porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Did anyone catch the Money Matters column from the November edition? GOOD STUFF.

I'm all about numbers, I love 'em! A few caught my eye. Specifically the membership numbers.

2016 membership numbers: 195,080, up from 187,060 last year.

Increase in membership: 7414. Nice!

2016 Youth membership: 56856, up from 50,073 last year

Increase in membership: 6783. Nice!

No specific numbers given, but there was a significant increase in the Park Pilot Program as well.

I do look forward to seeing how these increases in membership across almost every line are bad somehow, but I've to to say, it looks like someone at the AMA knows what they are doing from a membership attraction and retention standpoint. The membership continues to grow here, just as it does with the AMAs largest SIG, MultiGP. Come to think of it, I wonder if any of the new members to the AMA come from that SIG? DVP Tougas did previously note about 10% of the membership is MR focused, so that makes sense.

Anyway, great news on the membership numbers from what I see, I'm even more encouraged at the youth membership figures. I know some folks don't like the fact that the youths don't have to pay anything, and that not charging for those memberships detract from the overall membership numbers (and take away resources from us dues paying members), but I think almost all reasonable folks would agree, having youths in the AMA is a great thing!


And now, even more good news. The Audit results were finalized, completed and accepted with no need to be restated. It seems like only yesterday we had some folks here questioning the legitimacy of the audit, and making some pretty strong allegations about improprieties and misdeeds. I can't help but wonder if they will come back and issue and equally vociferous retraction. #notachance

There did appear to be some takeaways, looks like issues of breaking down the MA mag numbers for even more clarity and transparency. That also has been something of sudden interest, so it looks like it will be another win win for the membership.

Dave Mathewson has a great article as usual, excellent points made about the whole builder versus RTF/ARF modeler....it's really all about enjoying the hobby. Something I've been saying for years, so I agree there.

All in all another good edition.

I did happen to see District 8 VP promoting an upcoming event on Nov 11-13, the Spaceport American Drone Summit...which I'm hearing people say is going to be huge, the best event of it's kind. There was talk recently about how the MA mag isn't timely in getting out information about events but I'm seeing a lot of great events listed here.

Enjoy!

mongo

My Feedback: (15)

so,
if all the rest of new memberships beyond the 6783 new youth are full open paying members, then that gives us 631 new full paid members.
not a trend that can be considered a good indicator of future financial stability.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

lol, that didn't take long at all, the brotherhood folks never disappoint! And I'm accused of numbers twistin,lol. Do you have any better suggestions or will this just be a continuation of the AMA=Bad, and AMA = failing narrative that is so pervasive here? Perhaps you can put your head together with the your fellow Texan and newest MultiGP SIG member and share a better idea or result here? Please...do tell.

Only in this microcosm is an increase in membership a bad thing.

rcmiket

Yea in his eyes this is a great thing. Free always gets the bills paid. Out of that 631 how many seniors ? But wait the "fastest growing AMA SIG is MGP" boasting 11,000 members guess their not AMA members though. Membership numbers when you don't know actual details of that membership are meaningless

Mike

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

won't anyone think of the kids?

All around all I see are numbers, and they keep going up.

astrohog

My Feedback: (1)

Yep. 6,000 new kids supported by 600 paying adults, about par for the course! 1 person to pay the bills for every ten..... what the whole Country is coming to!

Astro

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

How much do you think it actually costs to "support" a youth membership? And your idea for attracting and retaining new members, both youth and adult?

Does it involved silk/dope and scratch building? Control line? Free Flight?

Looking forward to all the ideal pouring in from the usual folks. Who would have thought youth memberships could cause such angst. Oh wait....

rcmiket

I got nothing against the youth memberships (lets remember about the attention span of today's youth) but please lets be REALISTIC about the "membership growing" and remember at some point they must remain and become PAYING members. What were using government accounting now ( as far as membership growth) over at the AMA ?

Mike

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Right, nothing against kids, those little things that have no attention span. Get off my lawn!

5th year of membership growth, heck even the Park Flyer program grew Are you going to do the truther/denial thing on this too in addition to the MR SIG numbers. I get that you don't trust or believe anything the AMA prints, but we've seen numbers go up every year. At what point do you ever say, ya, I guess it is growing. I suspect never, rather at best it would be sure they grew again, but you just know it's going to drop at some point, and then it's all downhill from there.

