“Last year was one of the best years for attracting new members in recent history”, afpop CEO Michael Reeve revealed in an interview with The Portugal News.
According to Mr Reeve, in 2015, 762 new members joined the information-providing association, “the best for eight years”.
He explained that of these, 380 were past members rejoining, which translated into a net increase of 339 members – the best net result since 2002.
“This is partly due to an increase in new arrivals in Portugal, but also because in my opinion existing members are being more pro-active in promoting afpop to their friends and past members are seeing that afpop is still relevant to them. The fact that member retention in 2015 was 92.5 percent, the best since comparable records have been kept, is also an indication that member satisfaction is high”, the afpop CEO reasons.
With regards to the association’s accounts and membership, it decided to keep fees unchanged for the third consecutive year, “but we budgeted for a slight deficit after deciding that costs were likely to rise and we had budgeted for a small increase in members of 100.
“We were in fact able to control spending once again and our increased membership, along with improved income from other sources, meant that we ended 2015 with a net surplus of over 12,000 euros”, adds Mr Reeve.
The association has decided to keep fees unchanged once again for those joining in 2016.
Michael Reeve, who earlier this month marked his 13th year at afpop, recalls how the association has changed over the past decade.
“The association was more socially based, and it was an association which was rather a members’ club and not a business association”, a feature which initially helped afpop record substantial growth.
“I have nothing but admiration for the people who started the association. They did not receive any remuneration, but did a fantastic job. However it became harder for volunteers to dedicate themselves full-time to the association”, adds Mr Reeve.
But he stressed that the objectives of the association have not changed and
that it still aspires to help members.
The association also went through a period towards the end of the previous decade when the association lost several hundred members.
“In 2006, I compiled a report, afpop 2020, which was about taking a look at the future and in it we foresaw a drop in numbers. We concluded that due to the demographics of members at the time, that we were going to lose members due to ill-health, death and moving back home and three years later our numbers
had dropped from 6,500
to 5,000”, the afpop chief remembers.
But these numbers have since recovered and totalled almost 6,000 by the end of February.
As for members’ nationalities, around two-thirds are British and Irish, followed by Germans.
“If you take the Scandinavians as a unit, they now outnumber the Dutch and recently we have seen a growing number of French join”, says Mr Reeve.

For more information about afpop and the Benefits of Membership, or to join on-line, readers can visit www.afpop.com or e-mail info@afpop.com – if readers quote The Portugal News article as a reference afpop will give a 10 euro reduction in joining fees, but to claim this they will not be able to join on-line as that option is not available through PayPal payments.