Discussion: I think Jymbo was pretty pleased as well.

Perhaps 40 Bendigo members at a State Series is a record for the club as well.

AND we had a club tent!

A record for an event held outside the immediate vicinity of Bendigo, anyway.

I think Wallaringa may actually be up to 40 members these days but that includes all the spouses who just come for the club dinner :)

Very short courses for a State Series - was this the middle distance format?

And yes, we in SA are managing to creep over 100 for pre-entry these days and then if we get another 30 EOD that's pleasing. But I can remember getting 300 to Wallaringa's events in Belair in the late '80s.

Numbers this year have been (Starting competitors, not 'entered' competitors) 19, 23, 24, 27, 33 and 38. Laurina was in there twice, and Richard didn't start, so didn't get to 40, maybe in a fortnight ;)

What's bumping the numbers up Blair?

More people are coming. ;-)
Seriously, I can only comment on the rising attendance from Bendigo. I'd put it down to six years or more of effort invested in development. Space-racing, J-Squad, an annual beginners series and more I am probably unaware of. Those involved are to be congratulated.

The Melbourne Bush-O may be starting to have that effect a bit too, although starting from further back than Bendigo are. Still, it seems to be a reasonably common thread in several states that numbers at 'traditional' state-level bush events dropped steeply through the 1990s, levelled off in the 2000s and now appear to be making a tentative recovery. (In contrast, national carnivals seem to be dropping off a bit in the last few years after having had remarkably stable numbers, comparing like venues with like, for about 30 years).

Think of it as a delayed effect as the new cohort comes through the ranks.

Or perhaps it's the scrapping of age groups, which takes the pressure off those who didn't feel comfortable running where they "belonged".

Surely it's the flow-on effect of the ASC's participation funding?
(this statement may or may not have been made tongue-in-cheek)

There are definitely positive results achieved by government supported initiatives, and some are more successful than others.

I saw the overall Australian participation statistics for 2013 yesterday; there is starting to be a noticeable upturn (92,000 or thereabouts, compared with the 75-80,000 which has been typical for most of the last 10 years).

So can you allocate this improvement in the stats to a share between increased participation and changed measurement.

Counting 'casual' visits I believe bumped the figures up hugely for those states that were not previously including anything other than members.... but given that's been going a few years now if the trend is still continuing perhaps the whole diversification from forest-or-nothing is paying dividends rather than being a case of divide-and-conquer. other than MTBO which is arguably irrelevant

Gosh Tooms, were you trying to hide that last comment from tRicky?

OAWA had a surge in attendances of 20-30% at a string of events last year between May and August. We couldn't find an explanation for it. Pre-May and post August attendances were around the average for the past 3-4 years.

No 'summer' sports in winter? No triathlons, no pretend adventure races etc?? I don't know.

I don't think change of measurement is likely to be much of a factor - that has had a big effect on the number of "registered orienteers" but there haven't been any major changes in the way we record the number of participants.