It’s not something you want to ever hear from a member,
unless of course they have only been a member for few weeks, but I have to say
that I was stunned this week when I heard the words.
You see I was visiting a chapter and sitting in on the
Visitor Orientation. So was one of the substitutes that day, and it was the
substitute who chipped in with ‘Well, I’ve not got a referral yet’.
It soon became clear that out of the five people sitting
around the table only one was a true visitor. There were two ‘visitors’ who had
been a number of times before and were never going to apply to join (I asked
them), and two substitutes, one an ex-member, and one, the person without a
referral, who subbed so often that they were in effect getting free membership.
There are a couple of important lessons that can be
learnt here:
1) A visitor may attend a meeting up to two times but
obviously if it is clear that they are not going to apply on their first visit
then there is no second visit.
Personally I don’t have a problem with a visitor
attending for a third time as long as they are coming with a completed
application form.
But have you ever wondered why we have this policy? There
are in fact a number of reasons and two that are key, which would have avoided
the situation at Visitor Orientation, are first that they are not going to see
or hear anything different the third or fourth time but can be a negative
influence and second, are most likely only attending in the hope of getting
some business. Neither of these things benefit the chapter or its members.
2) Likewise the Substitutes. A substitute really
shouldn’t come to a meeting more than twice and certainly not more than twice
within a six month period. And to be attending so regularly that they expect
referrals is a definite sign that something is very wrong.
Again I can see why you might think differently about
this; in fact in my own chapter we had a police officer who came along a few
times for a member.
But there were a couple of important factors here which
you could argue make it different. He didn’t become the ‘chapter's sub’ and
also he didn’t have his own business to promote.
A substitute who is eligible to apply (and doesn’t) and
attends so often that they are getting, in effect, free membership (not even
paying for their own breakfast), is totally different and again of little
benefit to the chapter and again can be a negative influence, as this one was.
Substitutes on occasion can be hard to find but if you
put in the effort to find them you will see the rewards and your chapter will
be the better for it.
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