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| Martine Cashell-Smith
Dunedin, New Zealand
Age: 30-39 |
Nominated as:
Nominated by: |
Member
New Zealand Federation |
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| Professional
Field and/or present occupation |
My present occupation is Project Co-ordinator.
The professional fields in which I am experienced are Project
Co-ordination, Health Research and Marketing Management. |
| Skills and experience in membership recruitment and development that
qualify you for this position: |
I am currently President
of the Otago Branch of the New Zealand Federation of Graduate
Women. This position has provided me with knowledge of FGW/IFUW
at local, national and international levels and has afforded
me opportunities to attend conferences and workshops. Attending
these conferences has also allowed me to appreciate the
diversity of our membership, both locally and internationally.
I have been on our Branch's Special Projects sub-committee
since its inception four years ago. The Special Projects
sub-committee has developed new publicity pamphlets and
posters to promote membership of our Branch (which have
been admired and are about to be used by other branches).
We have also undertaken surveys to understand why members
join and what other benefits they feel membership does and
should instill.
I have also been working on revising our Branch constitution
to bring it in-line with recent IFUW and NZFGW changes and
to update other aspects as necessary. I have been very fortunate
in receiving mentorship in this from Lorraine Isaacs, an
IFUW Constitutional Advisor.
I have been a member of our Branch Committee for the past
eight years (Vice-President for six years and Young Members'
representative for seven years). During this time I have
worked on different publicity techniques used to recruit
members and I have developed programmes to appeal to current
members and to attract new members, particularly Young Members.
I have experience in developing and running workshops at
both IFUW and local branch level. I was the Co-ordinator
in charge of leading a multinational group in developing
and running a workshop: Balancing Work, Family and Community
at the IFUW 28th Triennial Conference, Perth, 2004 and I
have also submitted a workshop proposal for the IFUW 30th
Triennial Conference in Mexico this year.
After graduating
with a Degree and a Post-graduate Diploma in Marketing Management,
I worked in a Supermarket developing a "relationship
marketing" programme. This involved studying and applying
relationship marketing, direct marketing and customer loyalty
concepts, all of which have direct parallels for membership
recruitment and development.
Later in my career, I worked in health research on a major
study which involved recruiting and retaining over one thousand
study participants for an initial study plus three follow-up
studies over the next two years. Through this I learnt that
different strategies are required for different people when
recruiting and retaining members.
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| Other skills and experience (volunteer and professional) from the last 10 years which qualify you for this position |
I have experience on Federation of Graduate Women
committees and sub-committees (as described above) which
has also provided me with many skills in addition to the
membership recruitment and development skills mentioned
earlier. I appreciate the necessity of good teamwork when
working in committees and the value of the diverse range
of knowledge and skills that individuals bring to group
work. I have been fortunate in having a number of NZFGW
members who have mentored me over my years in FGW and who
have generously shared the knowledge and experience that
they have developed during their time in our organisation.
I have also served on Girl Guide Committees and school parents'
association committees where we have also addressed the
issue of member and leader recruitment and retention. On
these committees, I have worked with a wide variety of people
and learnt skills that have improved my constructiveness
as a committee member.
In my work as a Project Co-ordinator, I have developed valuable
skills such as an ability to work to deadlines, organisational
skills, time management skills, research skills, and experience
in preparing reports and other resources. |
| Goals for this position and the contribution you believe you can personally make if elected or appointed |
My goal would be to apply my marketing degree and
skills, in association with my Federation of Graduate Women
knowledge and experience, to work together with the other
committee members to identify opportunities for expanding
membership of IFUW at all levels and to communicate strategies
based upon these opportunities to national and local branches
in a clear and practical manner that would make the application
of our ideas feasible.
If elected to the committee, I believe I could make many
useful contributions based on my FGW and committee experience,
marketing knowledge and my energy and enthusiasm. I feel
that having a young member (such as myself) on the membership
committee would be beneficial to our discussions and work.
I would like to add that a goal for me would also be to
learn from the older and more experienced members as I feel
they would have a lot to teach me. I am certainly not coming
into the committee feeling that I have all the answers and
I feel that most solutions will be developed through good
teamwork and much brainstorming. I appreciate the value
of the work done by previous membership committees upon
which we would build. |
| What do you see as the main obstacles to membership recruitment and
retention and what can the Membership Committee do to help overcome these? |
There are a number of main
obstacles at present to membership recruitment and retention,
some of which are:
- Changing media preferences - this includes increased use
of the internet but it must also be acknowledged that access
to the internet can still be limited for some groups of
women such as older members and those in developing countries.
We need to encourage all branches and NFAs to keep their
websites visually modern with updated information.
- Information overload - we are constantly being bombarded
by information from many forms of media which we are constantly
screening. We need to look at ways to break through this,
perhaps through increased personal (in person) contact with
potential members.
- New definitions of community - although some experts say
that people are less inclined to become involved with their
communities we must realize that people's definitions of
community are changing (e.g. a more global community for
some via the internet). We need to look at opportunities
such as Facebook.
- Lack of publicity
- we often struggle to get the media interested in both
our organisation and in women's issues. We could look at
advising our NFAs and branches on how to generate publicity.
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| What do you see as the target audiences for recruitment drives for IFUW at the national and local level and how can IFUW best diversify its membership? |
I recognize that there are a number of different
groups that we can consider as target audiences for our
organisation. In order to ensure that we have leaders for
the future we will always need to attract Young Members.
The Otago branch has a strong Young Members' contingent
which we have worked to grow and strengthen over the years
(at present our President, Vice-President and three committee
members are Young Members). However, in order to raise membership
numbers, we should also look at other age-groups such as
the newly retired (who may suddenly have more time on their
hands and may find themselves missing academic stimulation
and friendship) and mature graduates (who may have more
inclination to join than young graduates). Aside from defining
target audiences by age, we can also look at targeting graduates
defined by circumstance. For example, those who may feel
isolated in their work or home and who are looking for support,
friendship and/or academic stimulation (this group may be
increasing as the number of women working by computer from
home increases) or women looking for opportunities to gain
leadership experience (personal stories from members on
our websites or in publicity material may be useful here). |
| Education: |
University of Otago, Bachelor of Commerce, 1992,
Marketing Management
University of Otago, Postgraduate Diploma in Commerce, 1992,
Marketing Management |
| Mother
tongue: |
English |
| Ability
to speak English: |
Excellent |
| Ability
to understand spoken English: |
Excellent |
| Ability
to read English: |
Excellent |
| Ability
to write English: |
Excellent |
| Other
languages: |
Maori - basic level speaking and reading (still learning) |
| Computer
skills: |
Considerable
experience sending e-mail and using the Internet |
| Internet
Access: |
Regular access to e-mail at home or the office |
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