What methods have you ACTUALLY TESTED to get new members?

[tucson club admin]

Ideas are a dime a dozen, but what methods have you ACTUALLY TESTED
for getting more go club members?

How well did they work or not work?

So far we've seen some mild recruiting benefit from getting the AGA website's
local club directory updated with correct meeting information for us,
but we still would like more members.

Thanks!

http://tucsongoclub.com/ : Tucson Go/Baduk/Weiqi Club, Southern Arizona's #1 Go Club

[schultz]

Back when I was part of an active club, here are some of the things we did:

• Played in the SUB (Student Union Building) on the local university campus
  Result: Got some walk-through traffic, and a couple people stopped by, but did not pick up any new members that I can remember (on campus chess club met the same night, so had some conversations with one or two of them, but no one interested in learning Go, no new members, and only one chess club member trying to flex on us with his chess skill :/
• Played at a local coffee shop (only a few times) - so limited experience
  Result: Didn't really do this long enough to see any results (no new members)
• Set up a booth at a small Game Faire in a nearby town (the game faire was specifically aimed at tabletop and boardgames)
  Result: Actually had some interest, got a few people to sit down, learn the game, and even play a game. Didn't really drum up any new members, but we were able to connect with another Go club in another town and got some correspondence games/tournament(s) going between some of the members
• Our club went to a local hot springs and brought our plastic game mats and stones and played in/around the different pools
  Result: We had a fun time!, but mostly only had a few strange looks our direction and I think we talked to one or two people about what we were doing, but no solid interest, and no new members

Our club was always pretty small, and now that club is no longer active. So some great results for us.

Now that I have the pessimism out of the way, here's some added info:
The big thing that helped our club was what you already mentioned - the updated information on the AGA website. Me and a close friend had been playing with a group of our friends and decided we should actually start up a local chapter, but much to our surprise another group had already done that! So we connected our two groups and had a much larger and more organized club. This was the good times for our club.

Note: This up-to-date information will help pull in those who are very interested in playing Go but don't know anyone else who does in their area. BUT (and this is IMPORTANT-all caps!), make sure if you have a listed meeting time and location that you ALWAYS have someone present during the scheduled time OR have some means of letting people know that it was cancelled or rescheduled. Nothing will kill your club faster than missing a few meeting times (without notice) and turning off members (or potential members!) from even trying to show up. This was a huge killer of our club.

After saying all that, though, the best recruiting I've found has always been from those personal connections. People inviting friends and family, reaching out personally to people they know and helping them get introduced to the game and to the club. These were always our best members. Friends who liked hanging out, those who would bug each other to keep showing up to the club, and those who would play each other outside of the club. If you lack those personal connections, you have to have someone really committed to the game to keep coming to a club week after week after week.

Just my 2 cents (or 2 dollars - sorry for my verbosity!). Hope it helps!

[Shenoute]

My experience kind of matches Schultz's. That is, events which reached to total strangers (Japanese culture events, manga/anime conventions, museums, public "game day" organized by the city council in public area during summer, etc) never, ever, brought one single member to the club(s) I have attended. Plenty of people learnt the rules, some of them were clearly very interested (spending the whole day playing go with club members instead of enjoying the wide array of activities), and some of them may have become players online or in another club, but I have yet to see one of them becoming a regular member. In fact during all these years a grand total of 3 (three) people showed up at the club after having learnt go in such an event, and none of these three became a regular.

The only people I have seen becoming regular members are the ones who come to the club having already done some research, learnt the rules, played a few games on the internet, all by themselves. Friends of friends kind of works too, as Schultz mentions, but in my experience they tend to fade off after some time.

[EdLee]

In fact during all these years a grand total of 3 (three) people showed up at the club after having learnt go in such an event, and none of these three became a regular.

The only people I have seen becoming regular members are the ones who come to the club having already <...>.

My stats are similar ( or worse? )

For over 10 years, we meet very regularly at a coffee shop ( now, twice a week: Wed. and Sat. ). We've given out over 2,000 "info" business cards of our Go club.

Number of raw pedestrians who became regular members: Zero.
Currently we have up to over 10 members on a good day --
of the regulars, percentage who already knew about Go before their 1st visit: 100%

Hypotheses:

(1) the cultural barrier (in the US, dunno about Europe) is too high against Go.

(2) the situation could be somewhat different if you set up a regular club meet in certain domains: e.g. in the engineering and science building at a university. If we study the population of Go people across all universities in North America, some trends should emerge (e.g. UCLA, UCBerkeley, U. of Toronto -- plotted against distribution of students of Asian descent, etc. ))

(3) (corollary to 1): if you set up a regular Go meet at a public venue, like a coffee shop, for the general public, expect a near 100% attrition rate from raw pedestrians (in the US -- correlation to Go population in the US).

