Hey,
My friends and I are considering starting a unicycle (possibly unicycling/juggling[but mainly unicycling]) club. How did other people go about beginning one?
I already have about four friends who unicycle. Each of them have two uni’s. Including myself, that would give us over ten unicycles. If we started a club, then people who don’t know how to unicycle wouldn’t have to go rush out and buy one (even though we would advise them to, even if it’s just a $70 20" Torker).
So my questions are: what do you do at unicycling clubs, how did you start one, how did you advertise for it, etc. Basically just give me tips.
Sorry I can’t help you. But I haven’t started one either. I was just wondering where you live/ are starting this club? Thanks.
Re: Starting a uni club
Find a suitable Club House Temporary such as a Boys Scout Hall or a Local High School that they might have indoor sporting grounds such as Basketball Courts is the best idea’s to meet. Meet once a Month or so (Others may have some other ideas than me). Advertise in local papers under “Public Notices or Announcements” and make some flyers on your computer with colored paper that will stand out the attention to the young people and other people that might take their fancy in their needs to take up the challenge of unicycling. Juggling should be on the cards too besides unicycling as many kids would like to take it up in the future. All Kids and Youngsters should make new friends and the same way as Adults too at all Unicycle clubs meeting and that way there shouldn’t be no dramas at all.
Good luck James if you do decided to run a Unicycle club or not.
David
uni club
you do not even have to have a hut.we meet at a butchers shop where most of the people work.we got our club on the local circus and magic shop’s web site and posted a few things on unicyclist we got a few replies one of the 2 made it the other was to far. sarah miller comes sometimes that was just luck though i emailed her about the fact i had not got a uk union of unicyclists news letter and asked if she could put our club on the site as they have a few on it.she replied say she lives near and would like to come so now there is 8 of us in the club.
We’ve got a great little club here in Brisbane that’s really informal. Basically those of us who can make it turn up at a set time on a public basketball court. I’m there every week and others turn up when they feel like it. In the good old days we’d teach people skills and play some games and so on. Lately not many people have been turning up so we’ll have to sort that out but it’s really fun.
As for advertising, I’d stay firstly make a flyer and ask to put it up in a local bike shop. The main thing you can do though is just get out there and ride together. Pretty soon you’ll have people either learning to ride or saying, “Hey my cousin rides one of those things.” at which point you could invite him or her to join you.
Good luck…group unicycling is the best type of unicycling!
Andrew
Re: Starting a uni club
we came up with a catchy name and proceeded to tell everybody with a unicycle that they were now members
GUS is a remarkably laid back outfit that started from within the ‘BALLS UP!’ juggling club
alltho most members used to be jugglers who learnt how to ride, we are now beginning to see more riders learning to juggle
we’re hoping to get things slightly more organised in the next couple of months
a new member is quite invovled in web design and we hope to have a website up by the end of november
we’re thinking about t-shirts but we need a logo first
(i think the letters G U S - esp the G - kinda lends itself to being extended into a unicycle of sorts, if u’re feeling creative…)
i’m also hoping to get membership cards and then arrange a discount on unicycles for members from the couple of retailers who actually stock uni’s in south africa
or just make the deal with one and in exchange we’ll recommend that shop to prospective unicyclists
at some stage we’ll formalise our involvement in the gauteng and national juggling association (ganja)'s annual convention by arranging a south african national unicyclist convention (sanuk - we hope to get some confused canadians to come out) to run concurrently
this does happen in everything but name
our weekly meetings are remarkably laid back and we pretty much get together and do stuff
if someone’s in the mood to ‘play’ hockey (the inverted commas is there because we dont have enough people for two teams so we just kinda mess around) or basketball, we’ll send out a group SMS.
i use that way of spreading info quite a bit
the one suggestion i have is to try n find as many free classified ads (normally online) to list the organisation on
i’ve mentioned this in another thread
when u get your club together, spend some time putting together a press release and hit as many media centres as u can
radio stations, tv stations, newspapers, local magazines
producers are forever looking for content and unicycling is quirky enough to make even the most jaded old pro give u five minutes
this is where the catchy name (and an email addy catchyname@unicyclist.com) comes in handy
esp in radio, if people hear it and want to contact u, the name will stick till they get to the office
if u decide to go this route, start a thread about compiling a press release and tap into some of the expertise floating around this group
god! i can ramble!!
Re: Starting a uni club
I have recently started going to a juggling club - you would be
surprised just how many people also ride Unis - of about the 10
regulars at least 6 ride Unis, however they seem more interested in
juggling and only one other guy brings his Uni every week.
Maybe you should check out your local juggling club (which would at
least have a regular slot and a venue) then at the very worst you
could find some potential new members for a Uni club.
Good luck anyway
Tony - Nottingham, England
Re: Starting a uni club
andrew_carter.vdtex@timelimit.unicyclist.com writes:
>
>Good luck…group unicycling is the best type of unicycling!
Actually, I think the internet is the best type of advertising. We got
many of our members because they did a websearch and saw our site
(newyorkunicycle.com) and then e-mailed us. Word of mouth helps, and
giving out cards to members so that they can pass them along is ok, but
most of our members didn’t find out about us that way.
David
Thanks for all the tips - this really helped me!
I am going to start one, and have a little bit of juggling included. But I think it will mostly concentrate on unicycling (probably trials and MUni). If I hold it at the school, I bet I could get the school to let us use a bus (and a driver) to go up to a MUni trail or something. They’re always doing ski trips and the like.
get the school to award merit badges (or honour rolls or whatever they do to recognize sporting achievements) for unicycling
Re: uni club
Meeting at a Buthchers shop to ride is awesome… that way, the “beginners” blood blends in well with the natural surroundings! --chirokid–
PS: Sorry, 
I couldn’t help myself. I do wish your club a total success.
well, i helped start a juggling/ unicycling/ street performing club at the university i used to attend and the way we did it was just to ride/ juggle/ busk out in public and when people came by and asked what we were doing or why we were doing it, we’d explain the club and then, if they were interested, we’d take their email down and promptly send them a list of our meeting dates and places and times…
having an actual set building or place is overrated, because if you just decide where to meet beforehand you’ll all know where to meet and have backups if it’s rainy (or if you don’t mind riding in the rain, rain gear)
our efforts culminated in an april first street show called “playing the fool” which had lots of juggling, unicycling and fire.
the most important piece of advice i can give you is BE CONSISTENT. say you’re going to meet somewhere and actually be there, on time. more than one of our meetings were ruined because 2 or more of our members would meet en route and decide to go play somewhere else and the others would just be sitting around the meeting place wondering where everyone else was.
anyways, that was a long rant…
best of luck with your club
Hey,
Check this post out:
http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23267&highlight=tmornstar
Tommy