Growth of our membership should be an important goal of ACE, as the larger we are the more influence we have within the amusement industry and the more opportunities we have to bring educational and historical content to the masses. I believe that we either need to:
1. Create a membership department, where specific members in each region who feel up to the task will become membership officers, asked to retain current members and recruit new ones within a geographical territory. Membership officers who meet or exceed a given quota will be rewarded in some way (a free one-year renewal of their own membership, a discount on event registration, a free t-shirt, or something of the like).
or
2. Create a program similar to the one I've outlined above, but make it open to all members. In this case, members would be rewarded for the number of new members they sign up in a year. The more new members they bring in, the greater the reward.
Part of the recruitment effort should involve exposing prospective members to our publications so that we may favorably contrast ourselves against less expensive online clubs that simply cannot compete in this regard. Another part of it should involve highlighting our preservation victories over the years as well as our academic resources (i.e. research materials stored in our existing archives as well as in the NRCMA collection). This is another reason why it so important to get Coaster Con back on track (pardon the pun) as the premier enthusiast event for intellectual discourse within our hobby in addition to being an event for riding some great coasters.
