Continued from the Executive Director's packet of material for the
BOD meeting:

Overall, Rogallo Division (HG/PG/Both, Rogallo, Family, Life)
continues to hover around the 9600 mark, with growing trends in PG and Bi-Wing
and declining trends in HG and the overall figure. From August 2005 to August
2006 along the trend line, the Association saw an overall loss of 1.6%, down
about 150 members. HG division lost about 4.8% of their number and PG grew 1.23%
and bi-wing grew 5. 36%.

Hang gliding down, paragliding up, both up a little (absolute
numbers).

Strategic Plan Membership Target – Assuming that the launch point
of the Strategic Plan was Fall 2005 when it was approved, the Association
membership was 9736 members on the date the Plan was approved. This means the 10
year target is 19,472. This would have required the Association to pick up a net
average of 975 members per year to meet this goal. As of August 31, 2006, the
membership numbers should be at 10,500, adding a net average of 80 members per
month (10,580 on Sep 31, 2006). However, the Association has taken a net loss of
130 members, meaning that now, the Association must average 1,100 members net
gain, per year, for the next nine years to meet the goal and compensate for the
Year 1 loss.


New Members – From August 2005 – August 2006, the Association saw 1097 new
members in the Association. This is down from 1146 from August 2004 – August
2005, 49 fewer this year than last.

We are losing net member (sport participants), not gaining them.

Returning Members – As a point of trivia, on average, the
Association sees about 45 members per year return to the Association who haven’t
been in the Association since 2000.

Some folks come back.

An eight month comparison of ratings completed from Jan05-Aug-05
compared to Jan06-Aug06 shows a significant falloff in ratings issued for
H-1(-23.4%), H-2 (-33%), and H-3 (-37.1%). Paragliding ratings are down P-1
(-21%) and P-2 (-4%) and are up for P-3, P-4, and P-5.

We are way down in bringing in new students. Jayne wrote to me:

By the way, according to Steve Roti's recent database query, there
are approx. 623 uniquely certified USHPA instructors. There were about 575 when
Tim Herr and I began to talk about professional liability insurance a few years
ago. There has been an increase in the number of certified instructors since
2004 (I think) but I don't have a breakdown of the type etc.

Rick's analysis in the packet states:

Since September 2004 , which , the number of available instructors
across the board has been generally stable, with modest rises in Paragliding.

There is a long term decline in the number of ratings issued in
both hang gliding and paragliding.