Instructions for associations
During he past years it has become increasingly difficult to find students who would like to become active within an association. To make it easier for associations to find students who would like to become active we have looked to see what possibilities do exist for the Student Union to support associations. It turned out that the Student Union cannot specifically support associations. There are however a number of associations at the University that have less difficulty to get their members to be active. To help associations who do have difficulty, a number of ‘best practices’ of successful associations can be found below, which can also be downloaded in pdf in the link below.
Leidraad voor verenigingen (47,5 kB)
1. Personal contact
The most important tip when it comes to getting members active is personal contact. Students appreciate and value to be contacted personally when asked to take place committees and boards. Therefore use the contact moments that you have with your members to inform them on such possibilities.
2. Association promotion
The promotion of an association is very important. Especially for study associations is it noticeable that the members are not really familiar with what they can do regarding activism, or how interesting the association is. A number of associations are trying to solve this by offering free coffee/tea to motivate students to visit their ‘room’ and to show them what the association does.
In order to promote your assoctaion, it is important to have a clear goal. What do you want to achieve, which members do you appeal and much more. A useful tip is to make sure the promotion provides more personal contact.
3. Reimbursement of (part of) the membership-fee
Some associations deposit a part of the membership-fee back to active students. This in itself is not a direct way to convince students to become active, but mostly is a token of appreciation for the activism that is displayed. Showing appreciation for active members is very important and can of course also be achieved in other manners such as organizing an active member day/weekend.
4. Organizing the Parent-day
Many associations already organise one but still it is worthwhile to accentuate. At a parent-day for first year members you can make clear to parents what associations do for their members (and thus for their son/daughter). You can show that many active students are necessary to keep the association alive and to keep developing many activities. You can also show that you can learn from a year in a board or committee and how important businesses deem it that student have done things besides their study. This way you can remove doubts of parents regarding their son/ daughter becoming active and possibly even get the parents enthusiastic about activism.
5. Organizing Introduction of Associations
Many associations organize introduction weekends. These weekends form an important inflow of members and furthermore offer a nice opportunity to show the various aspects of the association. It is important for you as an association to think well about what you want to do/show in such a weekend.