AAA Galactic Member Survey Readout

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Galactic Survey this summer, with special thanks to Preston Stahley, Alfredo Viegas, Rori Baldari, Kat Troche, and Parker Bossier for pitching in to help promote the survey. We have a new snapshot of membership: 

• Who and where are the members?
• What do they care about?
• When did they join?
• Why did they join?
• How would they like to see the club evolve?

We had responses from 106 members, about a fifth of the currently active membership. Here are the key findings: 

Where Are Members Based?

About half are in Manhattan and Brooklyn. We have a bigger group from “Other” – outside the metropolitan area – than Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island combined. Some of the “Other” members are fully remote participants who were attracted by the Gateway Remote Telescope program. But many are familiar faces who were active in the club during the past decade but who have relocated out of the city. The pandemic obviously disrupted our in-person activities, but like all organizations that embraced Zoom and other remote meeting technology, we opened a significant portion of club activity to colleagues around the world. In my Urban Astrophotography classes, I’ve had participants from Brazil, London, and Hawaii so I see Zoom as a valuable enabler. Wading through the extensive comments provided in the survey, it’s clear that most members want to retain the option of a “Hybrid” operation in which we have both in-person events (like socials, outreach, and Starfest) and Zoom-amenable activities (Lectures and Classes). A handful “hate” Zoom and wish we would herd everyone together like the “good old days”, but this small minority was outweighed by people citing the benefits of remote access, whether it’s working Classes into a complicated schedule; avoiding travel which may have become more complex; or simply making it less stressful for a shy new member to engage with the group.

When and Why Did Members Join AAA? 

Not surprisingly, a “love of astronomy” or “desire to learn more about astronomy” were popular answers and many were explicit regarding seeking a “community” of like-minded people to share our passion. One insight from mining the responses is seeing the role of “Astrophotography (AP)” in these responses – there’s a pattern here which I comment upon in every round of Urban Astrophotography:  Things changed around 2015. About 1/3 of survey respondents joined the club before 2015, and not a single one mentioned AP as a reason for joining. But AP was one of the most common responses for why people have joined in the past 5 years. In Urban AP I describe the change as the “CMOS Revolution” – in short, technological improvements in cameras, software, and tracking mounts made AP a much more accessible hobby, and in light-polluted settings like ours it opened access to the “deep sky” through both serious imaging as well as Electronic Assisted Astronomy (EAA). This change is evident across the amateur astronomy world – you can see it in Cloudy Nights, on the exhibit floor at NEAF, and in magazines like S&T; and of course, it goes hand in hand with the presence of Astro content in Instagram and other social media. So, it’s not a surprise that our club has evolved as well, with many people – including many of those folks who joined a decade or more ago who still love visual observation – engaging on AP via Classes, our AP Google Group, the Gateway Remote Telescope, or EAA at observing events.

What Do Members Care About? 

We gave members a few ways to characterize how they participate in club activities and which activities are most important to them now and for the foreseeable future. Regarding current activities, here are responses across the 10 major club activity streams, shown in the order asked:

The easiest way to see what matters to club members is by the size of the green bars, which reflect the “no interest” response. The small green bars for Lectures, Classes, and Eyepiece are no surprises – these are club mainstays, and many members participate regularly or in a leadership role (e.g., classes instructor or observing site captain). Also unsurprising were the high levels of engagement for Observing, Major events (like Starfest), and Social Events. The Gateway Remote Telescope had a strong showing given the newness of this activity, and as mentioned above regarding astrophotography, this has helped bring new members into the club while also engaging longstanding members. Next was Dark Site (e.g., North South Lake) observing trips, with an actively engaged subset of the metropolitan area members.

Two activities lagged the others. Club Administration/Website sounds like less fun than everything listed above, but please recognize that we have a dedicated core of leaders and volunteers who “keep the lights on” for everyone’s benefit. My two cents here is that it can be highly satisfying to use your expertise and join in with others to make the club bigger, better, and more successful for all. More than half of respondents said “No Interest” in pitching in, which may be a lingering hangover effect of the pandemic, and the club’s new leadership is actively exploring how to ensure that we refresh the pool of active contributors. It was encouraging to see about 3 dozen respondents check the “I want to do more for the club” box and current leaders are aware of this list and hoping to find good ways to engage everyone. If you’re reading this and thinking that you do want to help ASAP, please shoot a note to Alfredo or Bryanne!

Finally, a handful of respondents expressed enthusiasm for the Bronx Observatory, but about half of respondents indicated a current and future lack of interest.

For what it’s worth here is the response summary for which activities are most important for the future, and the takeaways are essentially the same as described above (note that here the orange bar signifies “no interest”): 

What Else?

The survey was structured to allow lots of room for comments, and members had a lot to say! All of the comments have been shared with the Directors, Officers, and Committee Leaders of the club. Here are a few themes that came through:

• People miss the Lectures at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Note that coming out of the pandemic, AMNH also has new leadership and priorities, and AAA leaders continue to explore how best to re-establish this relationship. Stay tuned…
• There were many helpful suggestions about using Social Media, mostly regarding the value of coordinating better across different platforms. This again is an area for which if you want to apply your time and expertise to move the ball downfield, club leadership would love to hear from you!
• More than 2 dozen people raised their hands to help with planning Centennial activities (and have likely heard from the relevant planning committee by now).
• There were many positive comments and helpful suggestions about Classes and GRT in particular, all being digested by the relevant committees
• By and large the tone of comments was very positive – people value the club for what it is and are looking forward to seeing the club get bigger and better at carrying out our mission to bring the wonders of the cosmos to the community! 

Once again, thanks for your participation in the survey. If you have questions or suggestions about the survey, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]