We are going to initiate a big membership drive this spring, since the club seems to be getting older not younger.

One issue I have, is how do we bring in new members who are far outside (more than 60 miles) from Williamsburg?

One idea I am going to bring up is for graduates who have been out of school less than 3 years to have a discounted member rate. This is a good way to get eventual Tribe Club donors started, and not break the budget (I think new grads are more broke than when they are in school in many cases). At this reduced rate you would still be able to have the same benefits as a fully paid member.

For more established folk, I am going to see about giving you access to auctions and we will have a special section of the website where there are game notes, QB club mtg notes, etc, that only members can access. I know one poster on here lives or did live in China, I would imagine there are a several people in distant locales (though China is probably the tip of extreme).

Coach is big on trying to get more new members, so all ideas are welcome.

No we cannot move the meetings to Hooters (I did that when I was President of the Jaycees, and lets just say that expedited my impeachment).

Can you also discount the membership for out of town (60 mi) members?

If it is currently a $100 make it $50 or 60.

I'm going to mull on this for a bit. I think I'm probably one of the youngest QB Club Members (although I feel older every day) at 35, but certainly my wife and I were the youngest members when we joined at 25? (I think I joined prior to the 2004 season) I need to try and think about what drew us there and what does or doesn't keep us there today.

To be completely honest, I often go to meetings in the sense that I show up just before coach gets there, listen to him and the players, and then leave. So part of what I need to think about is what would make me come and stay for more than just that. I would imagine I'm more likely to donate and/or invite friends to join if it's something where I am inclined to stick around longer at meetings.

So yeah - more from me to come.

Are there benefits you may need to limit if a person from NOVA (or anywhere else) came to the home games?

*Why not have an early meeting at the practice field, with grilled food, for an exclusive QB
Club event with members of the staff dropping by to explain what's going on and bringing players with them to briefly talk with the QB Club members. Parking permitted that event in the stadium lot with special window sign.

*Exclusive QB Club entry to perhaps the first intra squad scrimmage...closed to all others.

(02-20-2015 08:20 AM)wml33t Wrote:  I'm going to mull on this for a bit. I think I'm probably one of the youngest QB Club Members (although I feel older every day) at 35, but certainly my wife and I were the youngest members when we joined at 25? (I think I joined prior to the 2004 season) I need to try and think about what drew us there and what does or doesn't keep us there today.

To be completely honest, I often go to meetings in the sense that I show up just before coach gets there, listen to him and the players, and then leave. So part of what I need to think about is what would make me come and stay for more than just that. I would imagine I'm more likely to donate and/or invite friends to join if it's something where I am inclined to stick around longer at meetings.

So yeah - more from me to come.

This is the exact issue, for me as well. I am older (not by a whole lot) than you, but it has gotten to the point where I can't bring someone to a meeting and say "Hey you want to be a part of this?"

I (along with tribeSF) handle the social media and website, but the reality of the club is its still at its core a Good Ole boys club and very set in its ways, and that needs to change.

The club in principle is a great thing, all funds raised go directly to the football program, and I would like to see it get to a point, where coaches incentive bonuses and other things be paid directly from the qb club (like booster clubs at many other schools), not sure on how that works exactly and to be honest that is not for me to figure out.

There is absolutely no reason the QB club should not at any given time have funds in the $200k range, available for the program. The mindset needs to change for that to happen, I am going to push the issue till they tell me to "Get Lost".

Keep the ideas flowing...

You could work with Pete Clawson to have a live feed at the coaches part of the meeting that only members could view. Or if that is too hard to do then video the meeting (whatever part you think people will watch) that can only be viewed by members.

Also more spring game videos only available to members (may need an extra charge to fund SID to make it happen).

Maybe you need an away co-president or VP to push for more away benefits.

I believe a goal should be to have as many away members as local-how to do that ?

I'll be absolutely honest, I don't know what a current QB club membership entails. I know you guys have a tailgate before each home game (and I think away as well). Is there anything else you get beyond that, realizing that the ultimately we're supporting the team.

It could just be me, but if there was anything to promote game day experiences for kids (or families in general) that would be a pretty big incentive for me and the wife. It would have made my 3 year old's day to meet the Griffin at the basketball game this past Saturday.

QB Club meets each Monday during the season with food, beer and wine, talk from coach and Q&A with players of the week, highlight film of previous game (with EXCEPTIONAL commentators). Auction at mid-season. Awards dinner in January. All of this is included in membership fee.

