A few suggestions:
- Advertise/Market it well (Flyers, announcements)
- Get a strong player (from the city's best clubs) to come over and conduct a Simul. once-in-a-while chess players think a single player playing 20-30+ people at a time is almost like a "magic trick" and will definitely attend it just for the experience.
- Get a strong player to guest-lecture/teach a lesson every week or so.
- Conduct unrated blitz (or slightly longer time control) tournaments.
My experience at two schools as a parent voluneer that if you advertise the club, you will get more students than you can handle (at least at the elementary level - you didn't say what grade-leve you're talking about). Here is a link to a very successful elementary chess club. It shows the topics they cover in classes, how they test kids, policies etc.
http://georgejohn.bcentralhost.com/throgers/main_program.htm
I have been teaching kids from 5-10 chess in three years now, and i highly recommend to get this: http://www.stappenmethode.nl/stepsmethod/index.html
Its a step by step method to teach kids chess, starting with the rules, and soon going to mates, defense, attack and more. In step two, all the tactic patterns will be there, like pin, double-attack and so.
Its awesome, and everybody teaching kids should use it!
Ressurecting a chess club at the school I am teaching at. Any suggestions?