Taster Days are perfect for drawing in new members
The Borough19 sprint event at Lydden Hill is an ideal starting point
“ Last year, to support new recruitment, we tried to broaden the options for people to enter the event by introducing new juniors and EV classes. That made it as accessible as possible to more people who wanted to get into the world of sprinting.”
When it comes to retention, it’ s all about keeping things interesting. The choice of Lydden Hill – a legendary Rallycross venue – is one way of doing that, but so too is making sure it is as relevant and financially appealing to as many competitors as possible.
“ We’ re putting more and more focus on ensuring there’ s a lot of value in the event,” he says.“ We want to make sure people get a good number of runs, it’ s well organised and runs on time, so everyone walks away having had a good time.
“ That’ s really important to us as a club and we have built up a reputation for that – in fact, we won a Motorsport UK award for Best Run Event the year before last and that’ s what we strive for, because that’ s how you get people to return for more.”
The final piece of the jigsaw is encouraging those whose active memberships have lapsed to get more active. That, says Shore, is“ a challenging one” but he believes that it is made a whole lot easier when those who stop racing are encouraged to stay connected.
If they remain socially engaged, then when they have a bit more time again. Then, when the kids have grown up, or they no longer need to work as much as they used to, it is all about knowing how to click that switch to get them to come back in.
“ It’ s not just about people returning as racers but also helping out, marshalling,” continues Shore.“ We try to
keep everybody up to speed with things through regular communication, newsletters, annual dinners, guest speakers, and that all helps to get people inspired.
“ When people do want to come back, things have often changed and they want to know about new regulations, new safety equipment they need, what’ s involved these days – so we have someone on the committee dedicated to helping with all that, just to make it easy.
“ Our events are free to watch, so we always encourage people to come along and we try to show them how straightforward it is to jump back in. It’ s a combination of all things – keeping the door open, giving them inspiration and showing them how to get back.”
Of course, all of those approaches can be – and often are – applied to other events the club runs through the year – but what makes this one different is that its involvement with National Motorsport Week makes participants feel part of a bigger motorsport family.
MAXIMISE BENEFITS National Motorsport Week is Motorsport UK’ s national participation campaign, designed to help clubs build on the momentum of the major summer motorsport events and turn spectator interest into active involvement. By promoting local activities under a shared national banner, clubs can attract newcomers, engage existing members and reconnect with former competitors, officials and volunteers.
It’ s all about showcasing the sport, as Motorsport UK’ s Director of Marketing Polly Dedman explains:“ Although this
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