QB Club parking lot at Old St. Bede's is sold out each year with waiting list. There are 84 spots. Must be a member to get on list. Fee is $250 for season. QB Club merchandise tent set up in lot. This is the place to be pre-game, halftime, and post-game.

QB Club tailgate at Spring game is open to anyone with entry fee, food, beer and wine. QB Club Golf Tournament each April.

For out of towners I think the two biggest pockets of people would be Richmond and DC area. I realize having something with coach(es) is very difficult during the season; bringing players would be a non-starter with their very busy schedules (and I'm sure there's some NCAA rule about things like that). But if a get-together could happen in the spring, maybe on a recruiting trip to the area when a coach(es) is/are already up here, that could be interesting. Just to hear a few things about how the offseason is going, some of those broader insights that come before a season. Throwing darts here, but I figure this is all just brainstorming.

The idea of a "junior" membership of sorts is great. The Tribe Club has something similar where recent grads receive the benefits of giving at only 50% of the rate. I know "young guarde" used to just be 5 years but has now been expanded to 10 years, but I'm not sure if that expansion of the definition has been extended to the Tribe Club giving levels. Something to try and get people in is to have a discounted membership for the first year regardless of age to give people a chance to see what it is/could be, and to show them it's something they want to be a part of.

I feel like I may be the target audience for this because I'm both young and out of town. I had the opportunity to attend some meetings as an undergrad and I loved it. I think a big thing would be simply hyping how much this club does to support the team. All the William & Mary people I know love giving back to their alma mater and QB club is a great way to do it. On a personal note I would 100% pay just to listen to Jimmye's thoughts on the team but that's probably not as common.

(02-20-2015 10:24 AM)zablenoise Wrote:  I feel like I may be the target audience for this because I'm both young and out of town. I had the opportunity to attend some meetings as an undergrad and I loved it. I think a big thing would be simply hyping how much this club does to support the team. All the William & Mary people I know love giving back to their alma mater and QB club is a great way to do it. On a personal note I would 100% pay just to listen to Jimmye's thoughts on the team but that's probably not as common.

Plus 1 & that goes with my idea of video (either live or later).

Ok, so... This is me brainstorming here. I think there are a few things to look at. I'm mainly going to focus on thoughts on how to possibly get the "younger" crowd interested. In that respect, I think there are a few things to look at:

1. How to get the word out that the QB Club exists
2. How to get them to come to a meeting
3. How to get them to want to stay at a meeting
4. How to get them to do "other" QB Club events

Speaking of me specifically, I come to the meetings fairly regularly, but again only come for the coach/players. I have a QB Club tailgate spot, but do little to mingle with the rest of the crowd and keep to my crew mostly. I've not done any other QB club events besides the auctions and attending the Spring Game (no tailgate). I go to a decent number of away games each year, in fact last year I think I went to all W&M games except Towson.

I'm going to get into specifics and probably lengthy in trying to talk about each of these, my apologies. But let me get a few things out there to start:

- We tend to keep to ourselves in general. For us specifically this is always going to be an obstacle in us being more ingrained in the club, only so much the club can do about that.

- That being said, I think that there's a bit of an "old guard" feel to the club that is 100% unintentional and somewhat difficult to avoid. Any QB Club member I've spoken to has been kind and welcoming in every way. However when you walk in, as I did, as a 25 year old and it's a lot of people that are your parents age or older mingling and having a good time, finding a way to make yourself fit in to the social crowd is a bit tough.

- I think the above somewhat speaks to our fanbase in general.

- Because of my bias and what I think is best for the club long term, I am going to focus on what I think are ideas for getting "younger" fans (say 25-40) involved in the club.

This may get long, my apologies.

1. How to get the word out that the QB Club exists

The only reason I even knew about the QB Club was because my wife worked for a member of the QB Club. I'm really not sure how, the way things are today, you find out about the QB Club beyond word of mouth. When there are very few "younger" members, I'm not sure how you get word of mouth to potential new, younger, members.

- Have we considered mailings (maybe even e-mail?) to recent graduates? Can we get this info?
- Would the Athletic Department be willing to give us e-mail addresses for anyone that bought football tickets online? This seems like our clear target audience.
- I feel like we NEED to have a relationship with Tribal Fever or whatever student organization is still involved. I know we had some members (one I think is a graduate and poster on here?) come in once, but that's it. Would we be allowed to allow any students that are members of Tribal Fever (or whatever) to come to meetings for free? Even if they can't have the food, to be there for the other stuff? Getting interest while a student would seem critical, particularly if we get the out of area stuff going.
- Could we get something included in season ticket packages? I know we get various one-pager handouts in those every year, could there be a QB club one?

