The Transition Agony Aunt responds to “where did everybody go?”
By rob hopkins 14th April 2015
“Dear Agony Aunt. We recently held a great event, loads of people came, and there was a real buzz. The next meeting we held, where we were planning actions, hardly any new faces came. What suggestions do you have for best capturing the energy and the people at big events and encouraging them to step over into actually getting involved?” N.L.
This is a very common issue that Transition groups and pretty much every community group struggles with, so don’t feel disheartened. In fact you should celebrate the fact that people came to your initial event. So, what can be done to help this situation?
Well, the first thing to bear in mind is that going to an event and committing to being involved in a Transition group are two very different things, with very different levels of commitment. Going to an event is a pretty easy thing to do, but being involved in a Transition group is seen as a far larger commitment.
Getting people initially involved is ironically the key to getting people to commit to a longer term involvement. Bearing this in mind the key is to get people initially involved, rather than signing up for a lifetime membership, as lovely as that would be. In reality people will only stay involved if they are getting something out of it, so it is irrelevant what they commit to. Many of us have been involved in projects where we have decided to leave because we felt the time is right.
The key to the initial involvement is to:
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Have an easy way in
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Consider why people volunteer and develop a message that addresses this.
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Plan how you will use your event to get people involved in your group
Have an easy way in:
Think about how to ease new people into your group?
If you imagine a football as a metaphor. A person comes to watch a match and then straight away they are being asked to be in the team. Some people will jump at this chance (these people are probably already in your group) and other will try to avoid eye contact while thinking of a list of excuses not to get involved. This often happens because people have no idea of what is being asked of them, what it actually means and what sort of commitment is expected.
Think about the questions that people will have regarding getting involved, such as:
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“Why would they want me?”
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“I can’t do anything?”
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“Why would I want to volunteer, what would I get out of it?”
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“It feels a bit scary”
As well as this there are also going to be barriers that stop people getting involved in Transition, these are some of the more common ones:
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Lack of confidence in their ability to contribute, not realising that life experience brings with it a lot of skills.
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Childcare.
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Physical limitations, such as illnesses or lack of energy.
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Financial issues.
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Difficulties with transportation.
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Time when you meet.
Think about how you can address some of these barriers?
Bearing in mind all of the above, have an easy non-committal way to get involved in your group that is as accessible as possible, not too scary and reasonably easy to do.
This shouldn’t be your planning meeting as they can feel intimidating to people as:
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People usually know each other, so you are the new person
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There is lots of work already in process, which they will have no knowledge of
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It is not going to engage the new person, unless they already have experience of this type of thing
Instead have a new volunteers mini event that most people could do that is going to be FUN and involving.Try to make this easy to do but something which gets people to invest a bit of time and effort in, as people are more likely to commit to further stuff if they have already put some effort in. Here are some pointers and and ideas on what this could be:
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Have it arranged before your event so you can promote it there and make sure its quite soon after to keep the momentum going.
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Stuff like creating a vision for the town, going and cleaning a part of town, planting some trees, running a jumble sale.
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Stuff which is easy to do and gets immediate results is always good as you get a sense of achievement and people feel empowered.
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If you are really busy, you could arrange a social meeting after your next planning meeting.
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Here are some more ideas for fun things to do.
Consider why people volunteer and develop a message that addresses this.
You may think that volunteering is about people giving their time to you, but it is also about what the person is going to get out of volunteering. You need to think about what people will get out of being involved and make it sound exciting.
Here are some of the reasons people get involved:
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Help Transition because they believe in the idea
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To meet new people
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Being involved in a project they have a personal interest in
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Learn a new skill
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An excuse to get out the house
Also think about other ones that may be locally specific to what you are doing in your community, i.e. learn how to grow some food at our allotment etc.
Plan how you will use your event to get people involved in your group
Your event is an opportunity to get people to make that first step. Making a one off announcement probably is not going to be enough, so here are some more things you can do.
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Have a flyer prepared for the next event and give a copy to everyone as they come in or leave.
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If the new volunteers event is a task then actually ask people to commit to it and sign up on a list.
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Have a sign up desk where you take down peoples emails and contact telephone numbers and then personally contact them after the event inviting them to the new volunteers meeting/event.
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Have people at the event go around and chat to people promoting the new volunteers event, stating why they think its good and getting people to sign up.
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At the start and end of the event, announce the new volunteers event.
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Have an information table on getting involved
When planning your event, think of it as a recruitment opportunity, consider what message it is that you want to put out there about being involved, thinking back to why people volunteer.
Prepare for the new volunteers event:
It can be worth thinking about the longer term and what it is that you actually want people to do and produce a list of tasks. You can have this list in mind when talking to people at the new volunteers event. You can also ask new people what it is that they want to do and what skills they have to offer. The key is not to overburden people, but to find out what it is they want to do. Also, don’t assume that every volunteer will want to become part of your planning group, not immediately anyway. It can take a while for people to feel that they wish to commit to that level of involvement or build up the confidence to be involved.You may want to run a couple of these events on a regular basis to ease people into Transition.
As a side note, if you are seeking specific involvement or skills, then it may better to target individuals you know or have a specific campaign to get people with those issues. If you do get people to commit to being more involved in your group, it is worth considering how to integrate them into the core group. Getting people along is only the first step, retaining them is whole other problem, but that is another Agony Aunt question.
Today’s Agony Aunt was Mike Thomas, Transition Network’s Initiative Support Co-ordinator.