Welcome a New Lodge. Vennekretsen - Atlanta Starting Strong!
Membership numbers for Sons of Norway Vennekretsen lodge (Atlanta, GA 3-678) on the first of March were 70 adults and 22 Heritage members. Nothing too out of the ordinary for a lodge until you consider that March 1st was also their institution date. With such a strong start, and more members joining all the time, we turned to lodge president, Erik Kind, to share Atlanta’s strategies for recruitment success.
"We're just having a lot of fun with it,” starts out Kind, who asserts that’s a key to any recruiting success. He transfused his enthusiasm for his heritage and our organization to members to encourage them to go out and ask people to join. Because there was a large community with a latent interest—and because there was nothing like this in the area—people were “hungry” for all things Norwegian, and eager to get others involved.
Kind and his volunteers started by inviting 000 and 999 members (Sons of Norway designations for Members at Large) in the
area, 30 of whom transferred into the new lodge. To attract members with
a common interest in heritage, he recruited from the Scandinavian-
American Foundation of Georgia. He also joined other Scandinavian
organizations, offering to purchase a Sons of Norway membership for the
president in exchange for Kind’s membership in their organization. Not
only did this serve to increase Vennekretsen membership totals, it also created
alliances and built connections between these organizations and the
new lodge, as well as introducing Sons of Norway into the consciousness
of other Scandinavian-minded groups in the Atlanta area.
To further add to the excitement, lodge planners have orchestrated a flurry of events in the months following their institution to attract even more new members. For example, they have already organized a huge Syttende Mai celebration and filled their 2008 calendar with fun monthly meetings that will feature a wide variety of exciting programming. New members are immediately engaged and don’t have to wait for the lodge to slowly gain its momentum as it starts. Kind and his crew started the momentum and annual planning before the lodge was even instituted!
The lodge also looked to get its name out where Scandinavians were likely to cluster – Lutheran churches, for example. After a little research into the surrounding churches, Kind compiled a list of the pastors and secretaries and sent them a one page, ready-to-display informational poster/sheet about their local lodge and meeting place. He requested that these be placed on the community bulletin board. He also inquired about placing an ad in the church newsletter. A description of what Sons of Norway is all about, contact information for lodge officers and information on upcoming events was also included in the mailing.
The last resource that worked well for Vennekretsen was community newsletters. According to Kind, they were able to get 18 free postings in newspapers to announce their meetings.
Source: Welcome a new lodge. Starting strong! Sons of Norway Viking Resource Newsletter, April 2008
