NWTF Activities
 

Im on a NWTF Committee and am looking for ideas, thoughts, feedback, etc.

What have you seen your committe do well? Its not just NWTF...DU, RMEF, others too.

What do you do to get the most people to join and come to your events?

What would you like to see done that has not been tried?


Last...are you an NWTF Memeber? If not, why not...If so, for how long?

RE: NWTF Activities
 

Yeah Wooddust I' m on our committee also, we have our banquet coming up the 6th of June, can' t hardly wait. Right now we are in the process of trying to grow our committee mainly to sell more tickets. Man I would love to win that Win. model 94 lever action .410. Is Larry Neil your regional director also? Where do you live in Mo. and when is your banquet? I can' t give you many pointers on what to do since its just the 2nd. year for our chapter but one thing we are doing different this year is selling tickets on the gun of the year and the Jakes gun before the night of our banquet, last year we just tried selling them during our banquet and did' nt get all of them sold, this year it looks like we might. I have sold about 25 banquet and membership tickets along with 1 sponsor so far and think I will sell anoter 10 or so before the 6th. Good luck and I hope you have a suscessful banquet.

I talk with a few turkey hunters that don' t care much for the NWTF mainly cause they work so close with the conservation dept here in Mo., I just try and explain to them that if it was' nt for the Cons. dept and the NWTF we might not have the wild turkey to hunt, that has worked for me in persuadeing some them to join.

RE: NWTF Activities
 

Where is Alton MO....maybe I could get to your banquet!

Ours is in August in Harrisonville. Not sure how we will move forward on increasing banquet attendence but my goal is to build the committee membership.

Id like to see about 5 new committee members and make sure we have men as well as women represented. Your thoughts?

If anything, I think we need to work on this public relations issue...I mean why would someone object to their money being used here in the state and specifically for the benefit of turkeys? And who would NWTF work with the freaking highway department?

Im amazed that we have to actually overcome such objections. DU money seldom gets used in state...a bit does but not very much...but people support DU.

Let me know some details on your banquet please!

RE: NWTF Activities
 

Alton is in south central Mo. about 125 miles S.E. of Springfield or about 25 miles east of West Plains. I know what you mean about growing the committee, we have had about 5 people do it all this year, it would be much easier if we had about 10 more.
As far as the people not supporting the NWTF It would be my guess that they are about a half *** poacher. If you are interested in coming let me know and I will get you a ticket. Its June 6th. at the West Plains Civic Center with the doors open at 6:00 p.m.

RE: NWTF Activities
 

Here' s a couple of things our banquet does:
1st we have an early bird special on our sportsman raffle tickets, $300.00 worth for $100.00 if they buy thier tickets early.
2nd We offered 20 guns this year.
3rd Word of mouth and mailings worked well for us but word of mouth was the best, have guys that have gone to your banquest tell people how nice they are.
I try to bring atleast one new person every year to our banquet.
I know we make Golden Gobbler every year.
I have been a member since 1987.
I hope that this little bit of info has helped.

RE: NWTF Activities
 

Yes, I' m a member, and I thank them for getting the bird populations to where they are today, but that' s it!!!! I could care less about getting anymore newcommers into this sport!!! The turkey woods are way over crowded now, and all my Honeyholes are shot becasue of this " ARMY" we have now!! Sorry, but that' s one thing I' m not sharing, I want to be able to work a gobbler without any interference from any other Yahoo' s!! Sorry to vent, but I' m speaking the dam truth!![:@]

RE: NWTF Activities
 

I know where you are coming from Maytom, but I bet that most of the people that join the NWTF are already turkey hunters, I have signed several, several new members the last couple of years and all of them have been hunting turkeys for years. I bet these forums draw about as many or more new hunters to the turkey woods as the NWTF. By supporting the NWTF we might insure that the turkey populations will be there for all of us and our kids to hunt for years to come.

RE: NWTF Activities
 

In the local chapter of Pheasants Forever that I' m involved with, we try to have a semi-famous speaker come to our banquet and give a little talk. Over the years we have had Bud Grant, Tony Dean and others. They charge some for appearing, but you usually make up for it by having a larger turnout. I' d ask Rob Keck or Walter Parrott or some of those Mossy Oak or Realtree guys to speak at an NWTF banquet in Missouri, offer them a hunt as part of their fee. (I' ll come speak for a hunt/land access, though I' m a " nobody." :D:D)

There are other things we do, too, like have an " early bird special" where people who are coming can get a chance to win a prize if they buy their tickets before a certain date. We also sell " packages," which are comprised in a ticket to the banquet plus " Turkey Bucks" (ours are called Rooster Bucks) used/redeemed the night of the fundraiser to buy raffle tickets/chances on prizes. If the banquet ticket costs $40 (including NWTF menbership), for example, then you sell a package for $80 including $50 worth of Turkey Bucks. Sponsor packages get more stuff. $300 for $100 seems steep, IMHO.

We pay attention to the $ raised per attendee. We have many different activities at the banquet--penny pot, live auction items, silent auction items, general raffle items, special raffle items, goat auction, raffles during the auction, numbered hats as part of the auction, ladies raffle, jakes raffle, raffles during the meal, a " big" gun with limited, $100 each tickets (and yes, you sell those in advance if you are worried about not breaking even). We don' t restrict ourselves to giving away prizes that are just pheasant (in your case turkey) stuff, either, we have a varmit hunting package, a fisherman' s package, for example.

