By Ashley Luke – Membership Chair
As a 100% volunteer organization, there is nothing more important than our members.
Our membership is dedicated to supporting the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. A third of our members have been supporting the club for over ten years, including twenty four who joined the club more than
fifty years ago. At the same time, 30% of our members joined in just the last year.
We draw members from a broad range of places, including twenty-five states. Even within Georgia, members live in over 160 different cities. About 15% of our members live inside the 285 perimeter, with other large populations in Cumming, Marietta, Roswell, Blairsville, Alpharetta and Dahlonega.
If you’re under forty, you are in the minority. Less than one third of our members qualify as Millennials or Gen Z. Over half of our members are over age sixty. Age doesn’t stop us from getting out to work on the trail though. A quarter of all of our members participated in a trail maintenance trip this year, and fifty-seven completed ten trips or more.
Aside from some interesting trivia, what can we take away from these numbers? For one thing, we need to continue to recruit members to carry us into our next 100 years. We must find ways to better engage our new members, helping them find their place within the club. There are opportunities to fit each member’s interest and ability, no matter how much time they are able to commit.
Over the next year, the Membership and Member Engagement Committees will be working to improve recruitment and develop outreach to our members, especially within their first year.
If you’d like to be a part of that process, the Membership
Committee is looking for volunteers. Reach out to us at Membership@georgia-atclub.org.