Three of the biggest problems that student groups encounter are change in leadership, summer vacation, and membership recruitment and retention problems. These problems threaten to collapse a student group and to dissolve your CANDLE relationship.

Change in Leadership

• Encourage current officers to explain the CANDLE relationship to their replacements.
• Contact new officers immediately to introduce yourself.
• Attend the first meeting of the year to re-introduce your organization and to re-establish relations with officers.
• Allow new officers to run the organization the way they see fit. Do not expect them to be the same kind of leader as the former officer.

Summer Vacation

• Develop a listserv so that members of both groups can keep in touch during the summer.
• Get new contact information from officers before they leave for summer break.
• Plan a big joint event to kick off the school year. Designate one or two individuals from each organization who will be in charge of planning it over the summer. This will keep everyone engaged and ensure continued contact over break.

Membership Retention and Recruitment

• Ask students how many members they have, and if they are having problems with recruitment and retention. Be sure to ask them if they would like you to help out.
• Encourage students to constantly recruit, even if they currently have 500 members.
• If numbers start to fall put them in touch with the SSA. We have a packet specifically designed to combat membership recruitment and retention problems.
• Help the group throw a big event or bring in a well-known speaker. Events that get big publicity bring in big numbers. In the long run this means more publicity for the group and more individuals who are exposed to the movement.

You Can Also

• Designate one or two people in your organization to be in charge of the CANDLE outreach program. Or, create an entire committee to help facilitate it.
• Engage in fundraising specifically for your youth programs.
• Let your members know how they can help out.