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How many active members are there?


DurangoDrifter

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Curious as to how many active (attended a shoot in the past year) members there are, and how member numbers have been trending the past several years.

Is the Cowboy Action segment of shooting sports growing, staying the same, or declining?

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I wonder if a survey of local clubs might be illuminative. 

The recent ammo availability issue would certainly have an impact, and I wonder if - once ammo and components become less costly/scarce - people who may have paused their pursuit will return. I'm also curious about trends overall, particularly given the increase in gun ownership over the past few years.

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SASS as an organization = paying annual dues + Life Members  =  total Members which are active shooters?????

Local clubs members = X active shooters????

Our club has 44 members. Currently actually shooting 18

Members - Plague+old age+loading components+burned out = 18

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Ebb and flow...

Clubs start, others end...

Shooters start up, then pause for life situations, health or pass away...

 

New members are coming in...do the numbers out weigh the ones leaving?

 

Hard to guage. To keep a current count would be a 24/7 job.

 

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SASS HQ knows how many members there are.  They just do not publish stats very often.  In 2016 maps were distributed to the TG's for comments on a realignment of the Regions.  At that time four states had more than 1,000 members - California, Texas, Arizona and Florida (in that order).  It would be interesting if SASS would update that map to see where significant changes in membership numbers may have occurred.  At that time there were almost 25,000 members.

 

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Just as not all SASS members active shooters, neither are all active shooters SASS members.  There might be a correlation, but, probably not.   SASS member is pretty easy to define, but active shooter, not so much.

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29 minutes ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

At the last SASS Convention 2015 or so the membership was around 25,000.

If a life member passes away how does SASS know? They would still be listed as a member!

 

Their executor or family member may let SASS know.   We let the NRA know when my father in-law died.  We had changed his address to ours while he was in the nursing home, didn't need to have multiple issues of the Riflemen every month.

 

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You would have a hard time surveying clubs too. Lots of shooters are members of multiple clubs. At one time I was a member of 4 different clubs at the same time.

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For comparison purposes I think active just means those shooters who are interested enough to maintain their membership to the national organization by paying either lifetime or annual dues. SASS, IDPA, USPSA, ICORE, etc.

As far as how many are actually shooting whether it's once a year, half a dozen a year or several times a month, that's a different story.

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There are many shooters that are no longer SASS members. They don't see the value of the membership since the dues increased and CC has been cut down to a bi-annual publication. Now we have to deal with inflation, high fuel prices, and lack of components.

The current political climate isn't helping either. Then, there are clubs that don't get along and people are pissed about EOT and the National Championship being moved. Don't forget there are some upset about SASS HQ moving to Indiana and cherry picking the advisory board members without shooters or TG's having any input.

 

I'm just an observer, TG, and 25 + year life member. 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Assassin said:

cherry picking the advisory board members without shooters or TG's having any input.

SASS is a privately owned corporation. Why would they do that? Pole 25,000 members or whatever number of TG's. We can't even get the TG's together to vote on rules etc.

 

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15 minutes ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

SASS is a privately owned corporation. Why would they do that? Pole 25,000 members or whatever number of TG's. We can't even get the TG's together to vote on rules etc.

 

Yeah but if you were on the wire 3 years ago, someone said they were gonna go non profit.  Didn't happen

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42 minutes ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

SASS is a privately owned corporation. Why would they do that? Pole 25,000 members or whatever number of TG's. We can't even get the TG's together to vote on rules etc.

 

I just shared what others have told me.

However, I've served on a couple boards. The last thing you want is everyone agreeing without questioning issues. They would be doomed for failure.

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For the last eight or ten years I was working I had no time for CAS.  Having retired nine years ago, I have returned to shooting.  
 

As a life member, dropping in and dropping out really cannot be tracked.  I still get the Chronicle but otherwise I have not had any contact from SASS since about 2005.  Heck, I may be dead for ten years before they find I am gone.

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I guess you can say I'm active / semi active. I have attended 1 shoot so far, back end of last year. But working offshore and how cold it was month before last haven't been able to shoot another. Hoping to make this months shoot this coming Saturday. 