2. How to get them to come to a meeting
- With all of the above stuff, could we come up with a "first meeting free" type system? Like maybe the "mailing" in the season ticket package is one free pass to a QB Club meeting?
- Would it be worth trying to have some sort of separate "information session" about the QB Club where we invite prospective members, maybe have some members talk about why they enjoy the club, etc, etc etc?
- This is something I don't know about. Are the meetings at the "right" time? I'm not sure I have a better alternative, but I know that as a professional working in Newport News, I find it hard to get home, let my dogs out, maybe eat (if I don't feel like fried chicken or pizza), and get to the meetings in time. And I don't have kids. For the typical 30 year old with a young family, the meetings seem pretty difficult to make to me being on Monday at 7:00. I don't know if Sunday is better, I don't know if 8:00 is better, I don't know if that's really the best compromise time and we just have to work with it.

3. How to get them to want to stay at a meeting

Ok, this is the one I can probably provide the most brainstorming on.

- I said this above, but when I go to a QB Club Meeting there are a lot of great people that get along well. They are, let's be honest, almost all my parents age or older and have built friendships. Tribe4SF, Tribe Pride, PaulB, etc have all been more than happy to chat with me and even try to get me involved - but it's really just different. if we could get the younger folks interested and get more younger folks in there, I think they'll be more inclined to mingle and be the future Tribe4SF, Tribe Pride, PaulB etc group.

- This is going to be controversial :). The food. Having fried chicken and pizza every Monday night, quite frankly, is not appealing to me. I know they're both fairly value heavy foods to feed to a large group of people, but I more often than not eat beforehand because I just don't want that every Monday night. It seems like we could try to spread some variety around here. I'm not sure how much of it is because of discounts received at various places or whatever, but yeah.

- Signings with players. I've always thought that we should have, particularly for kids, the ability to get the players of the week to sign things. Maybe we limit it to just kids, I don't know. I know they have practice etc, but if I'm a young parent I'm going to have to deal with how I come when I have kids. If my kid can get the cool W&M football player to sign my t-shirt (or whatever) then I'm going to want to go along. In fact, you'd have the kids encouraging the parents to go.

- Mingling with staff/players. Would it be feasible, even if not every week, to have more of a "mingling" type deal with staff and/or players in the earlier period?

- "exclusive" or "curated" information. So, part of what the club is about, to me, is about feeling like an "insider". We get this with talking to coach/players. I'm not sure what it would look like, but could the club (independent of the coach) do something like what mrj does with recruiting at the club? Even if only on a periodic basis or something, but somehow have some discussion/information/video/whatever on potential recruits/verbal commits/whatever? This would be information 100% independent of the coaching staff, but pulled in the way it is here on the boards.

- I do like the idea of a discount for recent graduates. I wouldn't say 5 years, I'd probably say 10 years.

- I feel like the biggest thing is making that time from say 6:30-7:00 something people WANT to be there for. Or the time after the coaches/highlights are over.

- Is there possibly a better chair setup? Maybe some way to have some tables with chairs to sit at? Any chance of the Whitman room that is a bit bigger?

- I feel like I need to give more concrete ideas here, but I'm fresh out. Will think more.

4. How to get them to do "other" QB Club events

- First off let me say that I personally feel like the crown jewel of the QB Club is the QB Club tailgating lot. The atmosphere is great, the location is great, the people are great. That lot is what really got me to be more part of the QB Club community more than anything else. At its core this needs to always be an important part of the club.

- With that, we maybe could do more to integrate non-spot holders? I'm not sure how. I don't think we want some official club spot that non-holders can get food, but maybe just the club and members encourage non-spot holders to come out, hang out, everyone always has food to share, etc?

- I've been very fortunate to be included in some I'd call them.. unofficial QB Club tailgates at away games. Could we/should we do more to formalize this? I know the alumni association does some stuff for closer away games and I suspect we don't want to step on their toes, but I'm personally not wanting to pay for going to someone else's tailgate. What I'd prefer to see is some sort of organizing of location/etc (like we do on here sometimes) for where people will tailgate and share, etc without an entry fee and catering.

- Viewings for away games - I have no idea why we don't do this. There should be a viewing for at least every away game that is on TV. For the ones that are streaming, I don't see why we couldn't do the Person room and the projector. I actually think it's borderline criminal that the QB Club does not have viewing parties for away games in Williamsburg. Sure, there's a hardcore group of us that try to go to the games, but so many more don't. And these viewings shouldn't be exclusive to QB Club members. If there's a cost associated with food or something you could pass that along, but if it's at a restaurant or bring your own food, there's basically no cost and it should be open to anyone.

