what percentage of active swimmers are members of USMS?

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. What if these college kids are foreigners here on scholarship? Can we really give them a free membership and deprive some American kid of the same right? Imagine the damage that could be done to American kids? I do not support this.

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. That is worthwhile, and a matter that could be taken up by the Education Committee of USMS. I think it is an achievable goal. I understand there are some attorney forumites, who in addition have "big guns." :D

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. You'd be bored and cranky. I want a car magnet. Then I'd be happy.

Are you talking about reaping future paid memberships when you say that free memberships would pay for themselves? Yes. Hook 'em early. I am faculty advisor to the swim club here at U of R. Interest on the club in competitive swimming is tremendous -- they just started and have over 25 people who are doing a time trial this Saturday so they can get times to go to race other clubs. There are 3 meets they are considering going to in this semester alone. I think USMS has limited appeal to them right now...they would rather hang out with other college kids then us old folks. But once they graduate they may want to continue with it. And college club swimming has many of the same good characteristics as USMS: ability to skip practices, not take it too seriously, change sets to suit your needs, and a social outlet. And dating opportunities: heck, I met my wife on a relay at a USMS meet! Who says "regional" teams are bad? :)

A couple of different threads, this one and "What do you think of the Action Plan?", have converged on the topic of how to grow USMS. I have some ideas but think they don't go in a thread on what percentage of active swimmers are USMS members. That in itself is a valid question (I think). We've heard from a couple of LSMC chairs with respect to number of swimmers who work out with teams v. number who are registered USMS swimmers. Is it possible to do more sampling? I'd like to see more quantifying and benchmarking, which is generally the first step in developing an org. (Sampling means mother ship communicates to satellites what is desired.) I have to throw a tiny doubt on whether percentage of USMS swimmers among those who work out with teams (or other rubric) is a meaningful question. For the price of ten lattes, membership is a good deal. With Geek: "It's quite astonishing what folks expect for a paltry $35 or so a year." I'm going back to the Action Plan thread to post some ideas. Cheerio, Old and in the Way ;)

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. Interesting point, I would argue that the vast majority of participants in USMS which have been identified as "fitness" swimmers who do not compete are only members because the facility they train at requires them to be...yet we keep hearing that USMS needs to balance the time/energy of its resources on that group...but how? This college alliance is intriguing but I think tapping into high school seniors and even corporate wellness programs would offer even more possibilities and should be included in possible marketing/recruiting efforts. Lots of good ideas get hatched and debated here and I would still argue in spite of your skepticism that polling here vs. nothing is of value and that based on the people who are frequent visitors represents a pretty decent cross section of the membership. Make a decision based on info strictly from here...no, but certainly you'd think there would be more attempts to gauge what the folks want who are here and I have yet to see much of an organized attempt at that from USMS.

In AZ, USAT had 2012 members last year, AZ LMSC had 819. USAT probably has a lot more one-day registrations than we do. By the way, the 2.4 mile open water swim (USAT-sanctioned event) had 391 people in it. Our largest meet of the season drew about a third of that... I wonder how much of this issue is sport related versus how many "extras" are offered. Triathlon competition is quite different from a swim meet, in triathlon everyone competes more or less at the same time, in swim meets you spend more time waiting around/recovering than actually competing. What was the attendance at the LMSC's open water swim? Why did people go to the USAT open water instead of the LMSC's? Have you looked at participation levels in AZ masters track clubs and compared it to participation in road races? Swim meets are a lot more like a track meet than a triathlon. I agree that a lot more can be done to attract members, and I think it is being worked on, but I am not convinced that membership discounts is the key factor.

Excuse me, but this sounds like something out of Catch-22. If we give away enough memberships, at what point do we start making money? I don't think we're talking a lot of people here, but if you hook them on USMS then they'll be paying members into their dotage. And beyond, judging from the typical forumite... :)

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. WORD.

What if these college kids are foreigners here on scholarship? Can we really give them a free membership and deprive some American kid of the same right? Imagine the damage that could be done to American kids? I do not support this. This is really random to me. Who says they're foreigners and not American college kids? In order to prevent foreigners from stealing away the American kids' memberships, you should just not advertise to anyone? EDIT: I just saw your posts in the other thread about foreigners, so I'm assuming this was sarcasm. Also, I want a car magnet too, or at least a window decal.