we have a cake club and meet once a month, but members attendance is waining, anyone have any neat ideas to keep people coming or how to attract new members.

we do a cake tasting, we review and price out the recipe used, a demo/workshop or discussion, a book review and i ask everyone to bring 2 cake pictures to share. I try to involve everyone, we do basic (beyond wilton) and advanced techniques to interest all levels. meeting are held 7-9pm on a weeknight. several members are cake instructors so thats where we gain most of our new members. we have a yahoo message board and a club website, so looking at what we do i think we have covered all our bases. what keeps you going to your cake club meetings?????

One thing that helps to keep me going is our meetings are on Sunday afternoon. I know here in Canada, to go out on a wek night with the cold and dark, it just would not happen. Our meetings are on Sunday afternoon (after church) from 2 - 4 PM. This way everyone is home for dinner.

Sue

Wow, that sounds like alot of fun, If I lived there, I would sure come. My husband belongs to a brew club, they are all home brewers and they meet once a month, and he looks forward to it. They meet at different locations each time, so they can look at each members set up. Alot of the members love cooking too, one makes his own cheese, so they have all kinds of samples, and all the beer sampling is a plus too. I don't really know what else to say, your club sounds fun to me.

Have you thought about making a little survey for every one to take. On it you can ask about which time/day of the week they would like best, what techniques they would like to see, and what parts of the current 'program' they really enjoy.

Some people fall in and out of the hobby. While others may have trouble getting there after work, or hubby isn't home in time for them to go.

If it is very formal and on a set time schedule, maybe make it less formal. Or if it isn't very formal, maybe set a meeting or two up that way and seeing how it goes.

There was a member on here that told me about their cake club in her area. Each month someone would show how to make something, like a fondant figure or a flower. Everyone would go home and make one and bring it back the next month, and they would vote on it. They had an award they would get to hold on to for the month.

This not only encourages people to try what they see, but also gives them a reason to come back the following month. You can always do a certificate or a small cake toy/tool instead of an award they held on to for a month and brought back.

What about other contests? They don't have to be anything way out there. You can do a color flow technique contest where they do a color flow piece of their choice. Or have them decorate a cake circle in a certain theme? What about a bring an every day item that can be turned into a cake tool?

Don't forget, cookies and candies as well. A lot of cake decorators enjoy those things as well.

I would love to start a cake group here, but I have no idea where I would do it. Which is what has kept me from really trying. I 'm a WMI so I see a lot of people with the passion to learn more and not knowing were to go after the classes, since all we have here is Wilton.