The second is that I have heard it said...."the attendance is related to the amount of problems that the club has..." The more issues/problems, the more people show up to give their opinion and input. One other thing that I find puzzling, we have members that I don't even see outside of the meetings. Now I usually hit 1 day a week and at least 1 week end day, but there are members I have never seen after 1 1/2 years.

Aside from the usual seminars, [link=http://www.ajaxrcclub.com/mtg/mtg.html]this was fun.[/link][8D]

Jim, w-a-a-a-y too much fun!!

Seiorously, it seem average to expect about 15% of the club to show up at the club meetings. And I bet they are the same 15% you always see at the feild!

Being in Montreal, Quebec, we have a language issue, so teh meeting is usually repeated; meeting points are initially held in french, and then in english. Makes for some intersting thoughts, and how points can differ between the two!

We try to keep our meeting only in teh winter, and we usually try to have an intersting topic / seminar. Ecveryione is free to bring a planes, and or discuss soemthing of interest to them. We usually try to have a photo night, as well as a 'bring in your latest model' night.

This year, we are building a few SPADs for some winter combat.

Hey Jim,
That's great! Any idea where the gliders can be purchased?
Dennis-

I believe these were obtained at a dollar store, I see them quite often at crafts and toy stores.