The Lions Club of the City of Adelaide is a very diverse and versatile club. Our members range from early 20s to mid 90s. We come from a range of different countries, cultural backgrounds and even religions. We all come together with the common goal of helping others and serving the community, and we become great friends and have a lot of fun while we do it.
But, our club has had it’s challenges over the years with building up membership. No different to any other Lions Clubs. It’s not easy running a volunteer group and increasing membership. So how have we built up our club and been so successful?
In my opinion, there have been four (4) key points. Firstly, we have fun and make our meetings etc. a lot of fun … how?
- Interesting guest speakers
- reduced the amount of time spent on formalities
- play games at meetings
- run fun social events
The second is getting members involved in projects that interest them, and listen to new ideas. If members aren’t interested in what they are doing, they will lose interest and leave.
The third is promotion, promotion, promotion. Our club has invested a lot of time into developing the following to educate others in who we are and what we do … leading to, why they should join:
- visually attractive, easy to use and informative website (and we keep it updated)
- Display banners and brochures at all our events
- Keep active on social media (Facebook and Twitter)
- Design and print brochures specifically for our club and projects
And finally, just ask! We ask family, friends, neighbours, people at events etc. We even ask our dentists. Whether someone approaches us through an online enquiry or shows signs of interest at an event, we ask if they are interested in learning more and joining our club. Invite them for a coffee and answer their questions. If you don’t ask, you will never know if they might join. Maybe the people you know are just waiting for you to ask.
Too many people haven’t heard of lions, don’t know what we do or they simply think lions are elderly gentlemen who cook BBQs. We need to get out there and promote who we are and what we are doing in our communities.
