Membership numbers / hobby size

[Roy Laurie]

I managed to find my original membership card last night and noticed that that if the numbers are sequential then in the last 13 years the BTS has only had around 2600 new members.

This raised a couple of questions to me if anybody would like to hazard a guess at the answers!

How many active members are there these days? I expected there to be 1000's more members as I get the impression that a hobby that seemed to be in decline before has actually made a massive comeback.
Is the hobby actually growing or does it just seems that way with everything so available on the internet these days?

Incidentally, do T's still get well represented at the herp shows as I noticed there is a show in a couple of weeks and it would be good to have a day out to get back into the thick of things?

[Ray Hale]

Good question Roy. The BTS membership has over the years fluctuated. I think we are on around membership numer 5000 now. That doesnt mean we have 5000 members as obvioulsy some people leave the hobby for whatever reason. Some just leave the Society or decide to seek information from the web. The internet has played a major part in many societies decline over tha last few years. Clubs and Societies once relied on monthly meetings or telephone calls to other members to keep in touch. These days with a touch of button you can chat with another enthusiast in Singapore or the USA. there can be no doubt that during the late 90's there was a sharp decline in most exoctic clubs. Those that held on have emmerged with a loyal hardcore number of members. That is not to say that the internet is the "tool of the devil" as I once heard it described but it has had a major impact on all clubs fortunes. Today most of our members come from the internet. Many are foreign ( Germany is the most supportive with many members although the USA, despite having its own successful club, the ATS is a close second) although there are still agood number in the UK.
I would also add that our Facebook site continue to be well supported although many of the users are not subscribing members of the BTS. The reason for this are again understandable and its no good moanong on about why they are not members. Many of them are again from further fields and it is often difficult to move funds. It is safe to say that as a club the BTS welcomes all tarantula keepers. To us it is about the spider. It doesnt matter if you are a member or not myself and other enthusiast will always be on hand to offer advice if asked.
The answer to your second question about herp shows. Yes Tarantulas are well represented at such shows although there are a number of invert shows popping up. The BTS Exhibition is now in its 29th year and has moved to the RICOH ARENA, Coventry CV6 6GE for this year (18th May 2014..visit www.exhibition.thebts.co.uk) and the AES show continues ever on.

[Roy Laurie]

I noticed that the Facebook page does seem to get a lot more activity than the forum here but that is not a surprise as Google and Facebook are everybody's first port of call these days so nobody needs to join anymore.
I was hoping for some exciting and intellectual words to flow off my fingers to explain why I joined anyway; but none came! Then again I won't need to explain to the other members anyway!

When I first got into the hobby the internet was starting to be useful so I was lucky enough to be able to chat to everybody through mailing lists or message boards.

I've already gone from "the only 3 I'm getting" to 5 T's now so it looks like the hobby is still as addictive as ever so I will be going to as many shows as possible.