Plant Seeds for Success: How Clubs Build Sustainable Engagement (Without More Staff Work)
Est. Read Time: 8 mins
Audience and intent
This post is for club leaders and department heads who want higher participation, stronger community, and a better member experience, while protecting staff time and avoiding program burnout.
The 2026 CMAA World Conference and Club Business Expo theme is "Plant Seeds for Success." It is a useful metaphor for what actually works in clubs.
Most engagement problems are not solved by one big campaign, one new program, or one more email blast. They are solved by planting a lot of small, compounding seeds that make it easier for members to connect and participate.
Those seeds are not just ideas. They are systems: repeatable ways your club reduces friction, builds momentum, and makes it natural for members to show up, bring friends, and try new things.
CMAA frames the theme around growth, resilience, adaptation, continuous learning, and connection to a strong community. That maps directly to what clubs are trying to do every day.
Below are five "seed categories" you can plant this season, plus concrete examples of what they look like in practice.
Seed #1: Remove friction at the moment of participation
If you want more participation, start by reducing the number of steps between "I am interested" and "I am in."
In clubs, friction often hides in places that feel normal to staff:
⫸ "Email the tennis office and we will get you on the list."
⫸ "Text the captain and ask if there is a spot."
⫸ "Call the front desk and they will connect you."
⫸ "We post the schedule, but signups are handled separately."
This works, until it does not. It quietly turns staff into human routers. It also creates a participation tax: members who are less assertive, newer, or just busy will not push through the extra steps.
Plant the seed by making the path to join obvious, immediate, and consistent.
What this looks like at a club
⫸ Every activity has one clear place to join and one clear place to see updates.
⫸ Joining does not require a staff handoff for routine groups.
⫸ Members can see what they are signed up for, and what is next, without asking.
Why this seed matters
When friction drops, participation rises for the members you are currently missing:
⫸ New members who do not know who to contact
⫸ Seasonal members returning mid-season
⫸ Members who want to try something once before committing
⫸ Members who are interested but do not want to "bother" staff
Seed #2: Give member leaders a simple operating system
Every club has natural community builders: group captains, game organizers, clinic regulars, and the member who always knows "who is in." They are your volunteer force multiplier.
But if the only tools they have are spreadsheets, text chains, and inbox threads, they burn out. Or they keep doing it, but only for a small circle of friends.
Plant the seed by giving those leaders a simple, repeatable operating system for their groups.
What this looks like
⫸ Captains can message the group in one place (without building email lists).
⫸ Captains can run signups without chasing responses.
⫸ Members can RSVP, see the details, and get reminders without staff intervention.
⫸ New members can be added cleanly as they meet people and get invited.
One of the underrated benefits here is continuity. Captains change. Seasons change. If the group exists in a durable system, the club keeps the momentum instead of rebuilding it every year.
If you want a simple way to think about this, it aligns with the idea of "social gravity": the invisible pull that causes members to organize themselves around shared interests, routines, and relationships. When social gravity is strong, members pull each other in.
Seed #3: Build resilience with visibility and repeatability
CMAA highlights resilience and adaptation for a reason. Clubs are operating in an environment that changes quickly:
⫸ Shifting demographics and expectations
⫸ Seasonal swings and unpredictable travel patterns
⫸ Staffing constraints and turnover
⫸ More competition for members' time
Resilience is not "working harder." It is building systems that keep engagement stable even when people change.
The two resilience seeds most clubs miss
1) Visibility
If members cannot easily see what is happening, they default to their routines. You end up with "the same people do everything," and everyone else stays on the sidelines.
Visibility is not just marketing. It is discoverability:
⫸ A single place where members can browse activities by interest
⫸ Clear recurring schedules
⫸ Simple "how to join" language
⫸ Timely notifications that are not noisy
2) Repeatability
When every activity is run differently, staff becomes the glue. If you standardize the core workflow (how signups work, how updates are posted, how reminders go out), you can scale participation without scaling staff effort.
Seed #4: Use AI where it removes work, not where it adds risk
The conference also calls out new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence.
In clubs, the most practical AI uses are not flashy. They are the ones that save time and surface insight.
