Membership Survey 2024

Many thanks to everyone who completed the 2024 membership survey. You can read about the survey and the results below.

Introduction

The survey was a follow-up to the 2024 survey and was intended to help the committee:

• assess the importance to members of the services the club provides and whether members feel that these services represent value for money
• test member support for how we might address key issues facing the club and ski touring more generally, including climate change, training and becoming tour leaders
• help us to plan future priorities and activities.

The survey was run through SurveyMonkey and the questions were designed by a sub-group comprising Mark Adams, Richard Davison, Mary Edgerton, Pete Lancaster, Declan Phelan, and Tom Rye. The survey was promoted through an email to all subscribing members, the e-newsletter, our Facebook private page, our WhatsApp community, and the website. It was open between 7 to 30 September.

Summary of findings

The survey reports can be found lower down on this page. The main points are:

• There were 323 responses, which is a 21% response rate. This is considered to be reasonable for a club survey.
• The respondents were broadly representative of the club membership.
• 82% say that the membership fee represents good or very good value for money.
• Most members are satisfied or very satisfied with the services we provide, particularly the touring programme, Yearbook and website.
• Members would like to see more trips in the touring programme, particularly member-led trips.
• There appears to be a reasonably healthy pool of potential leaders amongst respondents  and this will be crucial if we are to provide more member-led trips.
• 81% believe that it is very important or important that the club works on climate care issues, though 72% feel that what the club is doing now is “about right”.
• Possible climate care actions with the highest level of support included publicising, for information and individual choice, a carbon cost for each tour and the various travel options, adding more information to the club website about these issues and options, and refocusing club investments towards more sustainable low carbon investments.
• Options that were more about directional action (such as carbon levies or more trips where you had to travel by rail) were less well supported and generated higher levels of disagreement amongst members.
• Many comments supported the need to increase diversity within the club, particularly younger members and more female members, and make it easier for new members – and those relatively new to ski touring – to find their way in the club and get on their first tour.
• It’s very important to continue to emphasise the importance of safety and safer ski touring in everything that the club does.

The results are described in three documents:

• a summary of the main results
• a basic analysis of the raw data from the survey
• a list of comments from respondents (organised under some useful headings)