In terms of local membership - the people who can come in and docent in the museum or pitch in with the warehouse *on any given day* - we've been hurting for more people for a long, long time. Only in the past 2-3 months is the pool of docents more than 3-4 people - I can't even docent myself anymore, because my other responsibilities have me all over campus whenever I'm at Infoage. With such a small pool of people to pick from, people get burnt out far quicker. It's not very fun to docent when you're the only person in the museum all day. We have made numerous calls for more help with docenting on the list - but because so many people on this mailing list are really only here for info on the festivals and swap meets, it's not realistic to expect them to have an interest in docenting, particularly when many of them live 2+ hours away from Infoage. We don't want to exclude our more distant members from participation in our bigger events, but there is a feeling of frustration at the irony that VCF east draws record-breaking numbers of attendees and exhibitors while it's the same crew of no more than a dozen people left running the show at Infoage year-round. On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 9:03 AM Andrew Diller via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Is there really a drop in engagement and participation? I came in at the tail end of things when workshops had like 5 people showing up. They seem to be packed the last three years, the Festival is bigger than ever, swap meets continue to get lots of participants and YT videos....
Ever since I've been involved there has always been a focus on outreach, it seems to have been paying off (again, in the past three years esp). YT exposure continues to be a huge driver to get people to an event.
On Oct 29, 2024, at 2:52 PM, Bart Hirst via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
4. *Club Structure and Engagement*: Members express concerns about the club’s declining local engagement, particularly the low turnout for workshops and limited newcomer involvement. Suggestions are made to improve membership structure, community outreach, and engagement.
-andy