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Chlorine ChronicleNMSC Nov/04 NewsletterBy the NumbersNewsletter Contents | Previous Article | Next Article by Ian Button I decided I would share with everyone some information about our club. As an economist I love numbers and one day I was wondering, just how big is the Nepean Masters Swim Club? I'll save that for the end, first lets digest the club… We are dedicated folk! Next to the cleaning staff, NMSC swimmers are usually the first ones at the Walter Baker Centre and the last ones to leave…7 days a week. The club offers four main groups (A, B, C and D) and two sub-groups (T and S). In total we have spots for 328 swimmers per week. Since groups D, T and S are not completely full, we only use 300 of those spots. Not bad. Last week I registered 241 swimmers with Masters Swimming Ontario, so that means 59 swimmers are doubling up. That is, they are swimming in multiple groups, for instance, C and D, or A and T, etc. Of the 241 members for 2004-2005 so far, 56 are new to the club. Many of the 56 are (or I should say were) complete strangers to club swimming when they joined. I also expect that in January I will be registering even more as I already have several people waiting to join, and the waiting list for the full groups continues to grow. And in case you didn't know, the club has a 14 member executive team who meet once a month to discuss all the technical details like washroom cleanliness and the latest fuss about lanes ropes…okay we do a little more, but I won't bore you. We also have 7 coaches dedicated to helping us improve. Girls outnumber the boys. 54% of members are female, with Group D comprising the largest percentage of women at 64%. Group T has the largest percentage of men (59%). Interestingly Group C is split 50-50. The Female to Male percentages for each group is as follows: A: 47% - 53% B: 58% - 42% C: 50% - 50% D: 64% - 36% T: 41% - 59% S: 57% - 42% As this is a masters group, I can't move on without discussing our age. Our youngest member is 18 years old and our two most experienced are 62 years of age. The club average age is 41 years with a median age of 41 as well. The oldest group is…okay okay I'll spare you guys. The youngest group is Group D at 37 years. The age distribution by Masters Swim Canada 5-year age cohorts for the entire club is as follows: U20 - 0.4%; 20-24 - 1.7%; 25-29 - 8.3%; 30-34 - 14.2%; 35-39 - 18.8%; 40-44 - 22.5%; 45-49 - 18.3%; 50-54 - 8.8%; 55-59 - 4.6%; 60-64 - 2.5% So for those of you who are not 'numbers' people, here is your reward for making it to the end of this article. Last year NMSC registered 249 swimmers with MSO, the next largest club in Ontario registered 115 swimmers. So not only are we big, but we are the biggest. Your registrar, Ian |