[TheForge] How can we attract new members to our ABANA Affiliate?

[Bruce]

Our Affiliate has been losing members for some time now.  We're down to
about 1/4 of our maximum membership.

   - I blame some of this to the effective discontinuation of our
   newsletter, but that, in turn, was largely due to our inability to get
   volunteers to help out with it.  (We do have a volunteer editor, but he is
   busy with a new house and shop and hasn't had time to put together a
   newsletter for some months.)
   - It was partly due to our switching from a printed newsletter (which
   was inordinately time-consuming and very expensive to print and mail) to an
   emailed PDF newsletter -- which seems not to get the same response.
   - The pandemic was also a kick in the teeth as we had to temporarily
   suspend all meets, a situation that lasted about two years.
   - Our board has discussed this matter repeatedly, but we've found no
   solution.  One or more of our board created (and presumably maintains) a
   Facebook page, which they tell me has some popularity.  (I don't do
   Facebook, so don't know firsthand.)  One suggestion was that we accept
   membership dues online, but we were never able to find a means to do so
   that would work for us.  Our dues are still only $20 per annum, so I doubt
   that that's an issue.
   - Our previous claim to fame was weekly open forge meets (which
   continue), a few toolmaking workshops per year, occasional demonstrations,
   and anvil-repair workshops every few years.  The last demonstration we held
   -- knifemaking -- drew an audience of five souls, myself included (i.e., a
   washout).
   - We still answer calls for demonstrations or open-forge meets, but
   these are down to only two per year.
   - I rather suspect that the problem may be related to the number of
   people of an age to get interested in such a craft -- there were a lot more
   when we organized than there seem to be now.

I frequently answer questions online "how do I get started blacksmithing"
(but not from locals), so I know there's some interest out there,
somewhere.  How do we get such folks to show up?

Bruce Freeman
NJBA