Best Practice: Guest Member-Policy
Chapter: NAWBO Greater Madison
Contact: Joan Craig, joan@homeimpsup.com
Goal: To stop individuals from regularly attending meetings without joining, NAWBO Greater Madison devised a Guest Member-Policy.
Implementation: NAWBO Greater Madison enjoys having guests to their meetings but had noticed that some guests had been abusing their privileges by regularly attending and not becoming a member. To try to put a stop to this they created their Guest Member-Policy. This policy states that all guests are welcome to attend two morning and two evening meetings so that they can see first hand the benefits of being a NAWBO member. After having attended the four meetings they are asked to join the chapter.
If they choose not to join they are politely reminded that they can no longer attend the meetings and freely enjoy the member benefits. The key for this policy to work is that the enforcers must be very polite and put a positive spin on the situation.
Results: NAWBO Greater Madison has found that this policy has greatly affected their membership. After only having the policy in effect for 2 months they have already had four members join. Being that they are a fairly small chapter, they usually do not see this type of growth in such a short period of time except during the March Member Recruitment Drive.