Any / Many Ideas for attracting new membership.

[scott t]

Post any ideas you have for attracting membership.

1) Contest for Submarine art (CAD, SketchUp, Photoshop, painting, sculpting...)(cool subcommittee poster?)
2) 3d printing interests
3) lumber yard sub building (plumbing parts and what have you)(something a girl or boy could build)
4) advertise to members of the silent service (sub vet reunion at next sub regatta)
5) Reporting finds from other sub website you troll on.

Scott T

[Guest]

Need to concentrate on skill set and who is who with current membership.

AFAIK, we still have no database to reference current membership, so no idea who is around my area. Also unless we know them personally, we are unaware of their skill sets. Therefore resources cannot be pooled.

For me here in the UK, Sub Com membership doesn't extend far beyond a magazine subscription.

[chips]

In reference to:

3) lumber yard sub building (plumbing parts and what have you)(something a girl or boy could build)
4) advertise to members of the silent service (sub vet reunion at next sub regatta)

I've attended the last three SubFests held in Manitowoc WI. The last two year I took some of the Prop Divers to run in the pool, let some of the kids play with them. SubFest draws quite a few Sub Vets, as well as other military vets. Maybe those of us who live near a museum sub should contact them about setting up a temporary display.

[aeroengineer1]

There are several tools that could be brought to this effort. I think that the effort to help people meet locally and know who is in the area is good, though needs to be inline with current privacy standards of the day.

Breaking the problem down further, who is your audience? This is a big one, it is hard to go after new membership unless you know who you want to have. It is easy to say all people, but there are not enough resources to go after all people.

Once your audience is identified, what are the things that compete for their time, money, and passions?

Another question is why is it that they are not already participating? Some of this may come from the question above.

With this in mind, I am going to start to answer some of the questions. The average cost of an RC boat is measured in the $100's. This is a pretty high cost of entry (this is not intended to be an analysis of why it is high, or if we should exclude people because of it, only a statement of current state on the topic). These types of costs will push out the availability to a relatively select few people. So this is the first challenge is that the "market" is small.

On the positive side of things, there is a very large maker movement that is going on world wide, and just recently a sea glider won the Hackaday Contest main prize ($50k in prize money). It had some really fun and innovative ideas that used things like 3D printers and custom electronics.

Custom electronics is becoming more popular on the forums, and could be a vehicle to reach out to others. This is the same as 3D printing. It may not give a scale appearance without a significant amount of work, but it is getting there, and is an area that could attract growth through related hobbies. Similarly 3D CAD tools are becoming available at a very reasonable price to help facilitate.

All of these things can be used to lower the barrier to entry as well as give ideas on where the next generation of RC Sub builders might be found.

Many of these people are using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to drive them to forums of interest. Submitting builds on Hackaday.io or Instructables, or Make could gain a wider audience. I am an editor-in-chief for an electronics website. I know that all the posts that I have done on RC submarine topics have gotten really great page views. If someone wanted to do an electronics project for a series of blog posts, I would be happy to talk with them about hosting it.

Sorry for the long response, just had a bunch of thoughts on the topic.

Adam

[mar7ck]

I refurbish subs and give them away to people that are truly interested in the hobby.

[Ralph --- SSBN 598]

Reading a thread on another forum, I realized that if I log out, I can not read the Local Chapters threads on SC.

If SubCommittee wants to expand membership, why does anyone have to be a member first, before reading where and when we run our boats.
Get access to information on contacting the people running the local clubs?
How can anyone, not a member, find out if there is a place to go near them to see and ask question of those who build and run boats?

I would think having the club threads open to the public would be a plus to getting people who are interested in RC subs to join in after connecting with local club members and getting first hand information.

I am just thinking out loud and wanting to contributing to the conversation of attracting new people to RC submarines.

[JWLaRue]

Ralph,

Hmmm....good catch. They're not supposed to be a 'members only' section......

I'll ask Paul to fix that for us.

-tnx,
Jeff

[salmon]

I am liking this thread. Many good points are being made.

[Guest]

Do you think there's much interest in 3D printing and/or electronics in this club?

I don't see it. Seen a few things of that type posted up, some quite recent, and they've received very little response. I think most members just want to purchase a hull or kit, buy their electronics ready made, and concentrate on detailing the hull.

I think it's important to remember that there are also plenty of alternative places modellers can go and natter about sub modelling without having to cough up for a membership. That wasn't the case say fifteen or twenty years ago.

Marine modelling in general is seeing a decline in numbers. Most of those active in the hobby are getting on in years, and I think you'll see a steeper decline in future years.

In my earlier post I iterated that it is important to make the most of what we have at present, which I don't believe is being done.

[sam reichart]

Do you think there's much interest in 3D printing and/or electronics in this club?

I don't see it. Seen a few things of that type posted up, some quite recent, and they've received very little response. I think most members just want to purchase a hull or kit, buy their electronics ready made, and concentrate on detailing the hull.

I think it's important to remember that there are also plenty of alternative places modellers can go and natter about sub modelling without having to cough up for a membership. That wasn't the case say fifteen or twenty years ago.

