Dear Skålleagues,

Greetings from your Director of Membership! 

I am part of your Sk ål USA membership team consisting of Dave Ryan, Vice President of Membership and Jim Dwyer, Director of Membership. Together, we are here to support our clubs and assist them with growing their membership along with helping to establish new clubs in various untapped markets in the US. One thing we've found is that the members and leaders of our clubs are extremely enthusiastic about Sk ål and everyone has their own ideas of how to make their Clubs membership a huge success. I thank all of you who we have spoken to and have given us their feedback.

One of the missions I took on with this role was looking at our Young Sk ål programs and how clubs can revitalize this membership category. In speaking with many of the club leaders, I heard an array of ideas around Young Sk ål, but one thing stood out, if you have a member who can take the reins and can make a commitment to Young Sk ål, it will be successful. As I am a member of the Orlando Club, I have been working with them on their program. Stephanie Zambelli, who is a former Young Sk ål and Young Sk ål Professional is now an Active Individual Member. Under the leadership of Tom White and a very supportive board, Stephanie has been able to not just maintain the Young Sk ål and Young Sk ål Professional categories but enhance and grow this category not just in numbers, but in the quality of member. Congratulations also to Troy Lambert-Zaffino from the Atlanta Club! Troy started as a Young Sk ål student grew to Young Sk ål Professional and is now a hotel manager in Savannah working on starting our first ever Sk ål Savannah Club! Also, Paul Amend who started as a Young Sk ål student the Young Sk ål Professional and now a full time member in our newly formed SW Florida Club! Their work on projects, fundraising and scholarships to name a few, has been instrumental in their clubs success!

The goal of every club should be to continuously strengthen their membership base with a healthy and balanced mix of ages, sectors of the industry and diverse backgrounds. The Young Sk ål and Young Sk ål Professional program is a measured and controlled way to achieve that goal!

Based on my first few months in working with our Clubs, I have been able to gather a list of things that have been successful for other clubs in maintaining and growing their Young Sk ål and Young Sk ål Professional Program. Some of the feedback I received was that it was too much work for too little return. Some of these tips will assist to defeat that reasoning if properly implemented.
  1. The most important thing you can do is dedicate someone who is passionate about the Young Skål and Young Skål Professional program and HAVE THEM OWN IT! It is recommended that this person has just come off of the Young Skål or Young Skål Professional Program. An appointed board member from the club can ensure that they have the executive support they need and are on the right track, but they should report out in board meetings.
  2. Where there is a hotel or travel school in your area, invite the Dean or an influential professor to join the club. They can do your Young Skål recruiting for you and get you the most senior and high level students. Hoteliers are sometimes the strongest Young Skål members. They have the most to gain from the program.
  3. Recommend the mentoring program for the SKAL Clubs who have YS members where retired members could be allocated to YS members as mentors; this could make some of the retired members happy being able to mentor a potential leader in the industry; this could be an ice breaker to fill in the gap between the old generation and young generation involvement in the clubs. The YS's including the young professionals should feel welcome in the clubs
  4. Ensure you convert Young Skåleagues to Young Skål Professionals and Young Skål Professionals to Full Active Members. You need to establish a track record of success to increase the momentum of your program. The hardest part is getting started but it does get easier from there!
  5. Young Skål Professionals are one of the keys to the future of Skål. We have the ability to provide them a membership rate that is manageable.       These new leaders can greatly benefit by gaining access to influential leaders that can help them with their career. Our Clubs benefit by bringing in future active members. There is great potential to grow this category in most markets.
  6. Ask for help and celebrate your success! We have established a group of people on the Skal USA Executive Committee that have the passion and connections to help our clubs thrive. Use us! There are few better days then when we accomplish something together and can celebrate that achievement.
Attached for your reference and assistance is the Young Sk ål Guideline from the Atlanta Club and the Project Team minutes from the Sk ål International Young Sk ål committee 2020 project. There are further great ideas in these documents to grow and maintain your Clubs Young Sk ål community.

 
Click Here to View the Young Skal Operational Manual

Ensuring that we have a great bench of members ready to carry us into the next generation is not just a nice to have, it is our duty and vital to Sk ål surviving into the future! It's definitely easier to just keep the status quo in your club, but for the sake of the future of Sk ål, growing our young base of members is more critical now than it has ever been.

Thank you and see you all soon!


Richard Scinta
Director, Membership
Skål International USA | ph: ( 202) 898-4690 | skalusa@buses.org | 111 K Street NE, 9th Floor
Washington, DC 20002




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