Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club - 12 Months On

It has been exactly one year since the Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club (NRBC) went live with Member Jungle. In that time, they have seen a lot of changes and improvements to their already great club. 

So, let's talk about the Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club's experiences with Member Jungle over the last 12 months.

Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club's Member Growth 

When Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club first joined Member Jungle, they had 323 members; exactly one year later, they had 440 members. That is a fantastic growth in club members of 36% in just one year. This is because the club admins haven't been bogged down in all the mundane, time-consuming paperwork that comes with running a club and have been able to reinvest their time into promoting and improving their club. 

The NRBC crunched the numbers on this, and with their growth, the Member Jungle system is now only costing them $5 per member per year. If the NRBC raised the price of their membership by $5 a year to cover this, they would be pretty unlikely to get any complaints or pushback from members. 

On average, clubs using Member Jungle grow 7% in the first year and 69% over their time with us. However, this varies greatly, with some clubs growing over 50% in their first year and 25% growing by 299% while using Member Jungle. For more about clubs' growth with Member Jungle, read How Much Your Club Can Grow With Member Jungle.

Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club Is Hosting More Events

In the year since Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club joined Member Jungle, they have had more time to organise events, and the process of organising those events has become streamlined and easier. As a result, they have increased the number of events they are running. 

Over the last 12 months, the NRBC has hosted more than 500 events; collectively, there have been more than 4,000 attendances at these events. On an average week, the NRBC hosts six cycling events, two bushwalks, two Qigong events, and one abseiling event. They have also run 21 kayaking events over the past year. 

When I wrote the first case study on the NRBC, I lamented that the NRBC was over five hours drive away from me because the multiday kayaking events they run look awesome. Well, they ran 21 kayaking events in 2023, and now I am determined to make up for at least one of them in 2024. No news yet if Member Jungle will let me write it off as a business expense.  

The NRBC activity coordinators have also found that their job of organising, planning and keeping members up to date with events is easier and quicker via Member Jungle. 

"Our activity leaders regularly use the clone function to create repeat events, and they publish their weekly activity updates through News on Member Jungle," explained Peter. 

The NRBC has started using membership levels to communicate more easily with members of particular activity groups. This allows the activity leaders and organisers to send emails to just those members interested in that specific activity rather than the whole membership. This means that members only get emails about the activities they are interested in and don't have to worry about getting notified about events they aren't interested in.  

"We now have separate membership levels for Walk, Cycle, Kayak, Abseil and Qigong. I imported our members into each level based on the interests expressed in the club membership form. This was a simple process and now allows us to see how many members have an interest in each of our activity groups," explained Peter. 

Unexpected Benefits Of Member Jungle For The Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club

When signing up for a service like Member Jungle, there are a lot of things you expect to benefit from: easier communication, quicker renewals, a lot of time savings, etc. However, there are always a few little surprise benefits that clubs don’t see coming yet still benefit from. 

The NRBC has found that the biggest surprise for them has been “the increased visibility that we seem to have now that our website is hosted by Member Jungle. This has resulted in many people viewing our events and contacting us through the web contact form or simply joining an event as a visitor and seeing if the club is a good fit for them,” Peter Whitely explained. 

Another big bonus has been the ability to easily put all event resources into the hands of their members via online events on the website and app. Through this, they are able to include waivers, information resources, Google Maps links, the link to their RideWithGPS and like to the itinerary. 

Peter had this to say about these surprise benefits, “Having immediate access to all this information, combined with our members being able to see who else has registered for an event, has been a great outcome that was not part of our initial evaluation criteria.”

The Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club & Chatrooms

The Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club reports that the new event-based group chats have been very popular among their members and valuable, especially during their longer multiday trips. They have allowed members to organise carpooling to events, communicate easily over multiday trips and organise accommodation. 

“The icing on the cake has been the recent feature upgrade to Chat Rooms with the automatic creation of a chat room for each event. We now use this extensively in the lead-up to an event,” Peter said. 

If you want to know more about event-based chatrooms or opt-in chatrooms, read the following articles. 

Why Your Club Should Be Using Group Chats and Opt-In Chat Rooms: What They Are & Why Your Club Needs Them. 

Where To From Here? 

That pretty much concludes this one-year check-in with the Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club. Overall, it's been a really positive experience for them. It's been such a good experience for them that their Membership Officer and Treasurer, Peter Whitely, has been actively encouraging and helping other bushwalking clubs to sign up with Member Jungle. 

If you managed to land on this page without reading the original case study on the Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club's experience with Member Jungle, you can find that here. Customer Story - The Northern Rivers Bushwalkers Club.

If you also run a bushwalking or outdoor activity club and are wondering if Member Jungle might be the right fit for you, have a look at How Member Jungle Can Help Your Bushwalking And Outdoor Activity Club.