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[RC] Addition to the annual statistics page and growth of AERC - Michael MaulThere's been quite a bit of discussion on the Members Only Forum about "growth" for AERC and the implications. The following might be useful in that discussion.The annual statistics concerning AERC sanctioned rides has been in the yearbook for quite a while. It's on page 203 of the 2004 yearbook and gives the number of rides by region and by distance with starters, finishers, types of pulls and so on. Online we've had a more detailed version of this available at http://www.doublejoy.com/erol/aerc/AnnualStatistics.asp which you can reach from the AERC home page under Membership -> AERC Records -> Annual Ride Statistics. You can display these in a number of ways from overall - all the way down to regions and distances - and then compare growth to previous years all the way back to 1996 using the links in the header. We lumped multiday rides into 50's until recently and had no way of seeing whether growth was in 50s' or multidays even though we were fairly certain it was MD rides. We have separated out rides that are 3 days or more into their own category now and labeled it Pio for Pioneer rides. The statistics on these multidays go all the way back to 1996. Note that we are not looking at riders who try to do all the days of an event. We are looking at entries to any of the days as riders who chose going to a multiday event over a one day event whether they ride all the days or just a portion of the days available. The category of "50" now contains only one day or two day rides and Pio contains all the 3 day or more rides. As you can see from the percent growth from the previous year, the MD rides are growing in popularity. LD and MD rides are thought to be the growth areas in AERC at this point in time. In looking at the statistics though - you have to be aware that an occasional rare event like the XP 2001 will strongly affect the statistics for that year and the apparent growth for the next. In 2004 there were about 23,000 horse rider entries for all AERC rides. Of those - 35% were LD entries, 39% were one day 50's, 19% were MD entries, and the remaining 7% were rides of 75 or more miles. This gives you a feel for where the organization is now and how the membership entries are distributed. For purposes of comparison - 1999 had 19,200 entries with 32% LDs, 45% 50s, 14% MD, and the remaining 9% rides of 75 miles or more. While LD is growing - it's not that much more as a percent of our total than it was 5 years ago. Long rides are down as a portion of the total as we expected, LDs are up some, one day 50s are down and MDs are up - all as a portion of the total. Overall ride entries are up. So for those who worry about a significant change in our organization as a result of growth - I think this presents a picture of an organization growing slowly but surely and not changing a lot in the past 5 years. Obviously we've changed a lot in 15 years. We also have a running total of what's happening in 2005 to compare to last year. I'd be interested in hearing other conclusions coming out of the data available from this page - by region or distance or whatever. That's why we added the MD breakout. By measuring what we do - we get a better idea of how well we are doing and meeting membership needs. Mike PS there's some interesting stats that come out of this that were not visible before. Distance Completion Rate LD 87.5% 50 83.8% MD 92.9% 75 80.4 100 59.1% =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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