What's the Trend in USPSA membership?

[atek3]

Growing, shrinking, roughly flat?

Action shooters are the vanguard of the shooting community when it comes to gun rights, so knowing the trend seems important.

thanks,

atek3

[shootingchef]

Our club membership is off by 25% from 2008.

[d5357]

I believe USPSA, membership is increasing. according to the latest front sight membership drive.

Edited February 14, 2009 by d5357

[Carlos]

Dunno.

BUT, a comparison to SASS members/ CAS shooters often comes up. They have more total members. But if you dig a little deeper and look at active members (those who shot during the last 12 months) - we have some advantage.

Still, with the number of handgun owners out there (and heck, the number of CCW holders) - we can always do better.

Have you brought a friend to a local match lately?

[atek3]

Dunno.

BUT, a comparison to SASS members/ CAS shooters often comes up. They have more total members. But if you dig a little deeper and look at active members (those who shot during the last 12 months) - we have some advantage.

Still, with the number of handgun owners out there (and heck, the number of CCW holders) - we can always do better.

Have you brought a friend to a local match lately?

Hah. I just moved so I have no local friends... save those at the local match

atek3

[larry cazes]

Deleted

Edited February 14, 2009 by larry cazes

[vluc]

I'd be interested in how many club members at individual clubs shoot USPSA. Consider that a member of a club is already "presumably" a supporter of the shooting sports. What is that percentage?

One would think that a likely base to draw members from as opposed to the general pistol owning public - take CCW holders as an example - who buy a gun pack it away and never use it. Can't tell you the number of friends who have bought pistols for "protection" only to keep that at home hardly ever visiting a range, despite (or maybe in spite of) me letting them know they need to get out and practice with it.

Edited February 14, 2009 by vluc

[Bill Nesbitt]

Growing, shrinking, roughly flat?

Yes, all those in the 20 some years I have been a USPSA member.

My membership number is A-4429. I'm not sure what the numbers are up to now but a lot of people have joined and gone on to something else over the years.

[Nik Habicht]

When I was running for A8 Director in 2007 the number of current members was ~16,000; the most recent number I heard a couple of months ago had active memberships up to ~ 18,000....

Now, keep in mind that's paid memberships --- not necessarily people who are competing.....

On the other hand, I've probably got 5-10 shooters at my local club match every month who aren't members --- since that match is the only USPSA match they shoot....

[kimel]

One must keep in mind that joining a national organization is one thing but retention is very much a local phenomenon. Couple examples:

My local club shoots within 10 miles of two major universities, and about 30 miles from a community college and a small 4 year college. With a student population of around 50K above and beyond the local population we see a lot of student shooters. Typically, they start coming out when they are 21 and can purchase handguns which usually means they are Junior standing at school. They join USPSA, shoot with us for a couple years and move on. As you may recall from personal experience, graduation from college starts all manner of other things (new job, new marriage, new family, new mortgage, etc) which pull folks away from the sport. Plus they may move into an area and not have a club or know about any local clubs. That is the "end user" aspect.

We can help this a bit by talking to these folks and finding out where they are headed. If we know people at clubs in the area they are heading to help them get hooked up at the new club.

Then there is the "club" aspect. This is especially important in areas where there is only one "local" club. If the local club isn't "healthy" those folks may join the club, join USPSA, get frustrated and go away. By healthy club I mean a club that is setting up challenging stages every month that aren't just a rehash of the same stages last month. Classifiers are set up and run correctly and the scores submitted to Sedro in a timely manner. Few things frustrate a new shooter more than shooting a "special" so they can get their classification and then having to wait two or three or more months for the club to get around to sending in the scores so they can get classified. It also means that the stages are set up legally and run safely and consistently. If we are lucky, the new members go read the rules and if they can't make sense of what is happening at the matches in terms of the rulebook we have a BIG problem.

Overall, nationwide, the trend in membership is increasing. To me this means a whole lot of clubs are doing a lot of good stuff.

I think the more interesting statistics would be:

1) Renewals: What is the trend in renewals? Going up? Annuals renewing as TY or FY or Life?

2) Activity: How many of those new members are shooting classifiers? How many new members join and reach classification in one or more divisions in their first year of membership? How many clubs did they shoot at?

Answers to those questions would, I think, give us a better view into the overall "health" of the organization from a membership perspective.

[ChuckS]

The "Classifiers by State" page shows 17081 shooters in the database.

Later,

Chuck

ETA: I found a post from Dec 2005 that said the number was 14049.

ETA: 15744 from a July 2007 post and 17,765 from a Dec 2008 post.

Edited February 14, 2009 by ChuckS

[ChuckS]

I guess a thing to keep in mind right now is the economy. People are worried. USPSA ain't cheap and even when done cheaply, it ain't cheap. Supply costs are high, fuel is high and people are loosing their jobs or worried about such. Things like USPSA get pushed to the back burner at times like this. That said, clubs that suck die a natural death. Clubs that don't suck get on with things. A non-scientific survey of the clubs around here is that things are probably about even.

Later,

Chuck

[Crusher]

Growth occurs at the local level. Locally our club has seen a 35% increase in match participation for each year over the past 2 and as new shooters attend the local matchs they tend to join USPSA as members. To that end we have seen new shooters (non-USPSA memebrs) join at about a 50/50 ratio.

Just a hint USPSA If you build it at the local level they WILL COME. Challangeng stages, fair and equitable rule application, fast scoring results are the key components for growth in our game regardless of econmic conditions, make it "intersting" enough and most will find the time/money to participate.

