Promoting Gliding.
It's an old topic and one that seems to be quickly swept under the carpet
until someone shakes the rattle again - you guessed it, I am about to shake
the rattle. The question is why? When was the last time your club actively
went out and promoted the sport in your local community? How many new
members or new members returning to the sport has your club signed up in the
past 12 months?
Promotional activity does work.
Last year one of our retired members who had mad his career in retail
decided he wanted to do some promotional work for the club. His master plan
was to put a glider into a local shopping centre for several days. Following
several knock backs one of the local Westfield centres agreed to host a 3
day promotion at no cost to our club Long story short, our clubs DG303 was
rigged on a stage in one of the court areas in the centre. Our club produced
our own glossy handout on gliding with our club while the GFA supported us
with general promotional hand out material.
Where the outcomes were worth the effort? YES - apart from selling lots of
AEI/Joy Flights (our club has an AOC) we also made contact with a large
number of people who had flown gliders as young people with the cadets and
scout movements, many of them expressed interest in returning to the sport,
along with a spectrum of people who showed different levels of interest.
For the next 3 months we were signing up new members at an average of one
per week, and most of them are very keen.
Westfield also advised us that display worked for them and there lease
holders too and have invited us back again this year.
What is your club doing to promote our sport?
SDF
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