Forum

I have found it helps to have the support of a large church behind the effort. Not only do you have access to a lot of people, but usually the pastors of larger churches understand the importance of getting your message out to the people and are eager to help.  That said, don't limit yourself to one church. We, here in the Twin Cities, have one main church, Wooddale of Eden Prairie, but have also reached out to several churches and have hosted “Informational meetings” or had “display booths” at a few places and events.

I am putting together a CD with a bunch of our marketing assets — posters, bulletin ads, presentation materials, and videos — that can be customized to fit your needs. Granted, they have the Twin Cities Spoke look to it [see http://www.TwinCitiesSpoke.com for what we look like], but if you like what we have done we are happy to share. I can make the templates available online if anyone is interested [please reply to this post if you would like to see what I have put together].

We are also finding that putting on some event is a great way to get to be known by the cycling community. We started by hosting a BBQ at another club's event and it worked very well. We didn't actually have to host the race — since we were just getting established and didn't have the resources to do that — and the race promoter loved having the extra race feature. We didn't “sell” our club or proselytize at all — just talked to a lot of people and started some relationships that are still going four years later. Now we have our own race and the experience we gained by hosting the BBQ has given us a leg-up in planning, coordinating and communicating effectively about our new event.

Finally, like Brad says, don't try to do it alone. I tried and it burned me out. I had to take a couple of years off from leadership and thankfully Joel stepped up to lead during that time. We now have a great leadership core that is not only pulling the club to the next level, but is there for all of the members — to meet everyone in their need.

Thanks,

Tim [On_A_Mission] Turnquist

Tim,

It would be great to see what you have put together.

The AR spoke seemed off to a great start with more than a dozen showing up to ride in Jan, but has fizzled a bit as racing season started and the road, mtn, tri, and rec people headed off in different directions. I'm planning to cirlce the wagons soon to see what direction people want to go with this. I've also been a bit discouraged that so many expressed interest, but to my knowledge no one has actually joined the club yet… There is a huge club here in LR that has many Christians in it even though it is not a Christian club. They are very organized in both rec and racing circles and I think many people don't think they can belong to both clubs…

Rob

Hey Tim,

Did you finish putting that CD you mentioned together? Would love to see what you have to share. Here in Little Rock it is kind of our off-season as it is just too hot to ride for many people, but several have expressed interest in riding when it cools off in about 2 months. Me, I got up at 5am to ride this morning… I've got one other guy who has joined the club and likes to ride early as well, so maybe we'll be known as the early risers club…