Question 10: How will you make existing members feel valued and make them feel heard

[geocaching womble]

How will everyone engage existing members and make them feel they have a voice and listened to by the Committee?

Personally I would create a group of regional supporters and friends of the GAGB to help new cachers and make new members heard and existing members feel like they have a place (the new group would require a change to the constitution) and a new mid-tier would be accountable to the committee and would be able to host events under the GAGB's banner and feedback across the country and help assist the GAGB to ensure all cachers are heard and listened to across the country. Not just those who are members of the forum.

I would also create a way of defining membership about what is considered active (by helping to change the constitution to encompass all platforms of social media, not just the forum)

[Antreid]

I like this question. Listening needs to be coupled with doing. If we achieved more than 3 or 4 roving events in a year, if we did more at the Mega events than just raise money, and if we engaged with geocachers to help us do stuff more, then perhaps our members would feel it's worth engaging with us?

So, use social media to seek out people who would like to do stuff with us. Try out ideas and see which ones are liked. Not just Facebook, there are many ways of crowdsourcing ideas, help, and fun!

And there we get to the point of GAGB. At core, GAGB's purpose is to try to keep geocaching fun. By doing the boring bits (glad, etc) we aim to make it all more fun the rest of the time. Can we engage with members to help get GLAD up to a good quality, can we help COs understand the reasons for rules, and can we get members involved without making it boring?

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[Griff Grof]

As I've said elsewhere (including in my manifesto), I strongly support the idea of a 'GAGB Friends' membership tier. It's a good way for members to get involved, and for everyone else to see that the GAGB isn't an organisation detached from the community. GAGB should aim to value UK cachers, engage them and make them feel heard.

In the past year, the idea of a GAGB AGM has been suggested. I think this provides a great opportunity to involve our members and make them feel like we want to hear their voices. If it goes ahead, the AGM should not just be about the executive committee meeting in person! All members should be invited.

When I first suggested GAGB roving events, I said that they should be organised by GAGB members. Up to now, committee members have organised all the events in order to establish the format. This year, I would like to see our members hosting roving events alongside us. This would be a great way to make them feel valued and involved, since the committee would be placing their trust in them to organise official events in the GAGB's name.

Running a survey about the current state of the GAGB would be a good way for members to feel heard. The last survey was two years ago, so perhaps it's time for another.

For me, making members feel heard, valued and engaged is probably my most important goal for GAGB. If re-elected, I would be happy to help take the lead alongside others to ensure that this is the case.

[GCHarribo]

I will talk to my Geocaching friends and meet with people at events and hopefully ask people there views and I’ll make GAGB quite a rewarding thing if your a member and encourage them to sign up.


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[UKCACHEMAG]

Good question.

Not sure this is something we have been good at recently

Perhaps doing some live q&a sessions on social media. Reaching out to landowners / memebers

[border caz]

How will I engage existing members and make them feel they have a voice and listened to by the Committee?

Firstly, I strongly believe that we need to address the current definition of membership as defined by the Constitution; in my opinion this is outdated and needs to reflect the changing nature of social media.

Social media can be used to good advantage in engaging members and it is a great tool but it does need to be backed up by the physical presence of committee members at events.

The idea of an Annual General Meeting is that all members would be invited, only committee meetings are restricted to Committee members.

I endorse the idea of a group of regional supporters and friends of the GAGB - this is something we have talked about and tried to implement over the past year. We do need this in order to get closer to the membership and cachers as a whole; after all, the Committee is only 9 people and we can't be everywhere, the UK is a large area to cover!

[abiherts]

Good question! I think GAGB members need to feel like they belong to an organisation not a group that is only known about by a select few cachers. Many geocachers that I have met aren't aware of the GAGB. Improving membership offers, competitions, getting members involved and directly involving cachers in some way is the way to go I feel. That way members will feel valued.