IAC DISCUSSION FORUMS

"C for T" and Fraught are both right.
A campaign to encourage younger members in IAC needs to be aggressively mounted
in all those diverse ways you suggest. The catch is finding people with the
energy and motivation to do it.

When you promote your own club, or even activity in your own community, there
is immediate feedback. You are actively boosting numbers at events, creating
a buzz you can feel and so on. But for a national organisation there is
not that sense of immediacy. You can slave away for a while then after some
months look at the membership statistics ... not too exciting.

When you recruit someone new to a club you have the pleasure of seeing them
at meetings, watching their progress, learning from their ideas and maybe
working with them. If my efforts sitting at my computer in Bath encourage
someone to join a club in Aberdeen or Ely ... I will probably never meet
them, or even learn their name.

So to throw your time, creativity and energy into this sort of recruitment
means devoting yourself to an abstract idea.

It can be done. It should be done. But it is a fairly unrewarding slog for
whoever does it.

In a commercial operation the motive would be profit and the expectation
of better pay all round if the organisation grows ... but we don't have that.

Any ideas?


Dave (sleepy) Watterson

I suggest localising the effort. There are clubs the length of Britain covering
most every area (North West Sutherland and Kinlochbervie excepted). If we
meet the new members at local club level we aught to encourage each member
to pick up an IAC membership of their own. One of our young members is keen
to become an IAC seeing the benefits of that copyright clearance scheme to
increase his movie possabilities. Orkney Movie Group are also interested
in joining IAC for the same reason. If it's the only reason it's a very good
one which seems to be the most attract IAC has to offer. It's that one thing
that helps amateurs more than any other. Being able to use any British recording
widens the amount of material we can work with and helps us sleep easier
knowing we are in the legal clear.
Kodak could have had a vast market for Kodachrome 40 if they'd advertised
it- the copyright clearence scheme is one thing no other club can offer-
it's the major attractor for all new comers.

Thanks for that Guys... glad someone was reading my posts! LOL!

I've already started with the IACONLINE account on YouTube.com. If anyone
has an interesting short film that they can put onto YouTube...do it, and
then drop me a line and i'll help by adding you to the IACONLINE youtube
channel. I've already started spreading the word via MySpace, which is the
2nd fastest growing website in the world! MySpace.com has a FilmMaker's area...
i suggest signing up (its free) if you fancy getting in contact with Film
Makers the world over, etc...

The internet is an amazing tool for spreading the word! ... i've started
doing my bit!

I agree with C for T about localising the effort too... how about posting
stuff up at the local colleges, etc? I know my local colleges run media
and film courses... what better place to advertise?



"Cinema For Thurso Group" <canuimagine@btopenworld.com> wrote:

I suggest localising the effort. There are clubs the length of Britain covering
most every area (North West Sutherland and Kinlochbervie excepted). If we
meet the new members at local club level we aught to encourage each member
to pick up an IAC membership of their own. One of our young members is keen
to become an IAC seeing the benefits of that copyright clearance scheme
to
increase his movie possabilities. Orkney Movie Group are also interested
in joining IAC for the same reason. If it's the only reason it's a very
good
one which seems to be the most attract IAC has to offer. It's that one thing
that helps amateurs more than any other. Being able to use any British recording
widens the amount of material we can work with and helps us sleep easier
knowing we are in the legal clear.
Kodak could have had a vast market for Kodachrome 40 if they'd advertised
it- the copyright clearence scheme is one thing no other club can offer-
it's the major attractor for all new comers.

More than a year later...

... did anyone take note? I'll browse the website and see.

I'll be honest Fraught and say I only noticed this thread today after posting my question about our name.

You did put in some really good ideas which I've copied into a doc I wrote for publicing our club in our local community:

Successfully Publicising Us

a) Notices placed:-
-on message boards and info points in our Association building
-in other local community centres
-in all Newcastle/Gateshead libraries
-on internet listings of UK video clubs- some sites are now doing this

b) Ongoing Publicity:-
in local press- Chronicle/Journal/Sunderland Echo
- Freebee papers in the region

Local radio announcements
Personal invites & publicity display boards on show at events

c) Our own web site creation –done

d) also

1) Give movie Presentations and talks- with media coverage
2) Consider a name change- i.e. putting camcorder or filmmakers in our name
3) Invite old members to special future/Summer activities
4) Canvas people on record who came, saw, but did not join
5) Put our club details on all videos made for non-members
6) Get us an ITV local interests announcement
7) Ask shops give out our info with camcorder sales, maybe with a joining discount

Your suggestions have been added to that list!

And I'm 42.

billyfromConsett wrote:And I'm 42.

And i`m 41!

Fraught wrote:I remember when the club i belonged to got a 60'ish year old guy to run the show (ex-BBC), the first thing he asked us to do was make a short documentary on how to make a cup of tea! Now i know people need to learn the basics... but isn't our hobby all about having fun too!?

Did you consider that one of the reasons for the exercise might have been to try to force people to use their imaginations? It can be incredibly useful to look at a mundane situation and try to come up with ways to present that are compelling and fresh. And everyone likes a fresh cup of tea.

Perhaps, coming from a BBC background, he was trying to get you all to make films that were able to communicate clearly with their audience.

Are goals like these really beneath any of us?

where has this thread been hiding !!?

some excellent stuff here peeps....

Billy... great ideas, you are a credit to our group man !!!

how about producing a DVD about the club and put some snippets of films on (a good cross section of work) and giving that away as a freebie promotion ? shouldn't cost much to do... I'll certainly help...

NECA, NERAIC, IAC might also want a piece of the action, any other takers?...
ooooeerrrr .. down boy !!

Leave it in colleges, photo shops, libraries, etc....

well designed cover to catch the eye of these whippersnappers !!!


just a thought...

ooooppppssss 52 here chaps

I think we've got to connect with young film-makers, as there are so many of them.

Will our clubs want to do that? Yes, because the clubs will keep going.

Re Fraught's idea involving youtube, I've put a movie or two on there, but I'm not sure how to get it hits and high visability. I'll try uploading a few more and see how popular they are.

We could make a DVD and distribute it for visability, DVD's are pennies to make, and/or approach heads of media and just ask them "How can we attract some of your student film enthusiasts to join our ranks- what should we be doing?"

You could send a disc to your local tv station. You could do an open day for kids. Letters to schools and youth clubs. If you said it was a recruitment programme and it helps to get them off the streets then the tv company would be interested. You would get quite a few new members and tv coverage.

Just an ideas man

And some good ideas Stingman. I've put them on my list and we'll make some effort to maybe try them.

billyfromConsett wrote: Re Fraught's idea involving youtube, I've put a movie or two on there, but I'm not sure how to get it hits and high visability. I'll try uploading a few more and see how popular they are.

We could make a DVD and distribute it for visability, DVD's are pennies to make,

Just a thought on the DVD give-away/YouTube upload ideas (which are both great, BTW), might there not be issues music clearance-wise? I'm pretty sure the IAC licence does not cover those kinds of use, but I'd be happy to be wrong.

If one of the great benefits of membership is the licence, it would be strange to promote with pieces of blatant copyright infringement, don't you think?

I have a few musician friends who would rise to this challenge and gladly contribute copyright free stuff ... no probs

but yes... you bring up a valid point Stu......