We use the banquet to promote the benefits/activities of NWTF membership/local chapter to the attendees--put up displays, for example.

I' d imagine a turkey calling contest with prizes/plaque/traveling trophy would be a part of an NWTF banquet.

Pay attention to your meal and to your facilities. If you get a lousy piece of meat and are elbow-to-elbow in a blue-hazed, smoke filled room, I can guarantee people will not come back. Make darn sure you have a public address system that works, that works well, that can be heard over the din and the noise of the crowd, that has many speakers scattered throughout the banquet room.

Try to recognize a local (typically a farmer) for his efforts on behalf of the turkeys.

Keep things moving, no long drawn out delays.

Get the kids to hand out the prizes.

Tell them what you' re going to do with the funds raised.

Prebanquet publicity is imperative. Use all the free avenues you can--local newspaper " press releases" , cable television advertisement, local radio show talk, flyers in all the right places--supermarkets, banks, etc. Pay for some commercial advertising, too. And do a mailer to the known past attendees plus people you want to see this year. (All this should be maintained in a computer database for from year to year.)

Post banquet, that night or the next day/week, run a debriefing--what worked, what failed. Analyze things. Then memorialize it to the banquet file, so that anecdotal information doesn' t overcome the facts by the next year.

Some activities--e.g. a goat raffle, can only work once or twice. Some will be highly successful every year.

Thank the donors. In the press as well as at the banquet.

RE: NWTF Activities
 

One more thing. When I started doing our PF banquets, the " competition" was DU, and, for whatever reason, DU was " men only" . So I decided we wanted to have our fundraiser open to men, women and children, and we emphasized that in our publicity. Part of that meant less emphasis on booze, part of that meant a special set of prizes just oriented to kids and women, part of that meant paying attention to when and for how long the banquet ran (be done by 11:00 p.m. on a Friday/Saturday evening, at the latest).

RE: NWTF Activities
 

All great Ideas.Thanks!!

I dont think NWTF actually expands the number of hunters as much as gets hunters involved and supporting the habitat and bird management. Plus I see them doing some good things with the handicapped, kids, and Lady hunters too.

Le more ideas and thoughts on what works expanding the committee, etc.

RE: NWTF Activities
 

Gotta have a program. May not be perfect, that' s okay, but it should cover 99% of the planned activities, and in order.

5 people to run a good banquet is tough. Consider hiring out some of the work. For example, we hire a group of women (an organization called Women of Today) to sell the raffle tickets at the event, pay them a %-age of what they raise. [In the wayback days, DU would hire scantily clad femmes to sell.] I assume you ask local merchants for raffle prize donations. Consider hiring (i.e. paying) someone to do this--tricky, need a reliable self-starter with no regular, full-time job, a natural-born salesperson, who is aggressive and committed, as well as innovative. I' d look to a parttime Chamber of Commerce type. You can also run a preliminary solicitation to the merchants with a computer-generated letter of introduction/solicitation.

Divide up the work in logical phases. We have certain members who do the same thing each year--two guys always do the tickets, one guy always buys the guns, one guy always runs the penny pot, etc. I' d say that we have 15 guys who do the planning, 5-10 guys who do most of the actual prebanquet work, and 25-30 guys, plus 10-15 kids, who actually " run" the banquet. The day before the banquet everyone shows up to help set up, and that DOES take some time, usually 4-6 hours for 20-30 guys. Some of the banquet " jobs" are relatively short--the guy who runs the penny pot, e.g., is usually done within an hour, and then is free to do as he wishes. You can put a couple of guys in charge of the silent auction. Really no work, just they' re " in charge."

Use a professional auctioneer.

Start the program with a nondenominational prayer.

Rehearse the event in your mind. How do we get the prizes to the winners? How do you collect tickets, sell more tickets, when does the speaker speak, when is the live auction, when do the silent auctions close?

Have an emcee--if not a chapter member, then maybe the auctioneer, but usually the auctioneers we use just show up to do their thing, so they don' t like to run the whole show, and aren' t familiar with the whole show.

I should go into the banquet/fundraising consulting business. [:D

RE: NWTF Activities
 

I' m a committee member (VP) here in Washington state. Our chapter is young at only 3.5 years old. For the first three years all they worked on was growing the chapter and hosting the banquet and auction. Finally, this year we are hosting our first JAKES event and have more plans in the future i.e; conservation project for Easterns in our state, etc. But getting people to come to the monthly member' s meetings is tough. We typically have about 8 people show up. How you change that I don' t know.

What we are trying to accomplish now is get out into the community. We' re hosting our first JAKES event this summer. We' re also going to host a predator hunting seminar in January, and we' re going to do a college scholarship essay contest next year which is Super Fundable but gets our name out there in the community. Be creative! Think outside the box. Hell, we' re even thinking about doing car washes during the summer and selling Krisy Kreme (very popular) donuts outside Walmart to raise a few bucks for the chapter.

We are only one of two chapters in the entire state of Washington which has a website. It has become a very valuable asset to us as a chapter. Get one! Theres lots of free webhosting sites which will allow you to build a website for free.

RE: NWTF Activities
 

Fantastic job sharing the ideas and thoughts....You guys have really done some work typing all that in and its greatly appreciated!!