what percentage of active swimmers are members of USMS?

It's quite astonishing what folks expect for a paltry $35 or so a year. I go to a few meets, I make a few friends and I have a sweet discussion forum. That's about all I should expect for that small sum. Me too. They do keep track beyond the top ten. If you go to event rankings from the competition tab on the home page, it appears to go up to 500. You can search by year and course.

I like the idea of widening the top 10. I know that probably won't ever happen, but if you do a swim that is the 20th best time in the nation for that year, that's something that should be recognized. The only thing is, where do you stop? If you're going to do top 25, why not top 40? Top 50? Top 10 is a pretty standard number, and it's used by FINA, so it will probably stay that way. No it won't, according to my understanding. Jim Matysek would know much more, but I think with the new end-to-end-event-management (E2EEM) system we will track swimmers down to greater depth. I don't think it is all that far off, either. Again, Jim M will have a much better handle on this than I. When it is completely rolled out and when past meets have been put into the system -- that just magically happens, too! With no effort at all! (sarcastic) -- USMS members who compete regularly will be pleasantly surprised at the amount of information at their fingertips. I just saw Fort's post: with respect to the "current event rankings" (what used to be called "current top times"), those are not necessarily inclusive or verified. One goal of Jim's E2EEM system is to tie Top 10 to the current rankings. Paul and Doug, I agree with you both that USMS can be doing much more. I just think that it can be hard to see how much it has done already. I think it is probably fair to say that it is one of the best masters swimming organizations in the world, and perhaps the best. By the way, Paul: I think forum polls are nice and all, but I disagree with you that those who vote on them are a very good representation of USMS membership as a whole. That's just a guess, I'll admit, but if I'm right then the results of such polls are of limited value in terms of policy/proposal feedback.

USA Swimming charge 57 dollars, and they don't even have a forum.

I like the idea of widening the top 10. I know that probably won't ever happen, but if you do a swim that is the 20th best time in the nation for that year, that's something that should be recognized. The only thing is, where do you stop? If you're going to do top 25, why not top 40? Top 50? Top 10 is a pretty standard number, and it's used by FINA, so it will probably stay that way.

It costs money, as noted by Gull in the existential angst thread in which several, if not many, wring their collective hands and gnash their collective teeth about Ande's blog thread being -- gasp -- moved to the blog section... Main Entry: ex·is·ten·tial Pronunciation: \ˌeg-(ˌ)zis-ˈten(t)-shəl, ˌek-(ˌ)sis-\ Function: adjective Date: 1693 1: of, relating to, or affirming existence 2 a: grounded in existence or the experience of existence : empirical b: having being in time and space I would say it was more irritation than angst that his thread no longer exists as such.

Cool, thanks for the info!

On point two...did I say anything about basing decisions 100% off a poll conducted on USMS? No. Does setting up polling questions like the ones I did before the convention maybe give some people not digging thru the document to find what was being voted on a bit more info? Possibly, the polls/threads did get a fair amount of action and some clarifications made that at least helped me better understand the proposals. Does some information from this forum vs. nothing help the decision makers get at the convention? I don't know but to me its a shame more don't a least try and use it. I'm all for clarifications and accessibility. Those could have been accomplished with a normal thread, though. How meaningful are the actual poll numbers? Not very, in my opinion. I inherently distrust a self-selecting sample, and in this case it is possible to stuff the ballot using aliases. (Though Jim can correct the numbers, apparently.) I enjoyed the polls and the discussions that ensued. I just don't take the poll numbers very seriously, in terms of representing the will of at-large USMS membership.

I'd like a window decal. I had a USMS license plate frame from Kast a Way but it was destroyed in an auto wreck and is no longer for sale. If I could get a USMS window decal I'd be a fully satisfied member. Oh, and if the Smiths were permanently banned from the forum also.

I would pay very handsome additional membership dues to USMS if the organization had a dedicated squad of lawyers who would travel the country, forcing YMCAs to lower the water temperature in their pools from 117 degrees F to something slightly more compatible with non-noodling life forms.

I am not convinced that membership discounts is the key factor. I think that USMS should give free or heavily discounted memberships to swimmers in the 18-24 age group. If they are even slightly successful in attracting these swimmers, it would easily pay for itself. On the positive side, at a local (heavily attended) running race, I was one of the volunteers manning the USMS booth. We had plenty of people stop by, including current college swimmers who were psyched to become master swimmers after school.