Professional Chapter Sponsored Memberships

Description

As a prospective chapter, this idea has greatly enhanced our chapter's operation. Entering into this school year we had 4 registered CMAA student members and an average event attendance of about 7 students. We entered into this year with the goal of growing our student chapter as well as awareness of the club industry at UNLV. With that we reached out to our professional chapter in search of a guest speaker as well as funds to help sponsor memberships for students who are interested in learning more about Private Clubs as well as CMAA. We strategically put our guest speaking event with Desi Speh at the beginning of the school year to build off of the excitement many students have at that time. Additionally the board decided that we would purchase Raising Canes with our personal funds to ensure that there were as many attendees as possible at our event. With these efforts we had 40 students attend this event and learn about CMAA and all of its wonderful career offerings as well as the great career opportunities within Private Clubs while learning from the incredible leadership of Desi. At the end of this event, Desi told all attendees that if they were interested in a career in clubs or in continuing to learn more about clubs that the CMAA Greater Southwest Chapter would sponsor any memberships for attending students. This helped us to secure 19 new CMAA Student members, all of which are active within our chapter and have now brought our average attendance number to 15 student members per event.

Implementation

This idea was implemented by collaboration between our CMAA Student Chapter and our Professional Chapter. Through this we were able to come up with the idea for the event and we were able to sponsor the membership of many students. The reaction from our chapter members has been incredible, many students talk about this event and the generosity of the Greater Southwest Chapter often. Additionally many students admit that it was this event that introduced them to the idea of following a career within the Private Club industry. Without this event I do not believe that we would have grown nearly as much as we have this year or have as strong of a chapter as we currently have. We plan to continue holding an event like this with our professional chapter annually.