[MR] census conclusions

[John Gahrmann]

My thoughts and opinions, for what they are worth.
 
First I would like to comment on the Survey itself. Like all surveys it has some integral flaws, no survey is perfect and this one has some flaws that bias the results:
 
#1 - It was a voluntary survey, Only people that wanted to voice an opinion took it. This means that the typical respondent had a personal reason to make their opinion known. Let us examine what some of those reasons could be:
a.       They are a long time member (5+ years) and care about the SCA as a hobby.
This will obviously bias the length of participation toward longer term members. As a corollary, many newer members may not have participated because they did not have an opinion or were not even aware of the survey.
b.      They had a bad experience in the SCA and want to vent.
This will result in a higher than average number of “negative responses”. Note that typically people who have a positive response do not exert as much effort on sharing that experience as individuals that have a negative response.
 
#2 – If I understand correctly, The survey was only targeted and distributed to individuals who are receiving SCA correspondence or were referred by someone who does. This is a member survey and that is appropriate. However I am sure it missed a large number of inactive or formerly active members. We are not capturing their reasons for leaving however I am not sure this would be radically different from those of the respondents. 
 
NOW, Lets break down the top three reasons that we are not seeing as many people participate, since these are the ones people are focusing on and analyze, What has changed?
 
Lack of Time
A question that was NOT asked would have helped to analyze this result. That is “What age were you when you first joined the SCA?” If we assume that a Majority of SCA participants were in their Late teens early 20s and they have been participating for 5-20 years it means they are either early or Mid career and in the process of career growth. 
Interestingly, Only 39% of respondents had children, while ¾ of the respondents were in committed relationships I will assume that we lose some families to time pressure. I say this because I have children and they have influenced my activity level in the past as they have school and outside activities that occupied time and funds that otherwise could have been spent on SCA activities.
 
Lack of Money
I have heard comments that say the Cost of SCA has increased. 
Let’s look at the cost factor objectively:
Example, My first set of armor probably cost less than $100 That is the equivalent of $236.73 today. I can still put together a decent set of armor for that if I am willing to go with minimums and make things like when I started. 
Event fees: 2 people ride to an event Site fee is $15 per person and it takes 1 tank of gas ($50) with incidental expenses Let’s call it $100. In 1981 this would have been the equivalent of $38.91. Sounds a lot like what I spent then…
 
My conclusion: Overall the cost of SCA participation has stayed fairly level over the past 30 years.
I therefore assume the Lack of money has more to do with current economic conditions considering this survey was taken only last year and many were feeling the pinch of Job loss and the end of their Unemployment benefits at that time and still are.
 
 
Bad experiences;
Ah, the Crux of the argument! Note my earlier commentary on individuals with bad experiences wanting to voice an opinion. Yet, Only 33% mentioned a bad experience being the reason, a minority percentage. So even though those with a bad experience will tend to be over represented in a voluntary survey, they still show as a minority. Not an Insignificant minority, but a minority. This means that 67% had a GOOD or Neutral experience.  So overall we are NOT giving the newcomers a negative experience. Is 67% a good retention rate? Many business would be Very Happy with this But, we CAN improve.
 
 
LAST I would like to comment on the age distribution and how it correlates to the US population as a whole. The majority of the SCA population as in the US population are of the “Baby Boom” generation.  Yes we are attracting less young participants, But there is also smaller pool to draw from. 
The SCA has in essence reached a market maturity and saturation that will be hard to overcome. In addition there have been a number of groups that have spun off or grown in parallel. Add to that the growth of other leisure activities and I think we are seeing a mature market characterized by a stabilization in the number of participants. If this were a business I would say that we have two primary options, Change the product or raise brand awareness. Since the product (pre-1600 recreation) is essentially fixed, Brand awareness / re branding is the only viable option and that means “How do we do a better job of reaching the individuals who would be interested and making them aware of the organization?”

 
So we need to make sure that we reach interested individuals and do a better job retaining them for the first 4 years. Instead of focusing on the PAST (funny that..given this organization) let's focus on what can be done better in the future.
 
In Service,
 
Johann Von Rothenburg
 

John Gahrmann Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.- George Carlin