Membership Survey – Response from CUPEU

Dear CUPEU Members,

First and foremost, thank you to all the members that took the time to fill out the membership survey. In all, we received 226 survey responses over the past 2 months. Through your thoughtful inputs we were able to identify some pain points and opportunities that we would like to address.

1. Membership Engagement and Social Events

We have received many suggestions regarding the possibility of sending all CUPEU members a gift card for the holidays. This was done during COVID as there was no opportunity to organize events and social distancing was required. I believe a gift card does not fulfill the mandate of membership engagement. The purpose of engagement and social events is to bring the members together during noteworthy events so that they may interact amongst each other, get to know fellow members from different departments and build meaningful connections.

We plan on maintaining our Summer BBQ and Holiday Dinner Party. However, in an effort to make events inclusive to all members, we are also planning to diversify the type of events CUPEU offers to its members. We will also add some smaller events in the Summer and in the Fall to complement the larger events. These will happen on campus during lunch hours so that they are more accessible to members that have responsibilities, activities and life to take care of in the evenings.

 

2. CUPEU events and capacity requirements

A pain point that has been communicated by a few members relates to the capacity limits we have at our events and the fact we use a waitlist system. Members would like CUPEU to either reserve a venue for all members and/or admit all RSVPs with no waitlist. The best way I can explain our situation is through numbers.

We are currently 618 CUPEU and as I disclosed above, 226 CUPEU members answered this survey. Although our hope would be to have everyone participate, it is just not the current situation. Paying the rental cost for a venue of that magnitude would not be feasible financially and the participation numbers would not warrant it. The decision on the number of attendees we plan for is based on a combination of budget and the data from the previous events. We look at the number of RSVPs, cancellations, regrets and no shows.

In regard to waitlists, I would like to be transparent as to why we use this for the CUPEU events. Below you will find the stats from our last two holiday events. In the last 2 years, there has been a cancellation rate of over 40% from people that have RSVP’d. The great majority of the regrets come the day before/the day of, with some even coming a few hours prior to the event. Without the waitlist, it would not be possible to fill these empty seats. Therefore, based on the information below, it is a necessary tool for our CUPEU Holiday Dinner Party.

  1. Implementing a “No Show Policy” for CUPEU events.

CUPEU would like to raise awareness to the financial impact when a member is a “No Show” to an event. When organizing a large scale event, we must confirm the number of attendees, the food and beverage quantities, and other items weeks prior to the event. As there is a significant cost to this, CUPEU would like to ensure that every seat is filled. When a member does not attend and does so without notice, CUPEU still pays for that meal.

Therefore, in the future, when a member submits an RSVP to an event but is a No Show without sending regrets, the member will automatically be placed at the end of the waitlist for the following event they register for. The member will be advised that they are receiving this penalty. The penalty will only be applied to the following event the member registers for. Repeat offenders will continue to receive the penalty.

 

I hope I was able to answer a few of your concerns now and we look forward to seeing you at one of the CUPEU events in the future.

Thank you,

Patrick