The membership list is categorised by title, postcode (address), year joined, ‘* for joint with SOG’, membership category, and interests.

Title (gender and profession)

One hundred and twenty six members give no title. There are 44 members listed as ‘Dr’ but it is not possible to tell if this is a professional or medical qualification.

Excluding the category ‘Dr’ (either male or female) approximately 68 % of the members are male. It is a pity that it is no longer politically correct to give professional qualifications as this would be a guide to level of expertise in particular natural history topics.

Year joined

The number of members joining in each year is shown in the graph.

The number of members who joined prior to about 1990, especially in the early years, has been reduced by such factors as age and change in circumstances. Since 1990, however, it is reasonable to assume that the number of members is a reliable indicator of numbers joining in a particular year. From 1990 to 1999 between 25 and 47 people joined each year. From 2000 the number enrolling has declined each year.

It might be worth researching the Society’s activities and programs during the period from 1990 to 1999 to identify the reasons for the level of recruitment.

Address

The distribution of members was investigated using the postcode, where given (30 members had no UK postcode or did not include it in their address). Of those who had given a postcode 81% lived in Suffolk, North Essex or South Norfolk. Their postcodes are plotted, by OS grid reference, on the map. (The method used did not allow map features to be included and only Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft are included for orientation). 

To some extent the number of members in a postcode appears to be related to the density of population (e.g. Bury St Edmunds, IP30, has 35 members) but more sparsely populated areas like Saxmundham (28) and Halesworth (22) also have high concentrations of members.

Even taking this into account the north of the area (roughly north of Bury St Edmunds) has fewer members than the South and 44% of members included on the figure live within 20 km of Ipswich.

Map showing distribution of members in Suffolk

( ;indicates postcode areas with more than 20 members; ;indicates postcode areas with fewer than 20 members)

Member status and interests

The last part of each record is ‘* for joint with SOG, how paid, membership category, interests’.

This part of the record was not systematically structured and the analysis is approximate only

Joint with SOG

122 members (17%) have joint membership of SNS and SOG.

Membership category

Interests

Minority interests, often included in major category e.g. 'ent, coleoptera’

Most of the members (51%) list ‘orn’ as one or their only interest. ‘Gen’ (15%), which presumably encompasses many of the other categories, and ‘bot’ (7%) are the other major interests. The other interests, ‘mam’, ‘lep’, etc. are listed by 2.4% or less of the members. A number of other categories (Conservation – Paleontology) are listed by less than 5 members in each category.

Michael Kirby, member of SNS Council

© 2004   Suffolk Naturalists' Society

DHTML menus from used by kind permision.