Membership statistics
Derek Peirce considers the integrity of the tabular statement
A paragraph on the Eye page in a recent issue of the Friend (1 July) drew attention to the difference in the new Book of Meetings between the number of members recorded for each Meeting and the average attendance at Meetings for Worship ‘as reported by each Meeting’. I do not know where the latter figures come from since I have never been asked, as membership clerk for my Area Meeting, to provide a regular formal record or estimate of this. (The only possible source I can think of is the one-off snapshot return requested separately from Meetings by Bill Chadkirk and Ben Pink Dandelion in May 2010.)
The annual tabular statement form asks for the number of attenders, which is, as I understand it, the number of those not in membership who attend regularly, but it does not ask for the overall average attendance. But in any case the point highlighted by Eye is an important one that I feel we have overlooked for too long.
Obviously members cannot be expected to attend every Meeting for Worship and some who are well known to us as formerly active Friends are prevented, for reasons of infirmity, other personal circumstances or stage in their spiritual lives, from attending at all; we hold them tenderly in our thoughts. However, apart from these, there is a significant proportion of members who never attend Meeting for Worship or play any part at all in the life of the Society from one year’s end to the next, making their links with their Meetings tenuous or non-existent. In my Area Meeting this accounts for well over a quarter of the recorded membership, including a number of Friends who have long beebn permanently resident overseas.
Most of these memberships seem to be retained purely for historical, family or sentimental reasons and overseers are unwilling to cause hurt or dissention by suggesting resignations or terminations. My problems with this are simply that for these people little or no oversight and care is possible and, secondly, that to publish or circulate the formally recorded membership as an indication of the strength of the Society seems to be inconsistent with our testimony to truth. I think that the decision to hold Yearly Meeting Gathering in Canterbury this year may have been influenced by the impression given by the records that active local Friends available to help are more numerous than in fact they are.
All this was in my mind when the 2010 Tabular Statement tables arrived on my doormat as a supplement to Documents in Advance compiled for Yearly Meeting Gathering. If, as appears clear, my Area Meeting is not alone in its figures failing lamentably to give a realistic picture of the strength of the Society in its part of the country, I have to question the value of the several pages of detailed tables distributed. Membership clerks throughout the country have to spend a good deal of time on the complicated forms required at the end of each year and it must be a costly exercise in Friends House compiling these tables from the returns.
Maybe there is a purpose in it all that I fail to appreciate; if so perhaps someone could enlighten me. I would favour the replacement of the present Tabular Statement with a simple return of the average attendance at each local Meeting for Worship, compiled from regular head counts and covering both members and attenders, together with a note of the number of those unable to attend our Meetings but regarded as being in fellowship with us.
Comments
Derek Peirce wrote, (The only possible source I can think of is the one-off snapshot return requested separately from Meetings by Bill Chadwick and Ben Pink Dandelion in May 2010.)” “Bill Chadwick” should be “Bill Chadkirk”, and he has asked for at least three returns. The biggest fiction and offence against truth in the Tabular Statement is the count of “attenders”. While QF&P gives a definition of the word “attender”, it is so imprecise for this purpose that it is almost useless. What counts as “frequently”? Three weeks out of every four? Once a month? Do we still count someone who hasn’t been seen for a month, or three months, or how long? My own Monthly Meeting (as it was then) discussed whether it should adopt a common understanding of how we should count when completing the tabular statement, but decided that each meeting would be left to count in the way that it thought best.”
By DavidHitchin on 21st July 2011 - 11:16
Dear David, Thank you for picking up on the ‘Chadwick’ error, this has now been corrected. Elinor Smallman Production Editor, The Friend
By ElinorS on 21st July 2011 - 11:40
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