I'm now involved with recruiting members for next weekend's NAQP CW
contest. I'm having some success recently recruiting people to operate
the CW Sprint and NAQP contests, and thought I might pass on some hints in
hopes that other clubs will also have success recruiting members for
contests.
1) Announce your intentions here on CQ-Contest and club mail reflectors.
Normally I find this to be mildly successful. Be sure to mention that you
are not just looking for serious operators... that you are fielding teams
of part-timer ops too.
2) The best technique I have found is contacting each person directly by
e-mail personally. I follow the same method as is #1 and normally put in
some kind of note about us trying to show up some other club or something
else that we can all get our heads around.
3) Finding Members. I first look at old results for the contest in
question. Then I move to other contests. For instance, I've had really
good luck this time recruiting guys that operate the ARRL 160 and 10 meter
contests as well as CW SS. The results are on the web, and almost
everyone has an email address that can easily be had on eHam.net or
QRZ.com. These are also contests that are more domestic in nature, which
is right up the alley of the NAQP.
4) Finding More Members. Team work! I ask everyone on our teams to
recruit just one other person to be a member of the teams. This has
worked very well in the past, as there is no way I can know every
potential operator in the 4th call area.
5) Organization. I'm now keeping everyone's callsign, name, etc, in a
database so I can quickly refer to it the next running of the contest.
6) Post cards. Some of the Sprint regulars have recently taken up writing
potential operators post cards in an effort to remind them of a contest.
I personally find email with the expressed intent of joining a team is
more effective.
7) Team placement competition. Back in the early 80s there was this
phenom called the Midwest Popguns organzied by Joe (W8LNO) and Tom
(N0SS) for the CW Sprint. Team placement was based on your finish in the
prior contest. The Popguns fieleded several teams, and I recall being
highly motivated to move from team last to team next. We are just
starting with this here in W4 for next month's Sprint.
So far I have 22 guys signed up for next weekend. The TCG and FCG are
also fielding at least 2 teams each. I figure we'll have more than 50
guys from W4 active to some degree or another! Now think how much fun the
contest would be if this could be nearly duplicated across 10 call areas!
73
Bill, W4AN
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