Thanks, Alex,for pointing out those membership tables on the NSS web site (and for putting them there). One an learn a lot from them.
Note that many of the membership classes in the table don't really exist any longer, because the classes were rationalized to a considerable extent lately. For example, there are no longer associate or sustaining members. Maybe the office will get caught up on fixing the database before too many years have elapsed. One thing that is particularly interesting is the relatively even distribution of NSS members over the NSS-number ranges between 10,000 and 60,000. That implies that, after an initial high attrition for the first few years of membership, people largely stick around. Of course, the fact that there are almost two thousand life members may have something to do with that. In the graph, you can see that there were a lot more new members per existing member each year early on. That's not surprising, because a lot higher fraction of the membership back then was young and active and able to recruit new cavers and new members. Some of the current members are life members who are members just because they haven't died, probably, and are inactive and have no contact with potential recruits, and that's probably true of even many dues-paying members who joined before, say, 1980. Still, the contrast between ~1500 new members in 1990 and half that in 2015, when we had about the same number of total members, is not encouraging. -- Mixon ---------------------------------------- What great comfort is there to be derived from a wife well obeyed!—Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers ---------------------------------------- You may "reply" to the address this message (unless it's a TexasCavers list post) came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: a...@mexicancaves.org or sa...@mexicancaves.org _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
