Promoting Membership at Your Meeting

Each Division has its own way of managing things, but here are a few ideas that organizations have found successful for encouraging participation.

Promoting Membership

Promoting Membership
  • Have a table set up to display hand-outs.
    • Irish or Irish-American history or cultural articles
    • Membership applications
    • Articles related to Catholic Teachings
    • Information pertaining to local community events
    • Division Newsletter and/or Division Calendar
  • Make sure the Officers table or tables are nicely decorated with a table cloth, statue of St. Patrick, American and Irish table flags, and other Hibernian or religious objects.
  • Have your Division Banner on Display.
  • Make sure the meeting room is both attractive and inviting.
  • Appoint a rotating “New Member Committee” for new Members.
    • Have members initiate conversations with new brothers who don’t know many people yet.
    • Create special “New Member Tags”.
    • Encourage all Division members to recognize “New Member Tags” and try to make the new brother feel at home.
    • Introduce new brothers, have them stand up and tell the brothers about themselves.
    • Have them explain how they joined the Division and what they hope to get out of the AOH.
  • Present all new brothers with a membership Package.
  • Use Name Tags (Especially helpful for new brothers)
  • Hold a 50/50 or provide small door prizes that can be raffled after the meeting.
  • Arrange for a guest speaker or make arrangements for a video presentation.
    • The meeting must be more than “Business As Usual”.  Give Brothers a reason to come back.
    • At each meeting, Brothers should should learn something new about our Order, history, culture or faith.
  • Following the meeting, provide a social where brothers can engage each other in conversation.
    • Appoint a rotating hospitality committee to oversee the social.
    • Provide drinks and some type of food (desserts or a light meal).
    • Have music playing in the background.
  • Encourage members to wear their AOH pins and Division shirts.
  • Make sure all officers are wearing their medallions.

Membership Package

New Member Package
  • A Division Roster (Names, addresses, and phone numbers of current Division Members).
  • A State and National Roster for State and National officers.
  • Division Calendar (Dates, places and times for monthly and special committee meetings).
  • List of current committees and special interest groups and their chairpersons.
  • Membership applications.
  • A copy of the AOH Constitution and the State By-Laws.
  • Information pertaining to the establishment and history of the Division.
  • Information on how to access the Division, State and National AOH websites.