Food for thought:
Who else plays American football outside of the US ?
Who else does su-mo wrestling outside of Japan ?
Who plays shogi outside of Japan ? (yea, it's non-zero)
( In fact, who in Japan still plays Go and shogi? Any new blood to replace the aging Go/Shogi population when they're gone?! )
Before you scream the differences, look at the similar, cultural, and historical factors.
First video to hit 1 Billion views:

-- Relevance to the kind of world we live in.

[Shenoute]

Glad (well, kind of...) to see that it is not just a problem in the two clubs I have been a long-time member. At this point I don't know what to do apart maybe, as you suggested, targeting specific populations. The club I attend now has, like yours, around 8-10 members on a normal/good evening, often it is more like 5/6. It is a bit disheartening to think that with so few members even losing 1 or 2 regulars, as it happens every now and then, has a very big impact.

[schultz]

Glad (well, kind of...) to see that it is not just a problem in the two clubs I have been a long-time member. At this point I don't know what to do apart maybe, as you suggested, targeting specific populations. The club I attend now has, like yours, around 8-10 members on a normal/good evening, often it is more like 5/6. It is a bit disheartening to think that with so few members even losing 1 or 2 regulars, as it happens every now and then, has a very big impact.

I think it comes down to the fact that Go is (and likely always will be) a very niche activity. Targeting those demographics more likely to take to it could help (though that still didn't help us being on campus at a university known for its engineering), but we'll always struggle with the numbers. Makes me wish I lived in a bigger city (Seattle's Go center always makes me super jelly).

And when you have the small numbers, that loss of a couple people can really tank the club (and makes those still around have to work that much harder to keep it going). It's what happened to our club (along with some nerd drama that helped push a couple more people out the door).

[EdLee]

some nerd drama

Do tell ?

[Knotwilg]

DISCLAIMER: I was an active member of a club I founded in 1994 until 2001, and our country's president during those last years. Since then I have spent my time otherwise.

To get new members for your club, you have to 1) make them show up 2) make them return

You have much more control over the 2nd part, in avoiding all the things that make them run away. Which includes:

- when they show up, find doors closed
- or they first have to call someone, who will then maybe come and certainly go home soon (this happened surprisingly often to me when visiting a club abroad)
- when they show up and the club is actually open, there is no one really welcoming them
- or the other side of that spectrum "Now sit down and be my pupil for 3 hours in succession. You will experience my magnificent personality in full display"
- and don't be too desperate "you will be here next week? promise? PLEAAASE?"

To state it positively, be there, always, welcome new joiners, help them overcome their shyness (oh no, I just want to watch) but let them enjoy the game at their own pace. People want to be part of something that is already great and play a role in that. It's a fine line between being too conscious of their presence and carrying on with your group's banter.

For the 1st part, there's only so much pulling you can do and the bigger Hikaru or Alphago waves are totally out of your control. As you mentioned, being listed with correct place and time in key listings such as your country's website, is the most important way to make sure people who want to come, actually get there.

For what it's worth, when fishing for new players, you should target individuals in somewhat anonymous gatherings that have either an intellectual or cultural link to Go. A Japanese fair, a games exposition, a conference about AI. We were significantly more successful there, than all the times we went promoting Go in a circle that was already perfectly happy passing their time together.

So the main message is: focus on the staying, not the coming.

[schultz]

some nerd drama

Do tell ?

Some of the "leadership" really wanted to change the night so another friend of their's could show up, so they did a vote. The vote was questionable and sort of felt like a formality on something they wanted (and what do you know, the new night won). At the time I was the strongest player, and a solid member at the club, but the new night didn't work for me at all - so I could no longer attend. One of my buddies didn't like the way it all went down, so stopped showing up out of principle (he was probably 2nd/3rd strongest at the club). The damage was done and that was the start of the end for that club. And I'm not even sure if the friend they were trying to get to attend even showed up or not.

There were no hard feelings for me (but I know there were some unfortunate hurt feelings for other members), but it was sad to see what happened to the club.

So the main message is: focus on the staying, not the coming.

This is essentially what I was trying to say - but Knotwilg said it better and more succinctly in this quote.

In the end, these messages are not meant to be a downer for you in running your Tucson club! Keep up the good fight, and much luck to you! I loved the club when we had it, and it was great knowing there was a good group here in my town that loved playing Go as much as I did. Just make sure and spread the work load as much as you can. Burnout is another sad finisher of too much clubs (not exclusive to Go!).

