The following chart shows the rise and fall of the membership for the first 20 years. We climbed quickly to the 2,500 area in our early years. This made us the fifth largest users group in the world and the largest on the West Coast. We managed to stay around that number for seven out of our twenty years.
You will notice the quick climb after bubble 3 (DOS 6.0 release) and bubble 4 (Bill Gates' visit) on the chart. Those were big events, with well over a thousand people, where Microsoft paid $10 of new members' $25 dues. This gave us a growth of over 500 members in less than a year, taking us over 3000. Most of those people never renewed at the full price.
Shortly after reaching that high level, we started our current slide that has brought us back under 500 members. Oddly enough, we are still one of the largest user groups, but I do not know our rank.
The reasons for the decline are not fully known. User groups all over the world experienced similar declines in membership; many saw the decline long before we did. Popular explanations for the decline are: Improved stability of computers and software, and The Internet (for providing an alternate place for people to get information that they normally got from user groups)
As someone who has served as meeting coordinator, president, and editor, I have wondered if I was doing something wrong to cause the declines. I cannot point to any changes in any of those positions that had any real effect, either up or down. Contrary to predictions, we did not decline sharply when we raised the dues or stopped printing Sacra Blue.
I placed some historic events on the graph, marked with numbered bubbles. This may help you in drawing your own conclusions for the rise and fall of the membership. Look at the timeline and see if you see something that I missed.
- First visit by Bill Gates.
- Second visit by Bill Gates.
- DOS 6.0 release.
- Third visit by Bill Gates.
- Microsoft Bob released.
- Windows 3.0 released.
- Windows 3.1 released.
- Windows 95 released.
- Windows 98 released.
- Windows ME released.
Do note the small peak after the release of Microsoft "Bob." Then the following month, everything was downhill from there. Could that just be a coincidence?
We still have a record within reach. We are close to giving out the membership card to member number 10,000.
