Club Activity? What keeps you from it?

I am trying to figure out exactly what keeps people from actively participating in club contest, member incentive programs, and anything else that might be available. 

Contests
So, I've had several contests where I only get 1-3 entries. I know there are more members, I know they have eligible horses...so what is keeping you from entering an active club contest? I've seen this with a lot of the clubs. Most contests have pretty decent prizes as well. 

Voting in club contests
So even if you don't enter a contest one month, you could always vote in the member voting contests. What keeps you from doing this? I try to vote in every member vote decided contest whether or not I have a horse in that club. 

Member Incentives
So, all of my clubs or ones I am admin of offer member incentive programs. Meaning when you reach certain goals(especially with breeding) you can claim EVD from the club for it. Why don't you take advantage of these programs if they are available in clubs you are a part of? 

If anyone could help me to better understand some of the questions above I would greatly appreciate it! I really want to boost participation in the clubs I am a part of. 

Keeping an eye on this as I would also like to know! 

For me, the clubs I'm in either don't post any activity/contests and I don't often have new stock to register. If they do post a contest I sometimes forget about it once I've looked at it but usually I don't have a horse ready/eligible. Anything like incentives/etc I leave for other people to claim as I certainly don't need them myself aha. 

Pure forgetfulness here. I tend to join clubs, register my eligible horses, and then totally forget they exist.

@Havok - do you think that a club sending out maybe a bi-weekly or monthly newsletter would help with that? I know that members are notified when a new contest is created. 

@maple - I hear you there, I used to never use member incentives either, because, well I don't need them...I do them when offered now...just to show that I am active within the club...but not a lot of clubs have them it would seem. 

If I don't write a voting date in my calendar then I'll most likely forget to vote even when my horse has entered, so I greatly appreciate reminders sent by club when voting time stars.

I miss very much some kind of club interaction: either club forum with possibility to start posts or a chance to be able to react to club messages. It would be nice if there was a club announcement listing winners and we could congratulate each other. If I'm not in top three I don't even notice when prizes are being sent and have no clue who won until I go and check myself after a month...

Thanks for the feedback Lenka! You are probably the most active participant in my clubs so far, lol. 

I do think the newsletters are helpful... but I know for me, when I first progress my account for the day, I hurry to get rid of the "new notification" banner by viewing my notifications and then going about my daily routine. By the time I am doing caring for my horses and everything, I forget to go back to actually go read the newsletters. I am super bad about that haha! I am more active on the forums, so potentially new forum posts would be helpful. But I think a lot of clubs already do posts for contests and such.

@Olympea what club do you own?

Zest - Currently the Driving Association and Gypsy Vanner Horse Society. I also admin on the Chincoteague and Dressage Clubs. 

An interesting question and I am also awaiting the answers being a club owner myself  :) though I admit I have been slow to restart club activity after the New Year I hope to be back up and running soon.

Sometimes forgetfulness and sometimes because I am not 100% clear on how to vote/enter the contest. It is probably easy and I am just missing a button somewhere!

Edited to add
Oh there are sometimes ones to do with naming horses a certain way or breeding for a specific goal or similar which doesn't fit in with my wider goals so I don't do those. 

Last edited on 2021-01-25 at 15:08:20 by SkyChild

How do you find out about/do these? Do you have to keep checking back in with clubs regularly or is there a notification that goes out? I have joined just a few but, I guess, I never thought about having to check back in or if there would be some sort of notification for fun stuff. I am definitely interested in being more active in events/contest/etc.

You should get a notification for newsletters and contests but there's the option to turn them off. You might have them disabled? Or there hasn't been any activity from clubs recently. 

Sometimes I'm randomly off EV for a week or two and I just miss the info, or in case of some contests I don't have right horse (right color, right discipline, stat window etc) for a contest. I try to vote regularly, though!

Thanks, Maple!