Just something I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I’ve been working on a club here in Emmett, ID since November of last year, we have 23 registered kids, 15 of which attend regularly.
So to my question, is there anything you can do in your town to get a few kids throwing and develop a local scene? Is there anything I can do to help? I have trick lists, legal waivers, sign-in forms, etc. that I developed for my club. I think if we start using our forums as tools to build our community rather than sustain what we have left we’ll have a large, thriving community, and not just online.
What are your thoughts?
I don’t think my town is big enough, but occasionally I see some guy playing with a skeeter or butterfly and I give them some pointers, and let them use some of my yo-yos.
How did you spread the word?
King825, my town is pretty small when it comes to comparing to most others, between 6-10k people (not sure until the census is over). Most of the kids that come to the club were brought by their parents trying to find their kids a hobby.
Apetrunk, when I finally got a venue hammered out I did demos at after school programs and at public events (harvest festival, farmers market, cherry festival [our towns yearly main event], after school programs, etc.) after each demo I mentioned we were starting our own local club for anyone who wanted to learn how to yo-yo and how they could get a hold of me to learn more. Closer to starting I had flyers with the same info to hand out at events.
First club meeting had about 10-12 kids because of this. From there the kids went back to school with their yo-yos and numbers started to grow significantly afterwards.
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During my lunch class, i wish less people would yo-yo, I know most every one else want more people to yo-yo. But I’m just tired, I have no space in the small corner that the teachers do let us yo-yo. Here comes the mob of terrible people with butterfly’s that no matter how much time i spend teaching them, they can’t learn anything, I tried to be patient, but it’s just ruined for me. I don’t want everyone to stop, just learn at home with this fancy learn section and once they have skills, come back. I don’t even have space to throw a break away!
Good luck with increasing your yo-yo’er population.
I just needed to get that out of my system.
I am a teacher at a middle school so once I brought in some yoyos and started throwing before and after classes, things picked up real quick. The best way to get people interested is by exposing them to the yoyo, once enough people are interested it is just natural to start a club. I started one here at the school and a few of the kids thought it would be a great idea to get a spot at the local library twice a month so I will be talking with the library folks next week.
The town I live in is roughly 10K people with around 30K within a ten mile radius. There are about 10 or so yoyoers that meet regularly after school, and about 30 or so others with mosquitos in their pockets at all times.
that’s great dan! I’m putting together a resource website http://worldyoyoclub.com, if you could email me some info about the club (when, where, what time, etc.) at mike(at)themikemonty.com I’d love to put you guys on there 
The website will have trick lists, sign in sheets, registration forms, etc.
great, thanks for the info Mike. Once all the details get ironed out and made official I’ll post it.