So keep it light, keep it fun, and enjoy yourselves and don't stress too much about the numbers.

Your best outreach is making sure you have the word out so anyone that is interested in Go can find your club and get plugged in, not necessarily in trying to recruit people who have never played before (though I would be interested in hearing from people who have run programs in schools for younger kids!).

[EdLee]

Hi schultz, Thanks.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm not even sure if the friend they were trying to get to attend even showed up or not.

Very generous of you not to have hard feelings.

Based on the plot so far:
- A bird in hand is better than two in the bushes, etc. ;
- Bad, incompetent, short-sighted "leadership" ; ( agreed about the quotes )
- Bad management ( re: Challenger disaster, and the next one ) ;
- Dunning-Kruger effect strikes every time.

[Pangolino]

The club where I used to play is in a city with a lot of students. A lot of new people every year (~8-10k new students), young and with the need of new social groups, so it was a fertile grounds for recruitment.

Conventions and stands where we teach to play never worked. Comic themed, japanese themed, boardgame themed. Never.

The only way we recruited new people was to leave flyers around town, in the university open bulletin boards. We did it for almost every department, but usually people came from IT, maths and physics, so we focused more heavily in keeping the flyers up in those departments during the year.

What comes after, you already know. Be friendly, don't be too aggressive, don't be too pushy, let them enjoy the game.

Sadly, a lot of new people in town every year also means that many players left after 3-4-5 years, but that's good in another way because many of them ended up starting a club or joining the existing one in their next stop in life.

[Elom]

I've little business in this discussion, but I cannot help sharing a thought experiment about this.

First, at most positions in a game of go there are many bad moves and only a few good ones. Or if driving, only a small range of correct motion to get from A to B. Perhaps similar's true of all of life; so, first use the process of elimination always.* Second, it is sometimes better to prepare well for a situation before bringing it about. Like in chess, were it is often recommended to study the endgame first before the middlegame, and the middle game before the opening.*

So that would mean that priority should go to: finding and removing all possible negative impacts on attracting new members or retaining old members and those interested in joining, rather than adding positives. Also, prioritise keeping members over attracting members.

Code: Select all

------------------------------------------------------------|
|                        |Keeping members|Attracting members|
------------------------------------------------------------|
|Removing all negatives  |       4 points|2 points          |
------------------------------------------------------------|
|Introduce more positives|       2 points|1 point           |
-----------------------------------------------------------

So if the most common form of nourishing a go club is attracting members by talking about how good go is, it may be four times more effective to think of different types of people and of every possible reason they may want to leave, and fix those issues. I say nourish to represent both increasing membership and creating an environment most ripe for growth.

In between at two points is dispelling people preconceptions about board games and clubs— I cannot help but think if one could achieve this, they may make much headway— and keeping existing members by occasionally making positive additions.

At least, according to the thought experiment.

*both subjects of future rambles

[sybob]

Sorry for being blunt: a more attractive website for your go club might help?
(says he who runs a small club without a website)

[Aidoneus]

I became discouraged a few years ago when I couldn't find any local Go players and put the game aside. With the end of the spring term, I finally retired from Purdue and started searching again for a chess/Go club. I finally found a pair of 12-10 kyu (online) players in an adjacent county. So, along with my wife, I passed a background check in order to reserve a meeting room at a local library. What follows is a description of my efforts at promotion. Suggestions will be gratefully received.

I paid to create a web page at meetup.com. I joined the AGA and turned my club into an AGA charter. I may see if I can affiliate the club with the American Go Foundation. I rejoined USCF and renewed my chess director certificate; I plan on turning my club into a USCF affiliate this autumn and running some K-3rd grade chess tournaments (the children do not need membership in USCF but will get ratings) and later some adult tournaments. My club is listed in the library's calendar of events. I also listed the club in the local newspaper's event calendar. The AGA charter listing brought a new Go player in from an adjoining state, and lots of club "members" have registered through meetup.com, though few of them actually show up.

I would like to run rated Go matches/tournaments, though I don't really see how this will work out with no one having an AGA rating. At least with chess, we have several members with established USCF ratings.

[EdLee]

Hi Aidoneus,

Good luck. Recruiting children is a key.
The rating situation only looks like chicken-and-egg and Catch-22:
as soon as one person is rated (like yourself), and you play one rated game with an unrated person (even a beginner), then the beginner will be rated (albeit maybe be an unreliable rating, 30k[?] ), but that breaks the deadlock.
Another possible way: encourage the beginners to play online (IGS/KGS/OGS, etc.) and get a preliminary rating, even if it's 30k[?]; then register with AGA as 30k -- this also breaks the deadlock ? Good luck.