Unit Size

[davidsinn]

In another topic it was brought up that the effective minimum size town to host a CAP unit is 10k so I decided to look up mine. Our unit of 19 people is based in a town of 9.9k but we only have one member from that town. Nearly all of our people come from the next county over. What is your situation and thoughts?

[RiverAux]

That 10,000 number was based on my experience in my Wing under current conditions.  During WWII and even up until the 1960s in my Wing it was extremely common to have a squadron in towns even smaller than that.  So, if the US had another huge burst of patriotism, this might allow us to expand back into those smaller towns. 

On a macro scale, the number of people in any given CAP wing is very dependent on the population of that state.  I ran the statistical tests to prove that a while back.  But, as I said in the other thread, I think town population size (including the surrounding countryside) does impact the max CAP squadron size to a point.  I think you're going to have a tough time keeping a decent senior squadron going in a town with fewer than 50,000 people because of the fact that there aren't as many pilots in smaller towns and senior squadrons are almost always flying oriented.

I think that relationship isn't quite as stringent for cadet squadrons.  I think you can probably get a 10-15 cadet unit going in just about any town.  All you really need for that is a few adults and you can probably get the kids.  Just like you can get Boy Scout troops in fairly small towns.  However, to get a decent sized cadet unit (more than 50 kids), I think you're going to have to be in a fairly large town (50K+). 

There are always exceptions to every "rule", but I think real world experience is on my side. 

[NIN]

On a macro scale, the number of people in any given CAP wing is very dependent on the population of that state.  I ran the statistical tests to prove that a while back.  But, as I said in the other thread, I think town population size (including the surrounding countryside) does impact the max CAP squadron size to a point.  I think you're going to have a tough time keeping a decent senior squadron going in a town with fewer than 50,000 people because of the fact that there aren't as many pilots in smaller towns and senior squadrons are almost always flying oriented.

I think that relationship isn't quite as stringent for cadet squadrons.  I think you can probably get a 10-15 cadet unit going in just about any town.  All you really need for that is a few adults and you can probably get the kids.  Just like you can get Boy Scout troops in fairly small towns.  However, to get a decent sized cadet unit (more than 50 kids), I think you're going to have to be in a fairly large town (50K+). 

There are always exceptions to every "rule", but I think real world experience is on my side.

NHQ ran some stats awhile back, basically took the population of the US and divvied it against the CAP numbers to give you sort of a "If I have 50,000 people, how many CAP members do I have?" figure.

In my wing, even counting the county-sized area my unit drew from,  we should have had like 19 members based on that calculation.  We have over 90.

YMMV due to rural conditions, population density, transportation grids, etc.

[jimmydeanno]

The town that my unit is located in actually only has 802 residents.  However, the area that we pull our membership from has around 40K.  Our unit has 84 members currently and is growing.

My original unit WIWAC had about 30 members and was located in a small city of around 15K.

I think that a strong viable squadron, of any type, is able to be had in even the smallest of towns, depending on the motivation and ability of the local leadership to recruit members.

[FW]

This becomes an interesting mind game.

In New York, with about 19 million residents, there are about 2500 members which calculates to a 1:7600 ratio. 
In Pa., the ratio is 2400 to 12 million or 1:5000 or, twice the "ideal" ratio.
  (Philadelphia has 8 squadrons and about 300 members with a 1.2 mill population; ratio 1:4000

In Ca., the ratio is 4000 to 37 million or 1:9250

It would be interesting to study the wide variation we get in the larger wings and, it would be even more interesting to get the reasons for the variations we get in the smaller wings.

[Eeyore]

Oklahoma is about 1:5263.

[Майор Хаткевич]

IL is about 1:10110.94

1276 members to about 12,901,563 total population as of last year.

Of course take into account active membership, and that number is closer to 1:15000

[jimmydeanno]

It's definitely more difficult to determine ratios in rural areas because the membership draw is from a less centralized location.  For example, in NH, our northern most squadron draws membership from the entire northern half of the state, whereas Manchester is more likely to have members from only Manchester.

But New Hampshire's ratio is 1:2364
My particular unit's town is ~1:10 - but it's skewed because the town is really a bedroom community for the larger city next door.  We also have members from Maine, Massachusetts, and about 20 other towns in the area...

[High Speed Low Drag]

Arkansas Wing: (based on U.S. Census July 2008 estimated pop)

Cadet ratio (approx):  1:1807  (10 to 18)
Senior ratio (approx)  1: 5613 (18 to 65)

General ratio of members to AR population (Over age 9)  1: 4689

LR Squadron:

Members ratio to population of counties in LR Metro Area  1: 6325

[RiverAux]

It's definitely more difficult to determine ratios in rural areas because the membership draw is from a less centralized location. 

Correct, which is why I've never tried to do the stats at the squadron level.  The other thing that makes such analysis difficult is metropolitan areas with multiple squadrons.  Much harder to assign a specific "territory" to those units. 

[sardak]

Attached is a plot I generated earlier this year for one of RiverAux's threads, but never posted. I'm posting it now because it is somewhat more related to this thread.

It shows the CAP membership per 10,000 wing residents and by region. As discussed, analysis at the wing level doesn't provide a clue to estimating unit size for numerous reasons. It's more just to show where wings stand in relation to one another - for a given population. RA mentioned, and the plot shows, that "membership density" generally decreases with increasing wing population.  But as FW said, why this is, and why the spread for wings of similar population, are topics for someone's thesis, or over drinks at NSC.

Mike

[RiverAux]

I believe what we're seeing with CAP membership potential is that on a statewide basis, the larger the population, the larger your Wing membership is going to be.  However, what Mike's chart is showing is that the larger states are actually underperforming in terms of CAP membership.  For example, CA, FL, TX, and NY could probably have MUCH higher CAP membership than they do have. 

Why is that?  Well, we're probably doing as well as can be expected in most towns, but I think the problem lies in the larger metropolitan areas.  We could probably have more units in them than we do. 

For example, if you've got a city of 150,000, there are probably several Catholic churches serving that town, but we may only have 1 CAP squadron.  And there are going to be practical limits on how big that unit can be (space available to hold meetings).  So, if we opened up another squadron in that town, we may not double our membership, but we would increase it quite a bit as the new unit is probably going to be much more convenient for certain people who perhaps didn't want to drive their kids all the way across town every week. 

This analysis is really applicable to cadet units since I believe senior membership is more limited by the number of pilots in the town and availability of CAP aircraft.  That 150K town is only likely to support one senior squadron or composite squadron with a strong senior component.  However, you can probably get enough seniors to run a second cadet squadron.