When we took over the e-board last December, I made my intentions clear to the new board. My primary goal was to increase membership for a couple reasons. First, I knew that membership was the key to a thriving club with long term viability. Second, I really believed that we could model the club based on the membership interests and that this would help accomplish our goals. We began last year by formulating surveys looking for input on areas in which the student body had a specific interest. From there, we modeled our meetings based on those interests. These surveys, done once per semester, led us to business topics like, resume and interview skills which have been well recieved. They have also led us to more unusual topics like a veterinary technician discussion panel about things doctors do to kill staff relationships, a meeting that was funny, jam packed and informative.

We have done our best to get additional funding so we could make a number of meetings available to the suudent body as a whole, not just VBMA members. We have found that, if you can fill the seats you will get new members at every meeting so the membership drive can continue throughout the year. We have gotten new members at every single meeting we have had and those small numbers have added up.

We discovered a grab bag in the club locker that had t-shirts, mugs, badge holders, binders, etc. These have been offered as new member perks and have been well recieved. Granted, they are not particularly business related but I think new members have been pleasantly surprised to get a gift with new membership.

We also decreased membership dues to $10 per year or $30 for 4 years. This places us among the lowest cost clubs. As a board we decided to do this mostly because we felt that it was our duty as the board to raise the funds that are available for meetings and events. In this light, we felt that the new pricing was sufficient to meet the clubs needs in lieu of the generous funding available from Hills, Banfield, Pfizer, etc.

The result of our efforts in the past year have been satisfying. The MSU chapter has increased membership from 31 to 62 members, a 100% increase. So, in summary, my advice to increase memberships is: ask the student body what interests them and bring those topics to your meetings, hold free meetings (with food) as much as the club can reasonably afford, pursue additional funding as much as possible, price your dues to meet the club need including available funding and make membership drives a year round effort.

Thanks,
Tom Robinson
President
Michigan State University Chapter of the VBMA

Hello North Central,

At Iowa State this fall we tried something a bit different than what is typically done for introductory meetings. We brought in an industry speaker that spoke about buying/opening a clinic within five years of graduation AND had a fantastic complimentary meal. Many of the other student organizations have a brief (15 minute) intro to the club and complimentary pizza; this knocked all of those meetings out of the water and was apparent with over half of all veterinary students in attendance.

Fliers were also hung throughout the school, placed in mailboxes and reminder emails were sent out. We did the best we could to reach as many students at ISU-CVM as we could!

In regards to benefits to VBMA at Iowa State our benefits are our speakers. The fall semester is typically a bit slower with four to six speakers; however, in the spring it is not uncommon for VBMA to have a speaker nearly every week. These people are typically veterinarians that are successful business owners or managers. We do our best to find unique situations, that is people that either started a unique business or perhaps started a fairly common practice but with a unique situation. Additionally we do not limit ourselves to companion or food animal nor do we exclude other presenters that are not veterinarians; they need to add value to our members though!

The dues structure is $20/year for every member. The dues primarily go to cover food for members at meetings and travel expenses for speakers. In regards to perks we do offer business cards for each paid member (25 cards/member) and the VM3 students that are VBMA members get a discount on their veterinary law books. We have not had any complaints about the dues and because of the large number of noon speaker meetings with food most people see it as a sound investment even without the business cards or book discount.

The Iowa State VBMA has been strong in the past, however, the goal this year was to really increase membership and show the student body why being a VBMA member is essential to becoming a successful veterinary practice owner or manager.

If anyone would like additional details about our event or has any critiques we would appreciate either.

Shamus Brown
Second Year Veterinary Student and Master of Business Administration Candidate, Iowa State University