Analysis of PWC GOP Committee Membership

One of the raps on Conservatives from self-styled moderates/"Group A"-types (tip o' the hat to TC)/Sean-Connaughton-cult-of-personality types in the blogosphere has been the "declining membership" of the Prince William County Republican Committee. Bert Buscher put together and e-mailed an analysis a few days ago (I've interposed it now that I have his permission to do so):

I have been troubled by the PWCRC membership losses. So I decided to quantify what those losses were. Attached is the result of my study.

My study’s conclusions are:

• At least 60% of our membership, 200 members, has been lost from August 2004 to February 2006, an 18 month time period. (See Table 1).
• Actions to correct the loss of members should been taken no later than the summer of 2005. This implies that there is not a membership monitoring process or a control process for signaling this problem.

Over a week ago I shared the results of my documentation with Bob FitzSimmonds, PWCRC Membership Chairman, and via Bob with Brian Murphy, PWCRC Chairman. By telephone, I have talked to both of them. They are not being blind sided by the distribution of my study.

Also, by contacting them I was insuring that I had not missed something or should have taken something else into consideration. Bob FitzSimmonds raised an excellent point that PWCRC had an influx of members at the May 2004 meeting who did not attend membership meetings after that. These non-dedicated members were quickly dropped from the membership rolls by missing 3 consecutive membership meetings. Table 2 of the study takes this phenomenon into account.

By distributing this study I hope to trigger corrective actions for PWCRC’s shrinking membership problem.

Regards,

Bert Buscher

Republican Chairman of the Gainesville Magisterial District of PWC

Here's the Study (I hope the tables translate):

Prince William County Republican Committee
August 2004 to February 2006
Membership Study

Introduction
PWCRC membership totals over an 18-month period are provided by this study. The membership data sources are the MS Excel membership files that are e-mailed at irregular intervals to the Republican Chairmen of the PWC Magisterial Districts. The tables’ “Cumulative Change” columns document the membership count changes from August 2, 2004.

Assumptions concerning member counts have been made. These assumptions are explained in the “Assumptions Made in this Study” section.

The study’s conclusions are:
At least 60% of our membership, 200 members, has been lost from August 2004 to February 2006, an 18 month time period. (See Table 1).
Actions to correct the loss of members should been taken no later than the summer of 2005. This implies that there is not a membership monitoring process or a control process for signaling this problem.
This study is not an analysis of membership changes. It simply documents membership totals over an 18-month time period.

What follows are 2 table sections, assumptions made section, and a conclusion section.

Actual Membership Change
PWCRC has lost at least 60% or 200 members in the past 18 months, from August 2004 to February 2006. Table 1 documents how much and when these losses occurred.


PWCRC Membership Totals from August 2004 to February 2006
Cumulative Change
File Received Date Member Count Change from Prior File Member Count Percentage
August 2, 2004 333
November 19, 2004 285 -48 -48 -14.41%
March 28, 2005 209 -76 -124 -37.24%
May 1, 2005 171 -38 -162 -48.65%
January 23, 2006 140 -31 -193 -57.96%
February 2006 133 -7 -200 -60.06%
Table 1 – Actual Membership Count

Adjusted Membership Change
Table 2 is Table 1 with an adjusted August 2, 2004 member count. The 50 non-dedicated PWCRC member count was subtracted from this member count of 333 to give a count of 283. PWCRC has lost at least 150 dedicated members during an 18-month period, 53% of its dedicated membership.


PWCRC Membership Totals from August 2004 to February 2006
Cumulative Change
File Received Date Member Count Change from Prior File Member Count Percentage
August 2, 2004 283
November 19, 2004 285 2 2 0.71%
March 28, 2005 209 -76 -74 -26.15%
May 1, 2005 171 -38 -112 -39.58%
January 23, 2006 140 -31 -143 -50.53%
February 2006 133 -7 -150 -53.00%
Table 2 – Adjusted Membership Count

Assumptions Made in this Study
Tables 1 and 2 – February 2006 Assumption
Members who miss 3 consecutive PWCRC meetings are dropped from membership. There were 28 members on the drop list for the January 23, 2006 PWCRC membership meeting. If they did not attend this meeting, then they would be dropped from membership. At this time the number of members dropped after this meeting has not yet been determined. Assuming that ¼ of these 28 members did not attend, then 7 members would have been dropped after this meeting.

The February 2006 count reflects the 7 members assumed lost. Given the prior membership loss experience, this assumption is extremely conservative. Note that a more realistic 21 member loss would be a total membership loss of 64% in Table 1 and 58% in Table 2.

With the conservative assumption of 7 members dropped, the actual losses should be worst than shown in the tables. The tables give “At Least” losses for February 2006.

Tables 2 Assumption
There was an unusual turnover in 2004 membership due to an influx of members joining at the May 2004 meeting and then not attending later meetings or at most attending 1 or 2 meetings. These members were not dedicated Republicans. This non-dedicated member group count is included in the total member count for August 2, 2004. The no records exist giving the number of these individuals in this group. Note that by the November 19, 2004 file distribution; the
non-dedicated members had been dropped from membership. The effects of these non-dedicated members on membership totals may be removed to reflect only dedicated PWCRC members.

