[Northern] Running some numbers

Burke McCrory bmccrory at oktax.state.ok.us
Thu May 17 16:14:22 PDT 2001


At 05:05 PM 5/17/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>--
>[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
>Having visited Sir Burke's page in regards to the unofficial Principality
>poll, I was particularly interested in the population page and decided to
>do a bit of analysis.
>
>Over the past 10 years, the Northern Region has increased it's population
>by 48 members, or 16.3%.  However, this growth was not a stable
>growth.  Instead it was marred by rapid rises and both somwhat quick and
>steady declines over that period.
>
>Here are the numbers, sorted by current membership totals:
>
>            Growth/Decline
>  Date    over previous year
>------   ------------------
>  2/ 1/93     - 9.5%
>  2/ 1/94      19.5%
>12/31/94     -10.7%
>12/31/95      22.2%
>12/31/96       2.9%
>12/31/97     - 2.8%
>12/31/98     - 6.9%
>12/31/99     - 6.5%
>12/31/00      13.2%
>
>(A chart of the population and it's growth/decline is available at
>http://phelan.ou.edu/vortmax/northpop.gif )
>
>As one can clearly see, the "growth" that Northern Ansteorra experienced
>over the past 10 years is not steady.  Northern Ansteorra has also had one
>stronghold go inactive (Falcon's Ridge) and three incipient shires cease
>to exist (Bison's Run, Loch Wyndt, and Rothundburg).
>
>The most "stable" groups that remained appeared to be Wiesenfeur and the
>Wastelands (did not deviate much in the past five years).  The fastest
>growing group appears to be Northkeep with two significant growth
>spurts:  53.8% in 1995 and 28% in 2000.  In fact, Northkeep accounted for
>most of the region's growth over the past six years by going from 52
>members at the end of 1994 to 96 members at the end of 2000, and accounted
>for 44 of the regions 58-member growth over that timespan.
>
>Given the lack of sustained overall growth in this region and the current
>population level, I personally don't believe this region could support a
>Principality at this time.  If the region begins to show sustained growth
>throughout all it's groups while also showing increased unity, then I
>might begin to change my mind.
>
>---
>Lord Thomas of Weathershear

Thomas,

You make some good points but there are a few other factors that you may
have missed.

The populace numbers are only for paid members so there is no real way to
know if the true participating membership of these various groups has
stayed level or not.  Also, there have been over the last 10 years, several
major SCA situations that have affected the paid membership count (can you
say board wars).  If you look at any group you can usually find a local
reason for an significant membership change.  Falcons Ridge is a good
example, they went inactive not because they had no members but because the
core group was/is being transferred to other military bases.  This is the
very reason that Strongholds are allowed to inactive (you should have seen
the membership drop in the Shire of Middleford (Fort Hood) during the Gulf
War).   Groups like Mooneschadowe are located in college towns, while they
keep a stable core of permanent members, students make up a major part of
their population.  This is not to say that we need to continue to reach out
and recruit new members, I am 100% in favor of that.  But numbers by
themselves don't always tell the whole story.

One more point, the requirement for a principality is at least 100
subscribing members, the North has 240 as of 12/31/00.

Sir Burke





More information about the Northern mailing list