Small Town Club Has 5 Squares of Beginners

Type
Winning Ways Story
Submitter
Tom Kahnert (tom@teamtomandjo.com)
Date
2018-08-21 Updated 2019-09-23
Description

The Town of Strathroy has a population base of about 8,500, located about 35 km west of London, ON. Including some surrounding rural areas the natural catchment area is about 22,000. Despite this relatively small population to draw from, this club has a very successful beginner program with 40 paid-up new dancers. How exactly did they accomplish that?
(2019 Update: Using the strategy outlined in this article, the club inducted 15 new members in the fall of 2018 and 16 more in the fall of 2019)

Following are links to two documents that describe what happened. The first is an article in the Alberta Chatter newsletter. The second is the slides from a presentation Tom and Jo did at the Canadian National Convention in July 2018 where they went into a great deal more detail on how they made it work.

Newsletter Article || Presentation at Canadian National

Tom pointed out that some of the images used on the flyers and marketing materials were copyrighted and license fees were paid for their use (approx $35 each). Tom provided the following information about finding appropriate images:

Through liaising with a contact in Alberta, she reached out to another Club's Executive Member who used these photos. Having the above numbers for each photo really helped, given that there are hundreds to look at.