Warning! The numbers below may be very inaccurate! Very!
I needed to get that warning out of the way... I arrived at these membership numbers using the congregational quota contributions from the GA's 2009 Annual Report. I simply divided by £24 and rounded, as each chapel was meant to contribute £24 per member in 2009. Some chapels give more and some give less. Some chapels have not cleaned out their membership list in a while. It happens... Life is messy.
Nonetheless, as the old management adage goes, "you can't manage what you can't measure." If we are trying to measure growth, we need to be able to measure it.
Admittedly, weekly attendance is a better, more reliable measure than membership, but you have to use what you've got. So, here are the 2009 numbers!
If anyone would like to correct the numbers listed for their chapel, please feel free to post a comment.
Congregation | Members |
Aberdare | 23 |
Aberdeen | 50 |
Ainsworth | 17 |
Alltyblaca | 3 |
Altrincham | 50 |
Ashton-in-Makerfield | 52 |
Atherton | 59 |
Banbury | 10 |
Bath | 7 |
Bedfield | 2 |
Belper | 4 |
Billingshurst | 7 |
Birmingham Edgbaston | 48 |
Birmingham Hollywood | 50 |
Blackpool | 19 |
Bolton Bank Street | 56 |
Bolton Chorley New Road | 19 |
Bolton Egerton | 29 |
Bolton Halliwell Road | 15 |
Boston | 9 |
Bournemouth | 8 |
Bradford Russell Street | 17 |
Bradford Unitarians | 17 |
Bridgwater | 5 |
Bridport | 12 |
Brighton | 38 |
Bristol Brunswick Square | 14 |
Bristol Frenchay | 19 |
Bury | 81 |
Bury St Edmunds | 22 |
Cambridge | 49 |
Capel Ifan | 0 |
Cardiff West Grove | 18 |
Cefn Coed y Cymer | 23 |
Cellan | 2 |
Chatham | 8 |
Chelmsford | 10 |
Cheltenham | 11 |
Chester | 10 |
Chesterfield | 4 |
Chorley | 23 |
Ciliau Aeron | 2 |
Cirencester | 6 |
Coseley | 7 |
Coventry | 10 |
Cradley | 24 |
Crewkerne | 12 |
Cribyn | 5 |
Croydon | 49 |
Cullompton | 6 |
Cwmsychbant | 5 |
Cwrtnewydd | 7 |
Dean Row | 84 |
Denton | 0 |
Derby | 7 |
Ditchling | 16 |
Doncaster | 18 |
Douglas | 6 |
Dover | 5 |
Dudley | 1 |
Dukinfield | 50 |
Dundee | 35 |
Eccles | 64 |
Edinburgh | 54 |
Enfield | 16 |
Evesham | 26 |
Felinfach | 2 |
Framlingham | 10 |
Glasgow | 38 |
Gloucester | 8 |
Godalming | 34 |
Great Hucklow | 19 |
Great Yarmouth | 11 |
Hale Barns | 29 |
Hastings | 16 |
Hinckley | 64 |
Hindley | 12 |
Horsham | 29 |
Horwich | 6 |
Hull | 27 |
Hyde | 2 |
Hyde Flowery Field | 8 |
Hyde Gee Cross | 12 |
Ipswich | 38 |
Kendal | 47 |
Kidderminster | 29 |
Knutsford | 53 |
Lampeter | 14 |
Leeds | 30 |
Leicester | 25 |
Lincoln | 13 |
Liverpool Gateacre | 19 |
Liverpool Sefton Park | 28 |
Liverpool Toxteth | 9 |
Llandysul | 4 |
Llanwnnen | 8 |
London Bethnal Green | 0 |
London Brixton | 0 |
London Golders Green | 39 |
London Hampstead | 163 |
London Islington/Newington Green | 56 |
London Kensington | 50 |
London Lewisham | 13 |
London Stratford | 5 |
Loughborough | 2 |
Lytham St Annes | 14 |
Macclesfield | 42 |
Maidstone | 7 |
Manchester Chorlton | 10 |
Manchester Cross Street | 26 |
Manchester Dob Lane | 15 |
Manchester Gorton | 14 |
Mansfield | 48 |
Mossley | 12 |
New Mill | 6 |
Newcastle | 22 |
Newcastle upon Tyne | 21 |
Newport | 7 |
Northampton | 8 |
Norwich | 34 |
Nottage | 12 |
Nottingham | 21 |
Oldbury | 4 |
Oldham | 10 |
Oxford | 36 |
Padiham | 50 |
Plymouth | 22 |
Pontsian | 5 |
Portsmouth | 45 |
Prengwyn | 6 |
