The Membership Project

That's really interesting. In the research phase we'd like to find out what membership means to organisations (as well as individuals) and it would be interesting to see how much the attitude you described is expressed.

Nice. I'm excited about discussing further...

Aaah! I think what we were discussing was how to make this website more accessible for new people visiting it. It's quite hard to navigate for those not used to this kind of site, and the ask isn't immediately clear. So I think Sophia's 'boxes' were formatting boxes - emphasising how people can contribute immediately and obviously!

However, you make a very good point that the questions on their own may not be enough to start the discussions, and that online alone is not enough. Something for us to ponder at our f2f meeting next week?

Hi David

Can you explain what you mean by tick boxes?

22 April would be good to get the conversation started - we promised some thoughts on implications of change, but we could flip it round and get them to think about change first and then I can maybe go someway towards the 'now what?' part of the equation.

Hi Sophia

I think they are really clear questions. I particularly like the second question - I'm keen to reflect the needs of our members in designing this work!

Megan

I think the drivers list needs to come under key ideas - its not just about research, its about the background to this entire project about what is driving shifts in membership. So I've started a new heading with a few initial bullets here http://www.commonspace.org.uk/key-ideas-and-guide

Great, thanks

Hi Tessy

Lots of interesting thoughts here! I think its generally said that despite falling membership of traditional institutions like political parties and trade unions, membership of voluntary organisations is healthy (and growing?) Of course that partly depends on how you define membership (something we've yet to pin down well enough here I think). Joining make poverty history is different to paying subs to an organisation. In terms of the practical concerns of membership organisations in our sector, they are probably optimistic about the ability to engage and involve people as you describe, but they may be less certain about their ability to continue to generate a revenue stream from traditional membership, if that is something they've relied on in the past...

Hi Sophia

Thanks for posting these thoughts, they're really useful. They sparked off various responses for me:

I like the question about membership and identity, and about belonging. I have a tendency to always move on from the what? to the so what? so my next two questions in response to your first two, might be:

• Why will people join? What benefits (using the term loosely) will attract them in the future? (obviously will be different in different contexts for different people)
• What type of organisations or movements will people join? What forms of association will attract them?

Those are big questions but I think a mixture of futures work and a good literature review may get us some way. And if we can attract money for some primary research, great!

Starting to map out the drivers - I'm keen to do this as you know (I'm presenting this bit on April 22nd). DAVID! Can you set us up a new core page to start this?

Describing the world as it is now - I'm quite keen still on my pledgebank idea as a way of doing this...

I think that before I send this to VCOs the site needs some clear summary pages about aims and potential work packages. I think we pretty much have these? I think the site might seem a bit messy to some newcomers who aren't used to this kind of site - it took me a while to work out the navigation!

Core group meeting, great idea, shall we think about dates?

The research list is already on google docs so is it just a case of putting a link to it from the summary page?

I think we need to go back to using basecamp...

Right, I'm off on leave now, back on the 31st!

Megan