Member Blog : Esther Oddy – Reviewing, renewing, updating and improving!

Esther Oddy, Head of Member Engagement at the ILM, gives an insight into all the exciting projects she and the team have been working on recently, all in the name of continually improving the offering we provide for our members.

The first part of 2024 has been quite a period of change for the ILM team. We are a small team comprising of only four core members of staff, with a generally high level of activity and output so, finding out in November that 50% of us were either moving on or would be going on maternity leave, did put Matthew and I in quite a fluster!

However, once it had all sunk in, we were of course really happy for Rebecca and Blessing with their new opportunities and delightful news. We quickly leapt into action, managing to successfully recruit two brilliant new team members. Joining us this year we have had Katie Hayward in Communications, who is covering Blessing’s time off (and looking after the metaphorical baby for her here at the ILM very successfully, might I add), and Olivia Baxter, who has taken on the membership support mantle with a very impressive running start.

Since coming into post earlier this year, Olivia and I have been working extra hard to tidy up processes and data for members, which has had a really positive impact on our day-to-day record keeping and many of our services. We have been busily reviewing active and expired memberships, which has led us to get our database in the best shape it has ever been in (this might sound super-boring, but to us data / process nerds it is honestly very exciting!!!). Next up, we are working on a more seamless mailing list process for the newsletter, which will be enabled by all this work already done behind the scenes.

We have also begun checking on bulk members for next year, so if your charity pays for all your individual memberships annually on one invoice, you will be hearing from Olivia soon with regard to 2025 membership renewal information. In case you don’t know already, if your charity employs three or more ILM members, you can opt to pay for these members all in one invoice from 1st January – 31st December each year – just give us a shout to find out more about how this works.

We have made lots of changes to the Viewing Room in the members’ website, and have a new video editor on board, helping to streamline and improve the watching experience. This extends to the live webinars too, on which we have enabled subtitles for live viewers, and changed the joining settings so that you are getting a more professional experience. We are

also looking at whether or not there are any AI companion features we can use to make the webinars and training sessions even better.

As well as continually trying to build on our commitment to shaping a responsive and member focused offer, we have also been nurturing new partnerships and collaborations, including an ILM membership offer for our friends over at Farewill.

We have also welcomed new Corporate Partners Gartlan Furey, Carter Jonas and Clearanceco to the ILM community and we are confident that each of these, along with our more established partners, will continue to bring you their expertise and specialist support whenever you need it.

I am feeling really excited about the changes we’ve incorporated into the ILM family, and believe we are going from strength-to-strength. We are already planning the next Annual Conference for May 2025 (it never stops) and are really dedicated to being more member-led than ever. If you would like to contribute to the brand-new conference committee, please let myself or Matthew know.

Olivia has also now joined the ILM’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, alongside Becky Billen and a group of members, so contact her directly at [email protected].uk if you want to talk about any of these issues, or if you are interested in joining the group.

On a final note, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected] with any comments, suggestions or questions you might have about your membership. I always enjoy hearing from the membership community and am truly interested in shaping your offer so that it is the best possible fit for you and your charity.