Here’s How To End Our Year With Increased Membership
> It has been nearly 14 years—April 30, 1991—since the Loyal Order of Moose ended a fiscal year with more members on the rolls than it had started with. The Women of the Moose enjoyed a net-increase year as recently as 1996-97, but the discouraging trend, of nearly a decade now, has been a year-end net decline of 1% to 3% every year, for both the male and female components of the Moose organization.
I am determined that this year, the trend must end: that as of April 30, 2005, the Loyal Order of Moose will have at least 914,766 members on the rolls, and the Women of the Moose will have at least 496,650 members—in each case, at least one more member than one year before.
And why not? It’s certainly not that we don’t add plenty of new members every year!
While in decades past it was even higher, every year, our fraternity’s member-sponsors have been consistently signing candidates in numbers equal to roughly 12% to 14% of the overall membership. That is a figure which makes us the envy of several organizations similar to ours.
Of course, any organization will lose a certain number of members to death (for us, roughly 1.5% per year); others will fall away as jobs and other life changes force them to move to a new community—where they may or may not resume their Moose membership.
But in recent years, we have been losing many, many more members than that. Every year for the last decade, between 10% and 14% of our membership has been dropped from the rolls for nonpayment of dues!
It gets worse. Of the 110,000 to 130,000 or so men, and 50,000 to 55,000 women that we’ve been annually adding to our rolls in recent years—roughly two of every three do not renew their dues for a second year! And that is the bulk of our problem, right there.
What on earth does it mean, when that many new members—initially “sold” enough on the Moose to say “yes” to a member-sponsor; to write a check for fee and dues; to take a night away from their easy chair for an enrollment ceremony—one year later, won’t take 30 seconds to write a check for well under $100 to remain a Moose member for a second year?
It means that they don’t perceive the Moose as having delivered what they were promised. They may not think we’re as friendly as they were initially led to believe. They may not think they’re getting much in return for their dues.
We—I mean all of us, in every Lodge and Chapter—must address this situation, right now.
We must act now to stop the “back-door exit”—contact the Lodge Administrator and Chapter Recorder for lists of delinquent members, then work the phones, calling our members in arrears to ask what made them leave—and what might convince them to stay.
To be sure, we must keep sponsoring new members!
We must tell our members what they’re getting—primarily, this means the potential retirement security of Moosehaven (which we’ll be making more accessible in an under-development, pay-as-you-go program); and our growing program of Member Benefits—reviewable at www.mooseintl.org.
We must refuse to nurse petty grudges—and re-direct our attention and pride to the young lives we save at Mooseheart, and the service we give our communities.
We must treat our members as the valued people they are—by welcoming them with a big smile, honest gratitude and fun activities when they visit our Moose Centers; and by making sure that Moose Center is clean, fresh and inviting.
Let’s finish the year on April 30 at least PLUS ONE, for both the Loyal Order of Moose and the Women of the Moose!
[Back to top]
|
|
 |
Please click on any photograph below to view a larger image.
Director General
Donald Ross
‘I am determined that our trend of more than a decade, of slight annual declines in membership, must end, as of April 30, 2005.’
|
|
February/March/April 2005