Pudsey | 12 |
Rawtenstall | 8 |
Richmond | 34 |
Rivington | 19 |
Rochdale | 54 |
Scarborough | 13 |
Sevenoaks | 26 |
Sheffield Fulwood | 48 |
Sheffield Norfolk Street | 56 |
Sheffield Stannington | 24 |
Shrewsbury | 25 |
Sidmouth | 4 |
Southampton | 16 |
Southend-on-Sea | 3 |
Southport | 10 |
Stalybridge | 12 |
Stockport | 8 |
Stockton-on-Tees | 21 |
Stourbridge | 7 |
Styal | 24 |
Swansea | 12 |
Talgarreg | 8 |
Taunton | 13 |
Tenterden | 8 |
Torquay | 9 |
Trebanos | 19 |
Trowbridge | 20 |
Urmston | 46 |
Wakefield | 17 |
Warrington | 14 |
Warwick | 18 |
Watford | 11 |
Whitby | 7 |
Whitefield | 53 |
Wick | 10 |
Wirral | 19 |
Wolverhampton | 2 |
Worthing | 4 |
York | 40 |
Well, by the magic of Excel, I've been able to do a few calculations with those ESTIMATED figures...
ReplyDeleteOut of 170 congregations, there are a total of 3658 registered members. This gives a mean average of 21.52 members per congregation.
This is slightly higher than in the letter to "The Inquirer" discussed on Stephen Lingwood's blog a few months back.
Discrepencies I can identify include:
1. Islington/Newington Green has grown since the figures were compiled (right?).
2. Denton definitely has members (Some of us are in contact with its lay leader).
3. Stockport Unitarian Church closed down in July 2009. Incidentally, Stockport Metropolitan Borough is where I live and is now the only Greater Manchester borough without a Unitarian congregation.
I understand there are a handful of local fellowships which are not part of the GA, due to their inability (or is it unwillingness?) to pay per-head-fees.
While the figures are certainly not accurate, they work as a rough guide. There certainly should be more precise figures available, howver, and this has been appealed for many times. Sometimes, people don't know the membership figures for their own congregations.
While attendance at some congregations may be higher than the membership number indicates, I expect that average main service attendance is lower than the membership total in many communities. Factors determining this will include
a) membership lists not being "cleaned out" as stated above,
b) the requirements for membership set by each congregation,
c) the inclusion (or not) of children on the membership list,
d) the number of frail or housebound members, or
e) fluctuating attendance at services in some congregations (such as my own, due to its location outside a residential area).
I do believe there are somewhat more than 3658 people involved in our movement in some way overall, due to the midweek activities many chapels run, which will include people who do not become regularly involved in the main act of worship, but still be part of the life of a congregation.
The figures should still be a wake-up call for all Unitarians in the UK (the two GA-affiliated congregations in the Republic of Ireland aren't included), especially their leaders, and I would raise the following questions and make some suggestions.
Is there a GA-recommended definition of a church member, or is it entirely in the hands of a local congregation? How honest are local congregations being about their own membeship figures, particularly when making contributions to the GA? Clear guidance is needed to ensure more accurate figures (and fair GA contributions) are submitted.
