I wanted to pass along some good luck I had recently. I organize a unicycle roundup here in the Los Angeles Area on an annual basis. Over the past three years, I have built up an email list over 30 riders of various abilities and uni riding.
Our next one is scheduled for the end of October. In an effort to gain new ridership, I checked out the rider names on the unicycling.org website. http://unicycling.org/roster.
I spent over an hour harvesting riders off the list with locations listed in and around Los Angeles and sending out an email to each one.
I just got my 7th response of interest out of about 15 emails that I sent out. That puts the total over 40.
If you’re starting a UNi club or already have one and you want to search for new ridership, the unicycling.org roster list is a great start.
For your events or get-togethers, you can submit event descriptions to the newspapers in your area. Make sure you check to see how far in advance they need your announcement. It can be done online, with a minimum amount of fuss. I have done this with past uni roundups, and it has garnered a few more riders each time.
One of our newest recruits, Claire, known as narniacat here on the board, suggested giving fliers for events or gatherings to local bike shops to give out to people buying unicycles from the bike shop or even just pasting it in the window.
When she bought her unicycle at the LBS, she said the shop owner said he sells 2 to 3 unicycles a week. That seemed a lot. Those people are out there somewhere.
Another idea is to post in the “Activity Partners” section of your local craigslist. I recently did that, and got several responses that ended up with the creation of a local mailing-list of unicyclists (set up by one of the people who replied to my post). Lots of people read craigslist!
Hey, your not on my email list, even though your down in San Diego. Gotta add you.
The location is tentative. It will most likely be at Balboa Lake again, but right now there is no access to the man-made rock to play on for trials, as they are installing new play equipment. We used the play equipment for a trials comp last year. The way the city of L A works, that play equipment might not be back until next spring or later. My grumble is we can’t even get to the rocks, even
The trials comp is still not confirmed. We may not do that, just do a free for all kind of thing where others just have fun and jump all over stuff.
I am currently looking for a location on this side of the San Fernando Valley that offers rocks for trials, a small route to take for our group ride, and just a nice park.