Recruiting new members
Morris sides in the UK have encouraged 2,000 new people to take up morris dancing in the last two years, which is encouraging for the future health of morris dancing. Morris Census data suggests that sides who are looking to recruit more members would do best by focusing on active recruitment methods with a personal touch (such as word of mouth, recruiting friends and social media) rather than impersonal and passive methods such as recruitment leaflets or adverts.
Because the number of young dancers is relatively low, recruitment is the most imporant issue that morris sides and morris organisations are currently facing. The Morris Census gathered data relevant for understanding recruitment: the number of recruits, their age and gender, what recruitment methods sides use and which they find most useful.
The Morris Census survey asked morris sides how many new recruits that were new to dancing (i.e., excluding existing dancers changing team) had joined in the last two years. The data shows that morris sides have had, on average, around 3 new members join in the last two years, which is equivalent to more than 2,000 new dancers across the UK. However, around one in five sides have had no new recruits join their side in the last two years.
Because the number of young dancers is relatively low, recruitment is the most imporant issue that morris sides and morris organisations are currently facing. The Morris Census gathered data relevant for understanding recruitment: the number of recruits, their age and gender, what recruitment methods sides use and which they find most useful.
The Morris Census survey asked morris sides how many new recruits that were new to dancing (i.e., excluding existing dancers changing team) had joined in the last two years. The data shows that morris sides have had, on average, around 3 new members join in the last two years, which is equivalent to more than 2,000 new dancers across the UK. However, around one in five sides have had no new recruits join their side in the last two years.
|
|
Six out of ten recruits are female, which is a major reason why the numebr of women in morris dancing has been rising so rapidly in recent years to a position of gender balance for the first time in 2017. The average age of new recruits in 2017 is 43, up from 40 in 2014. While the average age of recruits is lower than the average age of morris dancers in the UK, which is 53, it is not considerably lower. Only one in four (26 per cent of) new recruits is under thirty, whereas four out of ten (40 per cent) are age 50 or over.
|
|
|
That such a large number of new dancers have recently been encouraged to try morris dancing should be heartening to those that fear for the future of morris, given its ageing demographics. However, it is unclear from these figures how many of the new recruits were retained and how many will continue to dance for the next few years? If most recruits try dancing but do not keep participating in the long-term, then more recruitment will be needed to translate recruits into members.
Hhow does the number of recruits each year compare to the number of dancers retiring each year? The Morris Census survey collected information on the number of dancers that stopped dancing in the last two years. On average, each side lost two members, who either left the side or stopped performing. Some of those may have joined other sides, but it shows nevertheless that new recruits are required just for the number of morris dancers to stand still over time.
|
|
How to recruit more members
What methods do sides use to recruit new members? The Morris Census survey asked sides to report what methods they used for spreading the word about their side and encouraging new members to join. It shows us what methods are most and least commonly used by sides.
The most commonly used recruitment methods are word of mouth (78%), recruiting friends (56%) and giving leaflets to the audience when performing (3%). These are the most active and direct forms of recruitment, which target people that are most likely to have an underlying interest in morris to encourage them. More passive indirect forms of communication that tend to be focussed at a larger and broader audience, such as local media, tend to be less favoured by sides but are used by some. A fifth of sides (20%) use some form of family recruitment, whether it is siblings or children, but much less than friends.
Which methods have sides find are the most useful? Again, the recruitment methods cited as being most useful are the active methods that have a personal touch (word of mouth, recruiting friends and using social media) whereas passive and indirct methods such as adverts in local publications are found to be less useful.
The most commonly used recruitment methods are word of mouth (78%), recruiting friends (56%) and giving leaflets to the audience when performing (3%). These are the most active and direct forms of recruitment, which target people that are most likely to have an underlying interest in morris to encourage them. More passive indirect forms of communication that tend to be focussed at a larger and broader audience, such as local media, tend to be less favoured by sides but are used by some. A fifth of sides (20%) use some form of family recruitment, whether it is siblings or children, but much less than friends.
Which methods have sides find are the most useful? Again, the recruitment methods cited as being most useful are the active methods that have a personal touch (word of mouth, recruiting friends and using social media) whereas passive and indirct methods such as adverts in local publications are found to be less useful.
What else does the data tell us about recruitment?
Further analysis of side characteristics and how they relate to recruitment reveal some interesting findings.
First, many sides responding to the Morris Census alerted me to a recruitment method that wasn't in the survey as an option to select: dancing out. Performing out in the local community raises sides' profile among local people and can potentially attract new members. I checked whether this was true by looking at the number of times a side dances out in a tyical year and the number of people they managed to recruit in the last two years. There is indeed a correlation. Correlation is not necessarily cause - e.g. sides that recruit well might be more able to dance out more frequently - but performing out should be seen as beneficial for recruitment.
Second, sides with a high average age of members tend to struggle to recruit (see chart below). Sides with an average age that is over 50 tend to attract fewer recruits than younger sides, and the recruits they do attract tend to be older. In particular, sides with an average age that is over 50 find it very difficult to recruit new members who are under 30. For someone who is under 30 and might be interested in morris dancing, the prospect of joining a side where everyone is your parents age is likely to be a tough sell.
Sides that are getting older and finding it difficult to recruit, but are keen to keep morris dancing going in the local area into the future, could consider more radical forms of succession planning. For example, forming or supporting morris dancing clubs at local schools or scout groups, which might encourage young people to learn morris dancing in a group that is "theirs", could, if sustained, be a valuable investment in the future of morris dancing in the area.
|
|
