We want to thank all of you that took the time to complete our 2017 survey. Your feedback really helps us understand where we need to focus our efforts. As some of you will remember, we last did a member survey in March of 2014. This year we repeated most of the topics so now we have some indication of the member preferences over time.

Before diving into the numbers, we should note that the survey results published in the March 2017 Northlander show only the first page of the survey. Both pages will be available in the April issue. Apologies for any confusion.

There were 116 of you that completed this year's survey. In 2014 we had 93 members complete the survey. We now have the ability to send emails to NCR members as opposed anyone that has registered at the web site so we sent the survey intiially to our list of 537 email addresses. Approximately 40 percent of you read the email and there was a 25 percent increase in completed responses.

You can peruse the numbers yourself at this link, and we will summarize them below:

1. Over 75 percent of you marked your primary benefit as Driving Events or Publications. This is good news and bad news that we will expand on in a future communication;
2. Over 50 percent of you attended less than five events last year and plan to attend that amount this year;
3. Over 70 percent of you use online resources to find out about events;
4. Calendar date, Family Obligations, Travel Distance, and Work Schedule get in the way of you attending events;
5. Over 20 percent of you think that we have enough events; and
6. Many of you are will to help at the events.

When we compare these numbers to the responses in 2014 at this link, we can see that the majority of the responses to the questions are similar with one exception.

Changes make a difference.

What do we mean by changes. One of the frustrating facts of running a volunteer organization is that you must focus on only what you can control. A good example of what we can't control is represented by the responses to What limits your ability to attend events? (item 4 above).  What we can control is using the resources available to the club to provide events that members will attend. The best example of this type of change is the 50 percent increase in interest in Rallies from 2014 to 2017.  The other change is that the majority of you affirmed your support for NCR Events Emails. In 2014 this method wasn't mentioned; while in 2017, it was the top response for your primary source of event information.

Going forward, we will focus less on holding more events and more on improving the experience and execution of each event. One of our challenges is to find an effective means to leverage your willingness to help, so we will continue to emphasize communications to and from members. Beginning this month we will be replacing the first of the bi-weekly event notification emails with the First Friday update. The First Friday update will briefly describe the any changes in the club and the current month's activities. 

Thanks again for taking the time and staying involved in your club.