It seems everyone agrees that PWCRC has continually lost members during the study period. The size of the non-dedicated member group must not be large enough to cause a gain in membership. To have no increase, Table 1 above shows the non-dedicated member group should be 48. An assumption of 50 non-dedicated individuals would yield an increase of 2 members at the November 19, 2004 PWCRC membership meeting. This assumption of 50 is purposely too conservative, so it will be used.

With the assumption of 50 non-dedicated members in the August 2, 2004 count, the August 2, 2004 member count is reduced from 333 by 50 to 283 members. Table 2 shows Table 1 revised for dedicated only members. The net effect is a 7% lower loss rate.

Conclusion
The purpose of this simple study is to document PWCRC’s membership totals for the last 18 months in table form. Whether Table 1’s 60% or Table 2’s 53% loss is used for judging what has transpired is somewhat immaterial. Debating over which huge loss number should be used is not constructive. Taking 2/3 of the 60% loss still gives a huge loss of 40%!

Shown in the tables is the fact that corrective action should have been triggered during 2005. One can debate when this action should have been triggered, but surely by May 2005 a wakeup call should have been given.

Based on the foregoing, the conclusions are:
At least 60% of our membership, 200 members, has been lost from August 2004 to February 2006, an 18 month time period. (See Table 1).
Actions to correct the loss of members should been taken no later than the summer of 2005. This implies that there is not a membership monitoring process or a control process for signaling this problem.

Hopefully this study will trigger the current membership into taking corrective actions.


Bert Buscher February 20, 2006

Membership Chairman Bob FitzSimmonds sent around his rejoinder late yesterday. Bob offers an interesting analysis, one that speaks from years of experience and participation. Haven't had a chance to compare it to Bert's yet, but both are worth reading. Here's Bob's rejoinder:

I apologize for the length of this email. If it is just too long, I have bolded some pertinent facts to help you skim over it.

I am responding to an email that you may have recently received from Bert Buscher concerning membership stats for the PWC GOP committee. Bert summed up his email by stating that we have suffered a 60% loss in membership and that there is "no membership monitoring process or control process for signaling this problem". I am answering the email in my capacity as Membership Chairman of the Committee. Bert and I have discussed his views on this and I appreciate that he made attempts to correct his original data with information I gave him (members who joined but never attended, for example). Nonetheless, it seems to me that his data (and hence, his analysis) is flawed in several ways.

Wrong Comparison

Comparing a point of highest enrollment to a point at the end of the same committee cycle doesn't really tell you much. Every committee cycle tends to start with the core group, expand to include folks who are attracted by our activities and then fall off toward the end of the cycle. In our case, we started two years ago with 145 members and have ended up with a remarkably similar 144 members, for a net loss of 1 member.

A genuine comparison should be from one committee cycle to another. Unfortunately, for us this is problematic as well, because we have just started keeping good records in regard to the "3 meeting rule". So while I have a roster for 2002, it is hard to say if this is everyone who ever joined the committee (my guess) or just a snapshot at some point in time. In any event, the committee roster I have has 230 people on it. You will note that this is far less than the number who have joined during the current cycle (approximately 365). But if you calculate in a reasonable drop rate for the 3 meeting rule, you will end up somewhere in the neighborhood of the 125-150 members that have typified our committee for as long as I have been a member.

Is this a great victory? No, not particularly. But neither are we hemorrhaging members as Bert maintains. Anyone who has been around for any length of time can remember when we had no members from Neabsco. Few can remember a time when Brentsville was as robust as it is now. We have lost a few long time members and we have added a few new faces. But the truth is that the committee is remarkably stable, particularly in light of how disagreeable some of our meetings have been over the last two years.

Too Short A View

As noted, Bert's numbers cover a period of only 18 months, starting 5 months after the beginning of the current committee cycle and concluding 2 months prior to the end of this cycle. For anyone who has been involved in this committee for very long, it is clear that the 18 month period Bert uses was unusual in the life of the committee. In addition to a presidential campaign and a gubernatorial campaign, we had a contentious battle between two factions in our local committee. All of these things served to temporarily boost the numbers of people joining the committee. This was so much so, that we were temporarily unable to meet in McCoart, where we have met for nearly 10 years.

Monitoring and Control Process

As to Bert's final contention, we do have a monitoring and control process and it is exactly that process that Bert used to prepare his data. Every bit of data used in his analysis was gleaned from records we kept for the first time. Brian set up an ad hoc committee (Me, Steve Danziger, Jane Beyer) to establish a mechanism to keep proper records and to support the 3 meeting rule. We met several times and established a system of roll taking and rosters to mark committee membership. We produced new updates after each meeting (usually) and we notified folks when they were in danger of losing their membership (again, usually). The system was not flawless, but we did make this effort. If we had not, Bert would not have know how many folks joined, left, attended meetings, etc.

Conclusion

Bert draws a grim picture, but the historical data I provided above, would suggest otherwise. I hope folks find this information helpful.

Bob FitzSimmonds

Membership Chairman

Prince William Republican Committee