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SASS sends me a renewal request every Sept along with stickers.  How hard would it be to have a card in that packet, to be returned with the renewal, that asked questions like 'how many monthly matches did I shoot in the year', 'how many multi-day matches did I shoot' and 'do I plan to shoot more, less or the same in the upcoming year'.

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On 3/12/2022 at 8:01 PM, DurangoDrifter said:

Curious as to how many active (attended a shoot in the past year) members there are, and how member numbers have been trending the past several years.

Is the Cowboy Action segment of shooting sports growing, staying the same, or declining?

 

Why don't you call the SASS office and ask?

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8 hours ago, Tom Bullweed said:

SASS sends me a renewal request every Sept along with stickers.  How hard would it be to have a card in that packet, to be returned with the renewal, that asked questions like 'how many monthly matches did I shoot in the year', 'how many multi-day matches did I shoot' and 'do I plan to shoot more, less or the same in the upcoming year'.

 

Or, they could do another electronic survey of the membership like they did earlier this year.

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I doubt that we will ever find out how many current members (annual and Life members) that SASS has and it's pretty certain that we won't find out how many "Active" members there are, that's just too difficult.  Unfortunately there are some shooters that have decided to let their membership go, and from what I have seen in our area there are new shooters that have decided to simply not join SASS. I don't know of any clubs that require shooters to be SASS members in order to shoot and as long as they don't attend Sponsored matches it doesn't matter to them. The same question always is ask... why should I join SASS? That is the same question that many clubs are now asking. I hope we can turn that trend around. I know that evey year the question comes up at our club and I convince them to stay in SASS.  I wouldn't be surprise if the numbers of paid membership isn't moving toward the east. The West used to be the Strong hold but for various reasons  SASS's migration seems to be toward the East.  Every year there are fewer and fewer Westerner's involved in running and directing the game. If that trend continues, we might see very little Western influence in another 4 years.  One thing that you learn if you are around them much is that "Marketers" Greatly exaggerate virtually all of the facts that they have to work with in an attempt to sell their product. As one area becomes saturated moving to new areas is a must. We see it in virtually every area of Marketing. The financial bottom line is their only real goal. Anything goes when it comes to Marketing. I remember when a Marketing director convinced a vibrant and flourishing business to pack up the Golden Goose and move it to NM, where they killed it and had it for dinner. Exaggerating attendance numbers in order to charge Vendors more for a space  or to get sponsors to give you money works at first,  but eventually you must deliver of they will cease to provide support. In most cases, marketers need to redirect their skills after a while in order to find a new crop of people to market to. I think that is happening right now. Lets all hope that it works.  

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On 3/13/2022 at 6:59 PM, Assassin said:

...Don't forget there are some upset about SASS HQ moving to Indiana and cherry picking the advisory board members without shooters or TG's having any input....

 

 

I didn't realize SASS is membership owned.

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On 3/13/2022 at 3:57 PM, Irish Dan O'Shootem said:

 

I'm active  that's 2

I'm active, that's 3

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1 hour ago, Matthew Duncan said:

 

 

I didn't realize SASS is membership owned.

Just stating list concerns that shooters have mentioned to myself. However, the members do pay the bills and without them?????

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Its a private business so don't think you could expect a say. Kind a like being a gym member. You pay their bills with your membership also but you have zero say in the business.

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When the Chronicle was 100% paper, one could determine the number of members because Postal Notice had to beposted in the magazine with the number of magazines mailed. Now it is a combo of paper and Internet which doesn’t have to be counted in the Notice

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very interesting to note how many shooters there are in the states that are anti-shooting , i commend yall on upholding our rights as free humans , i am startelled at how few are shown in my area - it always seems like we have more , 

 

i have always shot age based categories , ive always been in a large group category , i told myself it was because there were a bunch of us shooting , now im feeling like i fall in the demographic ..........hope the younge5r categories fill up real soon , otherwise its just gonna be us geriatrics shooting and it wont be near as much fun , 

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