SeanC wrote:Thanks AIRE chair and members for your responses.
For me, it's easy to see why AIRE have a healthy number of 20's and 30's. There is the publicity to get people to try the club and the social life, number of events and friendliness to keep people in the club. If your looking for a social life, the shear number of events and social activities means that you can base your whole non-work life around AIRE. A more typical club, with say one event (orienteering or social) per month, means you need to do something else to get a life - which I guess is when people drift off orienteering into rugby/hockey/adventure racing/lager drinking etc.). The events also seem to suit a variety of different people - from the elite to the people who just want local events once a week.
Maybe 20 years ago all this wasn't needed to get people to go orienteering? But at least AIRE shows the slow death of orienteering is not inevitable!
We're back to Clubs geographically location and population base here. This works if the core of club and membership is based around a single centre or a group of towns where transport is easy. Examples like WCH can be quoted.
Our club has a large geographical area with a wide O dispersion, thus creating a program of weekly activities that these people can get to is difficult.
We are in the middle of attempting a concentrated assault on one area within the club in the autumn, this is being led by Mrs H and a valiant team.Look out for MADO It is aimed at all comers though but mainly with the idea of attracting families, and retaining them. Whole Club social events present a problem and are generally attached to an event like club champs, end of Summer Evening Series etc, meals at multi day events. We have club meetings but attendance is not normally high due to distance and time factors for a lot of club members.
Hocolite