The letter we received was most gratifying. It is very satisfying to know that our efforts have paid off and that we are among the top performers in USPS.

Frankly I do not have any magic formula that could be attributed to the success we have had in recruiting new members except for a lot of hard work, enthusiasm and a determination to succeed.

I have been Membership Chairman for the last three years and that takes us back to the time of the change in USPS policy. With this change our committee was instrumental in formulating a new plan of action to attract new members. We called a meeting of the Membership Committee, the PRO and the Chairman of Basic Boating and we concluded that the way to accomplish our objective was that all these committees must act as one.

We made certain that all of our Basic Boating instructors were capable and interesting. We made sure that the first session was taught by one of our best so as to give a good initial impression to the new students. We indoctrinated every instructor and proctor to preach squadron at every appropriate opportunity.

Note that since I am retired, I am able to devote a lot of time to squadron activities. Needless to say it is very time consuming to send a personalized letter to each student, but I feel that this is very effective. Anyone taking the Chairmanship of membership must be in a position to give the job the time that is required.

Also note that we have not resorted to any financial incentives to gain members but have relied on our ability to convince the student of the advantages of USPS membership.

We attracted our students primarily from the Adult Education Booklet that is sent out by the high schools. Our Basic Boat courses are given at three high schools as part of their Adult Education Program.

We had an aggressive PRO who saw to it that we appeared in Offshore Magazine and a number of other boating magazines. In addition we put out 10,000 place mats with our Basic Boat Course information at restaurants and diners throughout our local area. He also bought about 25 setups of the display of our Basic Boat brochures and gave them to members to place in stores, marinas, etc.

We have not offered Boat Smart to date but have plans to do so. We only gave the Basic Boat Course and last year, in addition to the three courses we gave at the high schools, we did have an additional course that we gave in the month of June.

Unfortunately we do not have the record of the number of students we started with and how many passed the exam but we are graduating three classes in the next couple of weeks and I will send you the statistics on them.

We are always looking for ways to improve but at this juncture, I would follow our same routine but try to do it better.

I hope this will be helpful to you and of course I will be pleased to answer any questions you might have.

Sincerely,

P/Lt/C Roy Katoff, JN