- The other big event is a golf tournament. This I think caters to our current core of members. Maybe it's also just my personal interests (not a golfer). So this event really hasn't been one I've been interested in. That being said, with so many varying interests, for me personally an event that doesn't really involve the football team in some way, quite honestly, doesn't interest me as much - but this might just be me.



**********************

Ok, I need to do some actual work now. I have no problem with anyone being critical of my suggestions - they're just that, suggestions. Most of them I came up with in the last hour, so I'm sure there are problems, additions, subtractions, etc that I've not thought of with them. Some of them I might not even like later today .

(02-20-2015 10:24 AM)zablenoise Wrote:  I feel like I may be the target audience for this because I'm both young and out of town. I had the opportunity to attend some meetings as an undergrad and I loved it. I think a big thing would be simply hyping how much this club does to support the team. All the William & Mary people I know love giving back to their alma mater and QB club is a great way to do it. On a personal note I would 100% pay just to listen to Jimmye's thoughts on the team but that's probably not as common.

I believe you're the Tribal Fever member I referenced earlier?

What got you to come out to meetings? What kept you from coming to more? Did you ever talk to other students about coming out - if so what were their opinions?

I'm a worrier so I just want to make sure people realize - I like the QB Club a lot. I enjoy what I get out of it. I think it's a great group of Tribe fans. Just brainstorming in the spirit of the thread.

I live in Loudoun County so I won't ever make it to the Monday meetings due to work. I would join if there was a live video feed. Not so sure if it was taped.

I'd probably join as an out of towner if you gave me a t-shirt with QB Club logo on it.

Another idea. Get someone to donate an old school bus, paint it green, hire a driver and take it to away games. Sort of like the Indian guys had in Silver Linings Playbook. It would let the QB Club go on the road.

(02-20-2015 12:36 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  Another idea. Get someone to donate an old school bus, paint it green, hire a driver and take it to away games. Sort of like the Indian guys had in Silver Linings Playbook. It would let the QB Club go on the road.

I nominate Sandy to be the driver. He can wear a German WW2 helmet like the bus driver in Slap Shot.

(02-20-2015 10:48 AM)wml33t Wrote:  I believe you're the Tribal Fever member I referenced earlier?

What got you to come out to meetings? What kept you from coming to more? Did you ever talk to other students about coming out - if so what were their opinions?

Yeah that was me. My roommate (the Tribal Fever president) and I attended a couple meetings sporadically across a few different years.
We originally went because we saw it as a good networking opportunity because our club was so young at the time. And it really was. We learned a ton and met a bunch of great people. The biggest problem was that QB club is so specific. Tribal Fever was intended to reach across sports, even to the less visible ones, and it just wasn't in our best interests to commit so much time to one sport (I personally disagreed with this but whatever). Also the age gap is tough. It's very intimidating to walk into a room of people twice or three times your age. There aren't a lot of conversation topics. As for other students or recent grads I've never heard a lot of interest in joining QB club. But I think that's due to ignorance as much as anything else. If the word got out I'd bet there'd be at least some increase in young members. For example I know some young grads with season tickets. That seems like the demographic to go after.

I had never heard of Quarterback club during or even after undergrad...only through these boards.

Agree 100% with Tribal Fever and Qback club cohesion. Tribal Fever should be invited to a QB club general tailgate if 21 or over...maybe a special parking spot just for them?

-Tribal Fever has their "Silver Membership"
---This should be somehow co-mingled

Cheaper membership for first 10years after graduation
-Call it JV QB Club membership, (regular membership is Varsity) and even separate areas in the meetings to some degree to have a place that young people feel is "inclusive."

Invitation to QB club meetings via 10pack tix or season tix. - YES

Away game viewings - YES. Probably an official location that doesnt change to make sure people can decide to do it without having to look it up.

So I kicked this question out to my W&M buddies. They're all big Tribe fans (former Towel Men, former Tribal Fever presidents, current ticket holders, etc). I got a wide range of answers but it seems like the biggest reason they wouldn't join the QB Club is cost. Another is that they don't see where their funds are being allocated and they're worried that the money will be misused. Others thought that their money would be better spent on other sports or other areas of the athletics department. Also they weren't very familiar with/didn't like the benefits.

I know this post isn't really solution oriented but it at least outlines some of the problems facing acquiring new members.