East Tennessee Success Story
By John Huotari
ETSPJ President
Membership in the East Tennessee SPJ chapter has increased 48 percent since June 1, 2006.
The chapter has increased from 44 members then to 65 members now. That’s an increase of 21 members.
Here are some things we did that helped us recruit and retain members in the last 17 months:
• Stayed active. The East Tennessee chapter had monthly activities including panels, workshops, an awards competition and a scholarship fund-raiser. We distributed membership information at each program.
• Communicated with members. We published a newsletter to preview upcoming events, report on past events and talk about other chapter business. We also used an e-mail address database to send notices of our upcoming events to more than 500 journalists and public relations representatives in East Tennessee.
• Worked together. Everyone should do some recruiting.
• Took advantage of the help offered by national SPJ staff. SPJ Membership Coordinator Linda Hall, in particular, has been very helpful in transferring memberships and ensuring membership renewals and applications were received and processed at the national office.
• Regularly checked Chapter Rosters/Reports on the national SPJ Web site (www.spj.org). We paid attention to membership expiration dates on our chapter roster. We tried to call members before their memberships lapsed, and we encouraged them to renew. If they expressed reluctance to renew, we asked what we might do differently to keep them as members.
We used the prospective members report to call local journalists who belonged to the national SPJ but not to our chapter. We asked if they would join our chapter, and several did.
• Sent membership materials to those who expressed interest in joining SPJ. We have put together membership packets that include a letter with information on SPJ and our chapter’s activities and awards. The letter tells prospective members how to join, and the packet includes a membership application, as well as an SPJ brochure and a Code of Ethics card.
• Welcomed new members and thanked renewing members.
I hope these tips help you.
If you have any questions, please contact me by e-mail at john.huotari@oakridger.com or by phone at (865) 220-5533.
John Huotari is a city hall reporter at The Oak Ridger in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and he served as ETSPJ membership chairman from August 2006 to July 2007. Huotari is now ETSPJ president.
Do you have an SPJ recruitment success story? Share it with us by e-mailing the Gardner at damon_runyon@hotmail.com
SPJ Garden Tip of the Week
Try this at your next chapter board meeting. Start the meeting out by having someone report on how many members your chapter currently has and compare it to your enrollment one month ago.
Also have someone report the names of new and lapsed members to your board. Assign board members to contact these folks. This is a good way to keep track of a chapter's growth and to involve several people in both welcoming new people and hanging onto the members we have.
SPJ by the numbers:
Membership this week: 9,201
Membership last month: 9,208
Membership one year ago: 8,992