[Jim Norman]

A good match need not have 200 rounds, 5 good stages and 110 or so rounds will beat a crappy poorly designed 200 round match. In other words Quality NOT Quantity will bring out shooters and keep them coming back.

We need to be mindful of the perceived costs of shooting. People look at 20 cents a round add in the match fee and think this is a 60 dollar match or a 30 dollar match. building a round count for the sake of a round count is detrimental in this day and age.

Jim

[tightloop]

A good match need not have 200 rounds, 5 good stages and 110 or so rounds will beat a crappy poorly designed 200 round match. In other words Quality NOT Quantity will bring out shooters and keep them coming back.

We need to be mindful of the perceived costs of shooting. People look at 20 cents a round add in the match fee and think this is a 60 dollar match or a 30 dollar match. building a round count for the sake of a round count is detrimental in this day and age.

Jim

building stages/matches with hi round count when you can accomplish the three principles the sport was founded upon, without lots of rounds, has always been detrimental, not just when the economy is in the pits, IMO.

[Sam]

Shooting a few rounds at USPSA on Saturday morning is cheaper than buying a few rounds in the bar on Saturday night.

There is a very good point raised here. USPSA has always been viewed frm the outside as being highly competitive. I have invited many folks over the years that say, "I'm really not good enough to compete". I always tell them that it's just a bunch of folks having fun and it's really about meeting other shooters.

I'm one of the people who has always been really interested in the competitive aspects of the sport. We will always have championship matches for that. Depending on where you shoot, club matches can be geared more toward social interaction, or even practice days. When ever our local club holds announce practice days, our numbers always increase.

Maybe we should give some serious consideration to "de-escalating" our club matches for the sole purpose of attracting more gun owners that aren't shooters yet.

Before someone steps in here and flames me for expressing my opinion, I'll say this: I've got enough wood hanging on my wall to heat the house for several days. Each shooting buddy you win is a genuine trophy, but wood on the wall is just dead wood.

[Jaxshooter]

It would be interesting to know how many matches per year are shot by the individual member. Classifiers by state are not really indicative of the overall memberships participation. For example in my area of N Florida we can shoot 4 matches and month and 5 when there are 5 Saturdays with in 35 miles. That accounts for alot of classifiers shot but they are shot by the same 30 shooters every month. My point is classifiers can increase while the membership actually decreases.

[ChuckS]

It would be interesting to know how many matches per year are shot by the individual member. Classifiers by state are not really indicative of the overall memberships participation. For example in my area of N Florida we can shoot 4 matches and month and 5 when there are 5 Saturdays with in 35 miles. That accounts for alot of classifiers shot but they are shot by the same 30 shooters every month. My point is classifiers can increase while the membership actually decreases.

The Classifier By State page shows the total number of shooters in the database. That is another way of saying USPSA membership. Other than that page, I don't think you can find that number anywhere else.

As for participation, it's anybodies guess. If there was a list of individual match counts, it would be 17,081 lines long

Edited February 14, 2009 by ChuckS

[kimel]

So it is 17K lines long? That's what data analysis tools are for.

That's actually a pretty darn small database from a pure data aspect. I regularly (daily) work with DBs that are millions of records...and those aren't considered "big" by many standards.

[ChuckS]

So it is 17K lines long? That's what data analysis tools are for.

That's actually a pretty darn small database from a pure data aspect. I regularly (daily) work with DBs that are millions of records...and those aren't considered "big" by many standards.

Yup, a statistician would say that a guy 100,000 guys with one foot in a fire and the other packed in dry-ice is are on the average, comfortable.

Edited February 14, 2009 by ChuckS

[kimel]

Hardly. An n=1 is never significant.

[atbarr]

Each shooting buddy you win is a genuine trophy, but wood on the wall is just dead wood.

Very well said!

A.T.

[LPatterson]

A good match need not have 200 rounds, 5 good stages and 110 or so rounds will beat a crappy poorly designed 200 round match. In other words Quality NOT Quantity will bring out shooters and keep them coming back.

We need to be mindful of the perceived costs of shooting. People look at 20 cents a round add in the match fee and think this is a 60 dollar match or a 30 dollar match. building a round count for the sake of a round count is detrimental in this day and age.

Jim

This is all true but when there are only two clubs within 175 miles 4 stages and a classifier with 200 rounds is a more cost effective match than the same 4 really technical stages with a classifier with 110 rounds since the travel can be triple to quadruple the entry fee. I have friends who drive 350-400 miles to watch their kids play basketball or football without thinking about it. Cost can become relative.

[BritinUSA]

If clubs use the Local Match Results function on the USPSA web site then it should be fairly simple to gather the numbers of active shooters in each area and what divisions they are shooting in. It might be a good tool to determine if we (USPSA) need to direct more attention to growing members in certain demographics, such as women, juniors, revolver shooters etc.

We could have some charts done that update automatically each month to track changes.

[Franklin D Wolverton]

Sometimes I think (judging by the way people talk)...

1. I'm the only club rep that gets the results done the same day as the match... (i.e... we shot today. Got done at 2:00pm, left the range after tear down about 3:30. Got home at 4, and just 10 minutes ago (5:45) the results were sent out. I normally have them done by 7pm the day of the shoot. Only once have I not had them done the same day... and even then they were out the next. And no... I don't do any entry at the range... my wife just knows to leave me alone for a couple hours when I get home from the match. But then again... sometimes she does them for me

2. I'm the only club rep that has never missed a deadline to get the classifiers reported on the next run.

3. I'm the only club rep that uses the USPSA local match results page.

Now... I know this is not true, but sometimes I feel like it. Perhaps this is why our numbers have risen every year for the last 3...

Simple things will keep people around.

Frank