Member apathy

Does any other admin have this problem, is it an isolated incident, or is it pandemic, i am referring to members who cant or won't respond to messages or forum information, for example i am trying to get intermediate players to sign up for a match, and will they, will they heck, i feel i am hitting my head against a brick wall, any tips or tricks from any of you guys would be extremely welcome 

This is a big problem plaguing all the clubs I personally like to give the people 3 days to answer the message or any answer if not a warning and then a kick out. Fortunately every player I have contactted has answered me back so I haven't kicked anyone out yet

Well i have correctly identified ( certainly for my club) that to do well in any match you need a lot of strength in depth, so my plan is to get as many intermediate players as possible to sign up, but interest is haphazard at best

Welcome to the life of an admin, Drew.. IMHO, it's just human nature. Admin's invest more time and so have a greater interest in the club. I suspect,too, that many turn off their notifications and others on mobile apps, don't see the messages.

I've, over the last week, sent messages to those members who haven't joined a match for over three months asking them basically, will you play, when convenient, in the future. I was lucky to get a 10% response rate.

Some members simply collect clubs, others simply accept the invitation and have no real connection to it and may join a match or two here and there but no thave the courtesy of responding with a, "Sorry but...".

And also,"Boot, boot boot".

Some members of large clubs are inactive and are not online for days at a time so they are not going to answer you

It always depends on what you expect and what you have in your club description or invitation. If you want to have a very active club, you should explicitly point this out and invite only very active players. If you want to have a big club with many members, you probably also have a lot of players who are members of many clubs and have a lot of games. Both are possible. Look at the invitation to see if these players play many daily matches or play more Blitz and live games. Sometimes it is frustrating, but you should never stop trying to motivate and contact your players (with more members of course much more work). It is also worthwhile to sort out inactive members, which saves work in the end.

And I agree Theo. 

Admitted we have 839 members, but Team England have over a Thousand but they still manage to drum up 400+ boards, i would happily shed 200+ members if i could get 150+ boards in a match

It's normal to have a low response rate.  Just keep sending those invites, a small percentage of those you invite will join, and a smaller percentage will be active.  Growing a club takes time and work.

My experience has been that when a person joins the club that is probably the last you will hear from them. The people who actively participate in the club usually constitute 5%-10% of the total club membership.

We make sure that we have events that appeal to members. We provide education forums and have a lively notes section which would drive most nuts but provide a few laughs and is good for team-building. Many people join any number of clubs and care little about them We don'tinvite anyone who is in many clubs.

This is unfortunately also a problem that over-the-board clubs have as well

And I daresay not limited to chess clubs. Any club that I've ever been involved in has a core group and any number of others on the fringes.

Not in India lol. When a tournament is announced suddenly more players join the club.

Jupp, it's a common issue and somewhat unavoidable. It helps to invite players who are already playing a lot of daily matches, if you want high participation in your games. 

Regarding the terminology "daily matches" and so on ...
I have yet to see it explicitly stated anywhere -
that a match of blitz games is being held on a particular day.
Or that all games in the inter-club team match or tournament were played on a particular day.
Which makes sense to me.
But the terminology used seems to be ambiguous.  Its not clear what is meant.
Even if one is supposed to know - why not make it extremely clear?

For example - if one looks up "daily chess at chess.com" on the internet -
that refers to "correspondence chess".
One gets days to make one move.  So one game could take one year or more.
The word "daily" sends a mixed signal that would not help ...

Thats also happens to me! but im afraid ill send the link to every member by private message.

@4Dchessonline

We have over 600 members and I am looking for new admins but nobody wants to know.  Also when I make a challenge I try to keep the rating differential small (eg 1200-1300) to encourage members to sign up but even then it has to be between 1-15 players per team.  Looking at all the comments, we are not alone.