Surveying your Club Membership. Why to they join? What do they really want?

[Russell Neyman]

A few years back those of us who are inclined to think in terms of market research decided to conduct a survey of our club membership to measure the group's true interests. Were we addressing their greatest needs and where were we missing the mark? The format was pretty simple: we wanted a concise survey that could be completed in a short period of time; the results needed to be measurable with hard numbers; and it needed to cover every possible level of participation and interest.

I have that survey in a single sheet PDF format and can email it to anyone who is interested. I've also attached it, below, for those of you who'd prefer to copy-and-paste. It has been revised slightly from the original, removing proper nouns and subjects specific to our club. It should be noted that, at that time, our active membership was about 200 people and a typical meeting had 100 to 120 people attending. More than 100 took the survey during a brief meeting potty break.

There were four questions:

1. What subjects would you like featured at our monthly demonstrations? We included a lengthy list of topics ranging from "bowls" to "penmaking" to "hollow forms." The biggest interest was for information about finishing products and techniques. We were surprised that some of the niche skills -- like segmented turning and penmaking -- drew only moderate interest. The topic our club wanted to learn about the least was shop safety
2. What is your preferred method of learning about club activities? This was at a time when we were still learning about website technology, and we knew there were certain "old coots" who objected to the use of the internet. They wanted a paper-and-ink newsletter sent by mail, but the overwhelming majority preferred our newly-developed electronic newsletter, sent through an email blast. There were, understandably, a good percentage of respondents who indicated word-of-mouth worked well, too.
3. Which services and activities offer the most value? The intent behind this question was to determine why people joined each year and why they chose to (or did not) attend meetings. There were some real surprises here. Yes, the demonstration topic was the biggest single response but multiple people added a notation that "depends on the topic." The largest single positive response was "socializing and friendships" and more than one commented that the woodturning meeting was their primary social event for each month. We were surprised to learn that secondary services like the sale of glue and sandpaper were ranked high and, apparently, often made the difference between going to a meeting or not. Mentoring ranked very low in our club.
4. Questions about the member and his/her equipment. We asked for gender and age, simply because we were curious about it. It was no secret that we were a mostly older male group and we needed to recruit more women and younger people. The survey gave us hard numbers. The second part of this section had to do with lathe capability. We were surprised to learn that roughly half of the respondents owned lathes that could only handle bowls of 10 inches or less. Even more shocking was the fact that about 10 percent to the respondents didn't actually own a lathe, often sharing one with a relative or neighbor.
   
   Studying the results led us to make several changes to how we did business. We made a point to immediately add a "finishing" demonstration to our agenda. Previously, we had been very casual about providing glue and sandpaper to the membership, but immediately made that service mandatory at every meeting. We also took greater care to embrace the idea that our meetings were very much a social event, and nurtured picnics and pre-meeting meet and greets. The news that so many members owned mini lathes led us to offer smaller wood blanks on our monthly wood auction table. We also amped up the scope of our newsletter, adding advertisements and an expanded calendar.

I've posted this summary because there are times when groups lose their way. One of the officers might specialize in acrylic splatter painting techniques and suddenly that's the primary theme of the meetings. Yeah, I'm being sarcastic with that example, but it is important to take the time to measure your audience and take steps to address all of the needs.

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A FEW QUICK QUESTIONS:

THIS SURVEY WILL HELP US MAKE THE CONTENT AT OUR MEETINGS MORE RELEVANT TO THE MEMBERSHIP. PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS.

1. What subjects would you like featured at our monthly demonstrations?

• BOWL WOODTURNING
• HOLLOW FORMS
• LIDDED BOXES
• WOOD SELECTION
• FINISHING
• PENMAKING
• BOTTLE STOPPERS
• SEGMENTED TURNING
• AIRBRUSHING/COLOR
• DECORATIVE EMBELLISHMENTS
• PHOTOGRAPHY
• ARTISTIC TURNING
• LATHES/MACHINERY
• WOODTURNING TOOLS
• KITCHENWARE
• KIT PROJECTS
• FURNITURE
• SPINDLE WORK
• SHOP SAFETY
• FINIALS
• HOW TO DESIGN
• MARKETING & SALES
• STEMWARE/GOBLETS
• OTHER:_____________________

1. What is your preferred method of keeping informed about club activities?

• E-NEWSLETTER
• US POSTAL SERVICE
• FACEBOOK/TWITTER
• CLUB WEBSITE
• WOODWORKING PUBLICATIONS
• WORD OF MOUTH
• EMAIL MESSAGES
• OTHER__________________________

1. Which services and activities offer the most value?

• SANDPAPER & GLUE SALES
• LENDING LIBRARY
• MENTORING PROGRAM
• VENDOR SALES
• SOCIALIZING AND FRIENDSHIPS
• SPECIALIZED TRAINING CLASSES
• CLUB DISCOUNT AT RETAIL STORES
• WOOD AUCTION
• CLUB PARTIES
• TOOL EXCHANGE
• IDEAS FROM SHOW & TELL
• EXCHANGE OF IDEAS
• SPECIAL EVENTS
• OTHER:________________________E __
  
  4. Tell us about you and your lathe capability:

GENDER: MALE FEMALE AGE:
HOW MANY LATHES DO YOU OWN?______ SWING SIZE(S)_________

Comment or suggestion:_______________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

The folks at my club do marvelous things, bowls, segmented items with 4,758 pieces etc. However, some of the things, are so far outside my interests. I pay half sleep attention and learn by osmosis if nothing else. I make so very few bowls, but 10 days ago, needed gifts for my MIL, and surprised my self and made two bowls in a couple days and the glassy smooth finish was something I never thought I would be able to do. So even the demonstrations/instructions are worth while, just from that osmosis point. I can spend hours figuring out how to make something, planning the steps, etc. I just turned some pipes for a tiny kiddie organ. Yes they work, although some need tuning a bit more. I make some extremely simple stuff that no one seems to think of. Ceiling fan chain pulls, old vintage fishing gear, coastal and lake decorations for cabins and vacation homes. I experimented until I could "off center turn" a whale complete with tail, I would like to learn more about old school turning. I know that large oval bowls were turned. When i was a kid, my dad would visit an Amish turner that had a special lathe for doing just that. Old timers used some much different tools than modern turners use.