Marine modelling in general is seeing a decline in numbers. Most of those active in the hobby are getting on in years, and I think you'll see a steeper decline in future years.

In my earlier post I iterated that it is important to make the most of what we have at present, which I don't believe is being done.

This is the part of the problem that seems to be affecting a number of hobby areas. How do you get a generation that shows little to no interest in modeling (and many other hobbies) into participating? Other hobbies I have also have the same issue; the population of people interested in them is definitely more "senior".

[Guest]

I don't believe it's practical to expect voluntary groups become extensions of the education system. Individuals join clubs in order to enjoy themselves, and hopefully socialise with like minded individuals, not to become unpaid tutors. That isn't to say that knowledge can't be shared and passed on, but that it should be a healthy by-product, rather than the chief focus of the group.

Hobbies which require practical application of skills have retracted inline with the movement of traditional industry to the far east and countries where companies can take advantage of cheap labour. So where schools once taught craft skills, now the emphasis is on design.

There was a whole generation in the 70's and 80's for whom radio control was a novel and reasonably affordable pursuit. Prior to that, it was very expensive and the equipment was fairly bulky and flaky, and modellers were limited in what they could do. Nowadays there is little restriction in what can be done technically, and radio control modelling is no longer viewed as cutting edge. So it has had its heyday in some respects.

So in my view, it would be helpful to know-

Who is in my locale.

Skills sets they have that they would be willing to share, be it voluntarily, or on a payment/barter basis.

Reasons for joining.

What they'd like to see going forward, and how they might play a part in that.



How do you persuade people to give up this information? Well you can try and force them by making it part of application of membership- good luck with that one. Or you can wave a carrot under their noses, and offer a significant discount on membership if they provide some useful details. The SC can afford that I think, as we're sitting on a big pile of cash at the moment

[sam reichart]

I don't believe it's practical to expect voluntary groups become extensions of the education system. Individuals join clubs in order to enjoy themselves, and hopefully socialise with like minded individuals, not to become unpaid tutors. That isn't to say that knowledge can't be shared and passed on, but that it should be a healthy by-product, rather than the chief focus of the group.

Hobbies which require practical application of skills have retracted inline with the movement of traditional industry to the far east and countries where companies can take advantage of cheap labour. So where schools once taught craft skills, now the emphasis is on design.

There was a whole generation in the 70's and 80's for whom radio control was a novel and reasonably affordable pursuit. Prior to that, it was very expensive and the equipment was fairly bulky and flaky, and modellers were limited in what they could do. Nowadays there is little restriction in what can be done technically, and radio control modelling is no longer viewed as cutting edge. So it has had its heyday in some respects.

So in my view, it would be helpful to know-

Who is in my locale.

Skills sets they have that they would be willing to share, be it voluntarily, or on a payment/barter basis.

Reasons for joining.

What they'd like to see going forward, and how they might play a part in that.



How do you persuade people to give up this information? Well you can try and force them by making it part of application of membership- good luck with that one. Or you can wave a carrot under their noses, and offer a significant discount on membership if they provide some useful details. The SC can afford that I think, as we're sitting on a big pile of cash at the moment

I asked something about this in another post; does paying people to write articles, hold seminars or anything else affect a not for profit status? We do have a $hit ton of cash...

[Ralph --- SSBN 598]

You would be paying for a service by others.
Just like web hosting, mailings, printing newsletters, etc.

As long as these people are not paid employees of the organization.

[Guest]

I don't know, Sam. I would have thought that you would affect non-profit status if you run the organisation with the intention of delivering one. It does look to me that since the SCR went fully electronic, that we are in danger of running too high a surplus. I don't see how we can justify sitting on the amount of cash we have bearing in mind the cost of running the group. Measures have been taken e.g. a lowering of membership fees, perhaps they could be lowered further, perhaps we don't really need to charge at all? e.g. advertising can pay for the website and forum administration.

If we're reduced to paying writers to supply articles, especially if it's the majority of content then I think we're in serious trouble. I think one of the problems is that most of the nuts have been cracked, and thus there is less and less to write about. There are certainly things out there still be pioneered, but they grow increasingly technical, and so it has limited appeal.

My personal preference is towards publications dealing with various aspects of building subs, rather than worrying about the burden of producing a decent quarterly publication. It served an important purpose pre-internet, but is growing increasingly irrelevant when many people are happy to update via forums, movie media (e.g. Youtube) and social media.

I realise that may not be a popular opinion, but to me it makes sense, as I personally reference books far more than magazines.

[David F]

I think that it would help to clarify your original question.

Do we need more members or more PAYING members?

Attracting more paying members is the more difficult one in an internet age. There is so much information available about model subs online and so many commercial providers of complete kits that people don't expect to pay "just for information."

It is fair to say that people do rather fool themselves in this way because a lot of sources are of dubious worth. (You get what you don't pay for!)

So there is some scope for paying modellers to write high quality articles. A lot of really good modellers are better at building models than writing about HOW to do it. Online publication helps this because it is so much cheaper.

Another good use for the "cash-pile" would be to keep your present excellent, communication channels open, free of commercial bias and without too many "online exaggerations!"

I look forward to seeing many more excellent online copies of the SCR!

David