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I received my 2009 TCA Membership Roster and, as I have done for the last six years, I thought I'd share a quick look at the Tandem Club of America's (TCA) demographics. As always, my hand-tabulated counts from the membership listing were entered into my spreadsheets and looked at on a state-by-state basis as in comparison to data from last year's Membership Roster and, where noted, to the first analysis I conducted back in 2002. In summary, and based on what was published in this year's 2009 Membership List, TCA membership at approx 914 is down about 9% compared to last year, with a net reduction of 92 members. In fact, the drop-off in 2008 is nearly the sameas last year where we saw a net reduction of 91 members. Looking back and comparing membership to 2002 when I first started following the data, overall TCA membership has fallen by 543 or about 37% with no indication the trend will be reversed any time soon.
Editorial: Given there have been almost no changes in TCA staff, sans the folks who maintain the membership and hospitality homes lists up to date, and that there have been no changes in the way that TCA promotes itself or the services / value it offers membership, there is no reason to believe the net downward trend or the short-lived new membership trends will be reversed. TCA continues to cling to a model for enthusiast clubs that has not changed in over a decade and only survives because of long-term membership loyalty which, frankly, may also be tested in the next year. After all, even the nominal $15 membership fee may start to look excessive in terms of the value it delivers as members re-evaluate their household budgets and expenditures. |
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Hospitality Homes fell off by 7.5% in 2008, a net loss of -11 where only 14 new member homes were added to the roles vs the -25 that fell-off. This was a virtual flip-flop with 2007, where Hospitality Homes rebounded from prior year losses. Looking closer at the demographics, you'll see three data sets in the table below that look at:
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For reference, 2007 saw 12 states add a combined 25 new members to TCA compared to last year where just 10 states reflected a combined increase of 13. On the other side of the balance sheet, 9 of 2007's 12 states that reported net growth now appear in the net loss table, with a combined total loss of 105 members, including 2007's big growth states of New York (+6 in '08 now -10) and Connecticut (+4 in '08 now -6). Texas saw the biggest losses in 2008 with a net decrease of 14 members and we remain ever mindful that in 2002 Texas had a total of 71 TCA members. 2007's big loser was California with the loss of 13 members and in 2008 another 4 were lost. Again, when I first started keeping track California had 111 members. Interestingly enough, California has remained #1 in total TCA members and #41 on a per capita basis through this slide in membership.
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This table looks at overall TCA membership by region... and like last year, please don't ask me why the regions are set up the way they are as it's not apparent to me either. Regardless, when states are grouped by their regions last year's only net growth region -- Michigan / Wisconsin in Region 5 with 4 new members -- lost all 4 gains from 2007 + 3 more in 2008 for a total loss of 7. Region 1's horrendous loss of 24 members in 2007 was not as bad this year with 'only' 6 more net losses. For 2008, it was the tornado belt and hurricane-ravaged Texas and Louisiana that also took a beating with a net loss of 17 members. Our own region here in the Southeast US was once again in double-digit loss territory but, then again, our region is TCA's largest with 17% of all members represented. As a total percentage of regional membership, it was actually the second smallest -- Region 10 -- that took the biggest hit in 2008, losing 23% of their members.  |
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Last year I decided to parse out what I believe to be the newest TCA members from the rest of the general membership. Again, as noted earlier, you'll see two data sets in the table below that looks at the newer members of TCA in two slices:
Of all the spreadsheets, this is the one where you'd want your state / region to be as close to the top as possible with nothing but Blue and Green numbers, as this is where the growth is measured. For example, Wisconsin moved up from 10th in new members last year to 1st this year and although it would appear that they lost about 4 of their newer members in 2008, overall new membership still rose from 9 to 13 and they did not see a net loss of membership. So, thanks to new member growth they're holding their own. However, looking down the list there is still a lot of Red in both the changes in newer membership and overall membership numbers when compared to 2007... despite having added new members in 2008.  |
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