One of Co-Women’s new features for members this year is a points system. And yes, points mean prizes! Co-founder, Becky, explains how those who belong to Sussex’s social business group can maximise the benefits of membership whilst also being in a race for glory…
Everyone loves a perk, don’t they? At Co-Women, we believe in cheering each other on, and rewarding those who are supporting us in our mission. As our other chief aim is to bring people together, we thought it’d be worth incentivising people to find some momentum, so we’ve introduced a points system that will boost connections further.
To get people started, we reward you straight away – paying your membership fees gets you instant points, whether you choose to do this annually or via one of our other payment plans. There are also points awarded for purchasing event tickets (for obvious reasons, any of events that don’t involve a registration fee don’t count here) – points within this category are awarded on the basis of one per £1 spent.
It isn’t just about spending though, it’s also about contributing to our community as a networking group. Submitting a Google Review or sharing a review of Co-Women via your social media page will earn you five points, as will submitting a piece to our weekly email newsletter. We wholeheartedly welcome guest blog submissions from our members, and as these involve a greater workload for you, there’s a bigger gain of 20 points.
But we want to encourage you offline too! We encourage our members to meet and network independently as well as via our own events. This is in recognition of the fact that not everyone is able to attend events regularly, or they may have a business or personal desire to meet up with a specific member, and the best way to accomplish that can just be to get diaries out and find time to go for a walk, coffee, lunch, or a quick video call for those who are working at a greater distance. Members who meet up just because will get 10 points each per meeting with a maximum of two meetings within a calendar month.
And, obviously, we love welcoming new women into our circle, so anyone who refers a new member gets the tasty bonus of 50 points.
When are the rewards coming? Well, call us obvious, but in our culture there’s a time of year when gifts are typically exchanged with friends… yep, we’ll be running an awards ceremony as part of our annual Christmas party in December. Yes, it’s already booked: we wanted to be the first date in your busy diaries, and we also like to welcome as many members as possible, so we’re helping to achieve this by allowing you to budget with an extended time to prepare for the cost.
As well as crowning our points-leading networking queen that night, there will be a vote open to members during the build up so that we can nominate and praise our other valued members (Miss Congeniality, anyone?) for their efforts throughout 2023. Once the party’s over and the hangovers are shaken away, we’ll re-set everyone’s points total and get ready to do the whole thing all over again in 2024.
So, who’s with us? Are you ready to join the race for glory by getting social? Got a coffee shop you’ve always wanted to try and looking for someone to take with you? Proud owner of a pooch who loves to meet new friends and ready to go walking with a fellow friendly businesswoman? Come and be part of Sussex’s unique business networking group for women, where we put joy first, always.