Here are three AI-aligned "seeds" that actually fit club reality:
AI seed A: Turn feedback into trend signals
Most clubs collect feedback in fragments:
⫸ A comment after an event
⫸ A note to a department head
⫸ A quick response to a survey
⫸ A complaint that never makes it to the right person
The seed is not "collect more feedback." The seed is "summarize what you already have into patterns you can act on."
When you can see sentiment shifting over time, you stop guessing. You stop overreacting to one loud complaint. You also catch issues early, while they are still easy to fix.
AI seed B: Reduce repeated questions with self-serve answers
Front desks and department teams answer the same questions constantly:
⫸ "What time is the clinic?"
⫸ "Where do I sign up?"
⫸ "Can I bring a guest?"
⫸ "What is the cancellation policy?"
The seed is a reliable, searchable knowledge base that staff can point to and members can self-serve from. Done right, this reduces interruptions and increases member confidence.
AI seed C: Help staff prioritize, not just respond
AI is valuable when it helps you focus on what matters:
⫸ Which events are trending down and need attention
⫸ Which activities are growing and need capacity planning
⫸ Which member segments are not participating at all
⫸ Which programs drive repeat attendance, not just one-time signups
This is where "continuous learning" becomes real. You are not just running programming. You are improving it based on evidence.
Seed #5: Plant connection on purpose, not by accident
CMAA emphasizes connection to a strong community.
In clubs, connection does not come from a calendar. It comes from member-to-member relationships.
That has two implications:
1) Engagement is more than attendance
A member can attend events and still feel disconnected. Another member can attend less often but feel deeply connected because they belong to a group.
If you measure only headcount, you miss the real signal: belonging.
If you want a deeper framework, this ties to the idea that engagement is not just "members using the club." It is a combination of awareness, participation, and delight, consistently over time.
2) Clubs need "connection infrastructure"
Connection infrastructure is the set of defaults that makes it easy for members to find their people:
⫸ A wide range of affinity groups, not just the big sports
⫸ Clear pathways for new members to get pulled in
⫸ Lightweight tools for captains and organizers
⫸ Simple ways to invite and onboard into groups
⫸ A place for ongoing conversation that does not depend on personal texting
When you build this, connection scales. Without it, connection stays limited to the most social members, and the club quietly leaves value on the table.
A practical "seed plan" for the next 30 days
If you want a simple way to apply this without starting a huge project, use this 30-day plan:
Week 1: Identify the highest-friction participation points
⫸ Where do members get stuck when trying to join?
⫸ Where does staff get pulled into coordination that members could handle?
⫸ Which activities rely on one person "holding it together"?
Week 2: Standardize one workflow
Pick one category and make it consistent:
⫸ Recurring play groups
⫸ Clinics and clinics signups
⫸ Cards groups
⫸ Fitness series
⫸ Interest groups (travel, wine, mahjong, crafts, trivia)
The goal is not perfection. The goal is repeatability.
Week 3: Increase visibility without increasing noise
⫸ Make it easy to browse what is happening
⫸ Make joining obvious
⫸ Make reminders consistent and predictable
Week 4: Add one insight loop
Pick one thing you will measure and review monthly:
⫸ Participation by activity type
⫸ Repeat attendance rate
⫸ New member participation within the first 60 days
⫸ Member feedback trends
This is the "continuous learning" seed in a form that fits real club operations.
Where GroupValet fits into this theme
GroupValet was built for exactly these compounding seeds:
⫸ Reduce friction for joining and participating
⫸ Give member leaders and staff simple coordination tools
⫸ Increase visibility and discoverability
⫸ Create insight loops, including AI-powered feedback insights
⫸ Strengthen community connection without increasing staff workload
If you want to explore what this can look like for your club, request a demo here: https://calendly.com/jtomberg-groupvalet/30min
If you want related reading, these two posts connect directly to the ideas above:
⫸ How Clubs Naturally Pull Members Together
⫸ How Do You Measure Social Gravity at a Club?
The theme is "Plant Seeds for Success." The clubs that win over the next few years will not be the ones that simply add more programming. They will be the ones that build better systems for connection, participation, and learning, so engagement becomes easier, more resilient, and more sustainable.