Our first TEAM panel meeting took place on Saturday 25th August in the National Theatre Wales office with sandwiches and tea galore. As part of the meeting we had an in-depth discussion about recruiting new TEAM members; how we reach new people, what the barriers are that prevent people from joining and how we over come them. 

 

How do you think we can recruit and involve new TEAM members across Wales?

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I think firstly to alot of people the name National Theatre Wales is quite scary. It creates images of grandeur, of this huge organisation (which i'm not saying it isn't) but this automatically creates a stereotype that is difficult to break down. This is something that i have noticed in university within my Drama course from people that we could and should be recruiting. I'm always asked who can join? what do you do with NTW? but once i give them the straightforward answer they can't seem to get around the fact that it could be that easy to join the Team scheme.

People just don't seem to get it ! One of the things that could combat this is that National Theatre Wales go to audiences of people who they know would be interested and tell them theirselves. Cos me telling them sure doesn't seem to work. As much in some contexts current Team members could spread the word i'm not sure that it works fully. I feel if their were opportunities with groups of people, such as university Drama students, amateur dramatic societies, to meet and discuss and generally understand the concept then we could make people realise how accesible and amazing NTW is even under the banner of National Theatre Wales.

Well that's my idea anyway !!!

I think some times TEAM exists to much online. The difficulty can be getting people to create a profile on the site wait for that to be approved and then to join the group. If we had an offline way of joining TEAM as well I think it would boost membership it could be a postcard with a few key bits of info on it. Once some one joins offline and recieve info on TEAM and see the best way to get involved is by engaging online I think they will join online as well.

Also networking events. TEAM could host networking event around wales and one condition to attending could be joining the NTW TEAM group online. This would be a super useful event anyway and boost TEAM numbers.

yeah i agree with Brent me being in team I find the quickest way to find out what is going on is to talk to people generally face to face or over the phone but i'm a bit rubbish when it comes to computer stuff, whenever I have to do something online it's an instant negative. I also find it is a lot easier to break down those impressions that are in the name face to face so I definatly think some kind of events where people can be told what Team is and how to get involved would be great, just not sure of the event. another thing is does Team have a target audience it wants to be apart of it? is it people who already have an interest in theater? or are we trying to get people who have no connection with theater to join? are we looking at a specific skill sets or age ranges? I feel the more we can find what people we want to be joining team the more we can target them.

I think the networking events is a great idea! 

I think there is a bit of a issue with the clarity of what TEAM is and what people can benefit from it. But, as we found ourselves from the panel meeting, it is very hard to describe and pin point what TEAM does. I noticed on the discription on the NTW TEAM website page (not the community one), that words like 'recruit' , 'work' and 'ambassador' are used. I think this might give the wrong impression as it sounds more like a job to be advertised and applied for. 

I think firstly we need to re-phrase the way TEAM is explained on both the NTW website and the community pages. Secondly, maybe every time someone joins the community pages TEAM send a message describing TEAM and inviting them to join? 

That's the online stuff. But really, the best way for people to really get what TEAM is is for us to go out and have more events, more networking night and more opportunities to go to communities and explain who we are, what we do and how TEAM can benefit them. This is why the networking nights is a great idea! Also, going back to John's point of people possibly being intimidated by the name...if we go out to places and talk to people it'll completely get rid of this idea that because we're a national organisation we are un-approachable. 

Oh ok one last thing... I don't know if this is something that helps to get more people in, but I really liked the idea of having a sort of membership card when you join TEAM. Just making something physical might make people feel more that they are a part of something?

That's it for now :)

i like the idea of something physical and i don't know if it's posible but could having a Team card maybe  give discount to ntw shows or something like that, or does that just make it too much like a tesco's club card?

Loving the sound of a physical membership card - maybe someone with good graphic design skills would be up for designing on that could be printed out by members at home? 

I would say one of the best things to do is getting into schools, colleges, and Uni's, visiting the performing arts Dept. or Drama societies. Giving them the opportunity to learn about TEAM face to face, I had no idea about TEAM until I met Rhian and Laura during my first meeting RE: CTPE. Not even tutors had heard of it. 

Colleges have a certain amount of tutorial hours they must fill, so they are perfect for TEAM to use to engage students to get involved, discussing the benefits and rewards of being a member, or even just discussing the networking side of it! 

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