With such a small average congregation size (though quite a wide range), how well is national leadership equipping our congregations to make the most of being small in the present and equip them to grow for the future? Are the GA and Districts filling the right skills gaps to support smaller congregations, particularly those who want to invest in the future? Essex Hall (and the districts) need to ensure resources and training are geared towards assisting small congregations, offering something different to many of the American Christian (and even UU) initiatives which treat a "small" congregation as having 100 people.
Great comment Tim!
ReplyDeleteYes - the NG/I membership is now up to 84. There's a lag between growth and reporting, apparently...
Your last paragraph is especially to the point. How can we best invigorate the congregations that can survive?
Andy
Ah! You know I've been wanting these figures for a long time. These kind of numbers should be public knowlege. Thanks for doing this Andy!
ReplyDeleteYes, the numbers do hide a great deal, but they do also reveal a great deal. We should be in no doubt that this is what our tiny denomination looks like.
Our number is accurate. Though I don't expect it to go up any time soon, as there is probably a little bit of "clearing up" still to do done, and our age profile means that we will lose members through death in coming years. I'm more interested in average attendance at the moment. That number can go up considerably before our membership number will budge.
I've taken to the practice of reporting average attendance and membership numbers at our AGM. Congregations and the GA should do the same.
More Excel magic [yes, two can play at this game Tim, my friend!] tells us that:
ReplyDeletethe median congregation size is 15
the mode of the congregational distribution is 8
I never got much out of the mode [statisticians, please feel free to chime in and give us your best stdevs and such!] but the median is a good way to discount the effects of a few outlying points. So, although the mean is just over 20 people, the median, at 15, tells us what it really feels like in most congregations.
84 congregations have fewer than 15 members
46 congregations have 15-30 members
25 congregations have 31-50 members
14 congregations have more than 50 members
How many of these congregations will survive?
The Bristol figures do not reflect attendance at Bright Lights; also many Sundays at Frenchay have more than 19 people present.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see which of the congregations are more Christocentric and which are more pluralist (as it is sometimes claimed that Christocentric congregations are growing); which have a minister and which do not (I can see a few on the list that I know to have a minister which also have a larger congregation).
Yewtree - these are meant to be based on membership, rather than attendance, of course.
ReplyDeleteYes, it would be interesting to compare growth rates over time with a variety of parameters.
Presumably, one can get hold of previous annual reports and look at growth rates...
I *thought* there was a Unitarian church in Salisbury Wiltshire and, sure enough, I was right. I notice however that it meets in the United Reformed Church building. Is this why it does not figure in your list?
ReplyDeleteGood question Robin. I have no idea... You're right though. They appear to exist.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can look into that.
ReplyDeleteI *may* pop over your side of the pond later this summer and check it out myself.
WVC = beret
The current numbers for Birmingham Edgbaston are 54. We have only just begun tracking average attendance - we think it's around the 30 mark.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite statistic is that the majority of Unitarians belong to a congregation of more than 30 members. That suggests that the majority of Unitarians worship in services with 15 or more other people. Small communities, certainly, but communities nonetheless.
Hi Angela,
ReplyDeleteThat does put a nicer light on it, but another way to think about the future is to ask the likelihood that a new potential Unitarian will encounter a reasonably well-attended service on their first visit. If membership of at least 30 (average attendance of roughly half that) is the dividing point, then the odds are just under one in four...
To look at the chances that an enquirer will go to a reasonably well attended service, you need to look geographically I think.
ReplyDeleteIn London, for example, the chances are excellent in North London, and significantly less so in South London. In Bolton, your chances are 1 in 2 at best. On the other hand, in south Birmingham you're almost guaranteed to hit on a well attended service. Manchester is a centre of Unitarianism, but it has a lot of smaller congregations.
People are likely to try out a congregation near where they live, so it's not possible to extrapolate nationally. There are after all, swathes of the country where there are no Unitarians at all.
What would be really clever, would be a map with density of Unitarians @ services. Would be time consuming to do unfortunately.