It's got to be exhausting to be the chronically negative and cynical, especially when it comes to kids in the AMA.

astrohog

My Feedback: (1)

At a bare minimum, there is an actual cost to pay for their insurance. What is it, $25.00 or so if I recall? Let's do some REAL math:

6,000 new youth members X $25.00/ea. = $150,000.00.
600 new paying adult members X $75.00 = $45,000.00.
OOOPS! AMA just went in the hole by $105,000.00!!!!!

I've already answered that numerous times, yet you keep asking.

Astro

rcmiket

What the heck it's only money............................................. .....maybe we can print some to cover the loss.

Mike

franklin_m

You guys beat me to it. Assuming every single one of those 631 new members paid the full $75 dues (no pay 2 years and get discount, and no senior memberships), that works out to $47,325. If those 6783 youth membership result in anything more than $6.98 in expenses each ($47,325 / 6783 & rounded to two digits after the decimal), then AMA is losing money on them.

And that $6.98 number only gets smaller when we account for the actual expenses added for each new paid member (it's >$0).

mongo

My Feedback: (15)

math and all that about relative costs of the memberships is great for yall that are interested in that stuff.
being one of the folks that pushed hard against the ec, that at the time did not really want to have those free memberships for the under 18 folks, that aint what i am worrying about. what i am seeing as a problem, is, the almost flat level of paying memberships over time. that can not last forever. we need to be finding some more adult folks to keep the org viable.

astrohog

My Feedback: (1)

Don't worry, Porcia says everything is just fine! Continued growth and the droners are joining in droves! Anybody who can't see that is just in denial!

LOL

Astro

rcmiket

I always thought having dues paying members was always a good thing also. Here's a thought youth memberships are 30 bucks a year. After all they have the same benefits as us full pay members except voting.

Mike

rcmiket

According to MA article that these numbers came from the Senior membership is DOWN 1.5%. While reduced cost membership they still are ( or were) paying members. Considering the average age of the AMA being down 1.5% is a considerable number.

Mike

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Charge a 7 year old for membership because they have "the same benefits" as us? Unbelievable. It always comes down to money doesn't it. Because the AMA needs $30.00 from a 7 year olds piggy bank. I guess thats the money that you and other feel should be handed right back to clubs that want a handout.

mongo

My Feedback: (15)

mike,
what you are suggesting, is pretty much what was being done prior to the change to free youth around 2010-11.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Would you charge a kid $30.00 to be a member?

mongo

My Feedback: (15)

p-man,
please refer to post 13, pgh 2, this thread.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Thanks for the clarification. Agree that finding more adults members should be an important too, but positive growth can be organic as well. With 50k plus members already "in the fold", it's a huge advantage over advertising or going outside the org to look for new members. Can it be a safe bet that many of the folks that were youth members transition to paying adult memberships? The youths are a captive audience to some degree. Hopefully they are aware and involved and see the benefits of membership once they become adults. It's more of a struggle for the AMA to attract the average adult to the fold. Although a topic probably for another thread, that's something that I think local clubs are more responsible for than the AMA. The AMA can advertise as much as they want, the rubber meets the road once someone shows up at a field.

The things the AMA have been doing over the past 5 years seem to be working, clearly not to everyone's satisfaction. The numbers are up consistently year to year over the past 5. That's not in dispute. What folks seem to want now is more, o/k fine, that would be great. So how do we (or the AMA) go about it.

I know it's not a popular opinion, at least not at this site, but the advent of MR has brought renewed/additional interest in the hobby, and yes it has brought new members to the AMA as well. I won't bother with numbers, they will only be attacked and disputed. The numbers are there however for anyone to see.

I don't know the answer to this, does anyone know what the highest amount of members ever reported for the AMA were?

rcmiket

maybe we should revisit that policy. All things considered. I'd love to know retention rate of those youth members when they hit the paying age.
Probably number that's not tracked. Like actual numbers of AMA membership in AMA SIG's.
Mike

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

And yet the membership numbers overall continue to climb. Not surprised that you would focus on the one number showing a decrease, not the fact that you left off the rest of the comment in the mag, that this decrease probably resulted in the spike of Park Pilot memberships. Context matters.

porcia83

My Feedback: (8)

Probably a number that is tracked, and no doubt a great number too...and no doubt it would be turned into a negative. There isn't a number or stat out there that hasn't been yet. But don't wonder about it, ask your DVP or someone from the AMA.

franklin_m

If these free memberships are turning into paid memberships in large numbers, you'd think AMA would be sharing that success story. One thing we know for sure, they're not talking about it.