Running the Taster Sessions

Hello again! Last time I wrote about how we got individuals interested in LUKS at Fresh Fair. The saga continues with our taster pool sessions, where we attempted to part those individuals with their hard-earned cash with the promise of lots of run as a fully fledged members of LUKS!

Taster Sessions

So now we had a long list of people excited to try kayaking and as committee we knew how important it was to keep people interested to get as many members as possible! We had told people we were going to have a free taster pool session at Fresh Fair, and discussed how best to go about it to fulfil our objective of getting as many full members of LUKS as possible.

 

One problem that we faced (and are still faced with) is the lack of capacity at pool sessions. We have a regular 90 minute slot at a local community college on a Tuesday evening. They have a good sized pool and several boats for us to use, which gives us a capacity of around 12 if we take 2-3 boats there as well. We are unable to get another weekly time slot for the pool due to high demand and even if we could get another slot, our young club lacks the funding to be able to run more sessions. This lack of capacity means that we had to run two taster sessions and to achieve 25 members, over 80% of attendees would have to sign up to be a full member. This is far more difficult than something like football, where dozens of people can meet on Victoria Park and play several games.

The college our pool sessions are held at.

Another problem we faced was a lack of handover training from the previous committee. At this time I was essentially half of the committee (Treasurer and Club Captain), and was forced to work out my role(s) from a couple of notes scrawled on a word document and very limited conversation with the previous (and very disinterested) Club Captain. From this I pieced together our contact at the pool and the information required to run sessions (rules/regulations/timings/costs). I also made my opinions on the lack of handover training clear to my committee - making a mental note to deliver comprehensive training to the next committee. 

Me (left) chatting to a potential member at our first taster session.

Our final issue was the distance. The pool is about 5 miles from the University so cars are a necessity. I organised hiring the Student Union's minibus from the ARC and luckily we have a member who is authorised to drive it. We also have a couple of keen members with cars which means the distance is not a problem with enough planning in place. 

After overcoming these issues, it was simply a case of putting it all together. We divided up the tasks and got to work. I booked the minibus and pool, Jo the secretary organised who would be attending and let them know timings / kit requirements and Tom the social sec supervised the session whilst taking photos for publicity. Proper communication between us kept everyone informed and allowed us to overcome any smaller problems - making for very effective team working. Although I also assumed a supervisory role to spot any problems or inefficiencies, so I could provide constructive criticism / advice if necessary. One such piece of advice was when Jo had confirmed a place for a potential member but neglected to follow this up with details of timing and the meeting place: causing them to miss the taster session and alienating them. Such unprofessional conduct gives LUKS a bad image and potentially lost us a member. In response, I very tactfully spoke to Jo saying this wasn't acceptable and to be more careful in future. We also discussed introducing a simple procedure to make sure that mistakes like this didn't occur again when communicating with potential members.

Ed giving a demo of some kayak gear.

After the session we decided to go to the pub (as is tradition) to talk to the potential members in a casual setting. This gave us the perfect opportunity to get to know everyone a little better and to fill out the paperwork to anyone wishing to become a full member. This really gave me a chance to work on my people skills, mainly getting over my introverted personality and having a good conversation with a couple new faces. I tried to listen actively as much as possible, as I can sometimes dominate a conversation when I get started about a topic I feel strongly about. We did face a slight snag when discovered the pub we went to had a quiz on a Tuesday night and was extremely busy - meaning we had to sit outside for half of the night! An example of how poor planning leads to very quickly to having a poor time. We still had a good night though, and now frequent less busy pubs after pool sessions. 

All in all, our taster sessions went well. We managed to get up to approximately 20 members signed up which is a very high percentage of members to get from taster sessions (approximately 60%) but quite low in absolute terms (we needed 25 members - but more on that next time).

The Skills I Developed from the Taster Sessions:

• Leadership and working in a team. Working as a team, me and my committee completed the objective we had set out for ourselves. I felt I developed my leadership potential by overseeing the entire process and providing tactful advice when required.
• Initiative. It was necessary to seek out information from various sources to make the pool session happen. I took the lead on this and gathered the information / made the necessary bookings to facilitate the session.
• Planning and problem solving. There were quite a few different issues to overcome to best make use of our resources to get as many members signing up as possible. 
• Communication and people skills. I feel I improved my ability to communicate in both a working, and casual environment with both people I knew and people I didn't know. I especially looked to develop my ability to actively listen to others, in an attempt to not take over conversations with rants. I wish to improve my ability to actively listening more so have recently researched different techniques online. I have also looked into becoming a volunteer for nightline, which is a confidential and anonymous telephone listening, support and information service run by the students. I feel this will not only develop me as a person, but will also allow me to better understand the thoughts, feelings and ideas of others which in turn will allow me to work better with others / communicate better etc.