Do we know if any new members have joined us just from the info stalls alone? How would the people doing them rate them in the long term? I'm just trying to work out how effective they have been so far in local chapters. It seems the majority of the UK public are very ignorant to new ideas/concepts which disrupt their identity and I'm looking at how far street activism goes in reaching out to people who don't know anything about us.
Disclaimer: the opinions and ideas presented on this forum are not representative of the Zeitgeist Movement UK
We could do with all the chapters trying out different Ideas for getting through to people. It would be easy to see if any particular method works because the chapter with the best method would soon be the one with the highest growing membership. We have to find a good way to wake people up, this is so important.
That’s a very good point Dale. For the last year I’ve been asking members what they think is the most effective method to increase members and most say lectures and stalls. If we done a survey within the ZM UK and asked all members how they came across TZM I reckon most would say “A friend recommended watching Addendum”.
Here’s my guess of the top 5 most effective methods to increase members
1. Talk in person
2. Email
3. Social website e.g. facebook
4. Lecture
5. Stall
I could be wrong
One of a stall's purposes is for the movement to have a presence in public. Showing the public this movement is for real and not an online phenomena. Another reason is it's a good place to meet up face to face with fellow members/friends and you get to interact with interested members of the public about this direction.
It is hard to measure how effective handing out a DVD is because it may take someone months on their journey to becoming a member of this site or longer to become an active member.
The North West group is trying to increase membership by having a regional video, at the end of Addendum, showing people there is an active local group, along with our contact details. We will show there are other good reasons to join this community/movement ie meeting new people, activisim, opportuites to spread the word in interesting ways like radio host, film maker, lecturer, an opportunity to be part of something bigger than you (thats off the top of my head).
There are other ideas we have yet to test out on the stall like a big binder that will show what is possible now, using a megaphone, using a tablet to show videos on, a mixtape of quotes from the movement, new more effective sandwich board posters etc... we have yet to fully realise the potentional of the stalls so its too early to question their effectivness.
p.s when members become more adept at selling this direction to people, which will come with experiance on the stalls, the more effective we will be at signing up new members.
Our mission is to change peoples values. To show people the unsane society we live in and how we could all have a high standard of living if we chose to be the change we want to see in the world!
Well how about we don't just guess about effectiveness? We can easily put a poll in the forum or perhaps on the website front page, asking people how they found out about us.
Share your tools and skills with your neighbour
I would recommend asking everyone how they found out about here to determine how successful any particular method has been and then to try and focus on the most success to date to increase numbers further.
I agree with Warren, the main purpose of the stalls is purely to have a presence in your local area, where we can engage with the public.
The benefits I can see from running stalls:
Meeting other members of the movement
Engaging with the public
Getting experience talking to people about the ideals of the movement.
Helping our own understanding of why we are doing this in 1st place. As once you see a wave of shopping bags coming towards you, your happy you have opted out of this lifestyle.
The only real way to gage the effectiveness of any stategy is to use it to its full potential, and this would envolve all current members getting out doing these stalls, not just the same core members.
Could you imagine the response on the street if all members from that area were out working the stall and handing out dvds.
I get a real buzz when on the stall, and having 5 or 6 people with me is great, but it would be better if we could have 20 or 30 members out at a time doing the stall.
With each member bringing 50dvds to handout. Thats how to be effective.
We apparently have a few thousand UK members, well lets prove it by helping your local chapter.
We have to be more pro active, and at a time when politics is in a mess as well as the economy, this is the time to strike. we have to get out and show the public there is another way.
We should have a UK wide stall campaign, where every chapter is running a stall at least every month.
Its coming into winter soon, so people wont be to keen on running stalls in the cold, so we need to look at bringing them indoors, community centres or town halls for example.
Every member should be involved with there local chapter in some respect, even if its burning dvds.
Zen....
Still waters run deep...!!!
We are all members of spaceship earth, lets fly this baby in the right direction.