Started the uke group. Need more members. Back to the blog? website? I don’t even know what this is but if anyone searches ukulele group in Orillia, they end up here so I guess I have to do something with it. My daughter despairs – “You just don’t understand the internet community!” She’s right.
S.unshine U.kulele N.etwork
World Peace – One Ukulele at a TIme
S.unshine U.kulele N.etwork 
Hi,
I hope your uke group is going well. I run the website for my local uke group PLUC (http://lewishamukulele.wordpress.com/), based in SE London, England.
When I took over our site end of June 2012, we had around 5 club members, 6 blog followers & about 4,000 hits to the site. Now we have around 20 regular weekly members (& about 10 or so more who come along sporadically – plus a lot of folk have passed through, staying a while but been unable to commit long-term due to work or life in general); 100 blog followers & over 74,000 hits.
I’ve done this almost without spending any cash so thought I’d tell you some of the things I’ve done to advertise, in case you’ve not tried them yet. Hopefully a couple will be useful to you & help you gain some new members:
1) Get your club listed on as many uke sites as you can. Eg:
Ukulele Hunt (http://ukulelehunt.com/2010/03/10/ukulele-clubs-and-groups-in-the-usa-and-canada/)
Got A Ukulele (http://www.gotaukulele.com/p/ukulele-clubs-and-societies.html)
Uke List (http://www.ukelist.com/)
Curt Sheller (http://curtsheller.com/ukulele/clubs/index.php) etc.
Hopefully there will be some Canadian sites out there too.
2) Look on the Top 100 uke sites (http://www.topukulelesites.com/) & the Top 50 uke sites(http://www.boatpaddleukuleles.com/top50/) – as well as being in a club listing, you may be able to advertise your group in a listings guide, write a little article about yourselves or just share songs, ideas & links to make it more likely people will see that your club exists.
3) Try putting little ads in on-line & local events listings sites & mags – lots of these are free, as can be putting up notices in local libraries, music shops, nearby ukulele classes & other friendly local shops etc.
4) If you’ve a printer at home you can design a nice eye-catching flyer – or go for one of these sites that gives you a cheap introductory offer for small flyers or business cards. Put down your club’s name, site, contact details, any membership fee & when & where the club meets – & pass the details around wherever you can – at local fairs, anything where music-related things would work etc.
5) If you start playing any gigs (eg school fêtes, charity bashes, friend’s party), then it’s always a good idea to have the flyers with you to pass round.
6) If you’re interested in spending time on your site, then write a short blog entry once a month or so about something uke-related that interests you & or your group. Letting people know a few nuggets about who’s in your club, do you welcome beginners, what sort of music you play, if you perform etc will help encourage people to come & try you out.
WordPress is very good, as it puts your listings high up in Google when people do their searches – but you have to have written stuff for them to find.
But, if you’re not going to have time to do that, or just don’t fancy it, then just keep the site informative with the contact details, times & any directions you want made publicly know for potential new members. It’s better to have a basic but accurate site than one that’s clearly not being updated, as it makes it look like you’ve lost interest in the group (& even that it may no longer be running ) – so can turn people off.
7) Ask all the group members if they have any ideas – you may find they have access to their own networks of friends, resources & ideas that prove fruitful. I ask people to write me little articles at time, so I don’t have to write everything for the site.
I hope that’s helpful!
Happy strumming & good luck with the finger-picking.
Jeanette
Hi Jeanette
Thank you so much for your kind encouragement and great ideas! I was not aware of several of the sites you suggested so I will be checking them out and adding our group to their lists. It sounds as if you have come a long way with your group. I think we can do that here. There is a lot of interest in playing music in our community, with two nearby folk societies and our city being home to the Mariposa Folk Festival.
Thank you again,
Sunny
Hi Sunny,
I’m sure once things get going with your group, word will spread round & it’ll snowball. Good to hear there’s lots of local interest in music & the nearby folk festival – that will all help. I look forward to popping back to see how you’re doing.
Good luck & happy strumming!
Jeanette