With respect to questions about competitions, increasing participation, etc. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the ability to compete is something that will draw new members, and thus a behavior we want to increase. This way we avoid the should there be competition or not, is it important or not, food fights.

Behaviorial research tells us that the only type of reinforcement that produces more of a behavior is positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement stops a behavior, but doesn't increase good behavior. I argue logistical hurdles, some categories dominated by sponsored flyers (drives cost to be competitive way up), time, distance to events, etc. function like negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement could be as varied as your imagination allows. Largely though, positive reinforcement is an "all of the above" effort.

So we need to find ways to minimize the negative issues and create new ways to provide positive reinforcement.