Report on Online Survey

Report on the CSA Internet-based Survey of Members, Summer 2018

 

Overview

This report on the survey is in two parts: this document (and its links) and a Powerpoint file.  The Powerpoint file contains a visual summary of the responses to the questions.  It is a combination of slides produced by Survey Monkey, the software used to conduct the survey, and other slides when there was too much information for the original slides to display.  There are 24 slides, and they can be seen here. You do not need Powerpoint on your computer to be able to see them.  On the whole, the information in the Powerpoint file is self-evident, except for Question 4, where two of the questions are truncated in the graph.  The first ended “easy to understand”; the fifth “provides information I want to have”; and the last ended “to other information are very helpful”.

 

Data collection

An invitation to participate in the survey was sent on July 9 to the 800 e-mail addresses on the list for the Paper Trail. Follow-up invitations were included within the Paper Trail on July 20, July 27, and August 3.  The survey closed on August 6.  On August 3 the e-mail list for the Paper Trail had 828 addresses.

 

The survey was taken, in whole or in part, by 291 members.  A pre-test of the survey was taken by all 13 Board members, so the completion rate for the survey was 304/828, or 36.7%.  It is worth noting that of the 800 e-mails sent on July 9, only 553 were opened, so perhaps a more appropriate response rate would be based on those members who at least opened the e-mail to consider the invitation. If that were done, the response rate would be 304/553 or 55% of the members who saw the invitation.

 

Because this is not a random sample of a known population, it is not a “statistically significant” sample, not can we make inferences to the whole membership from it.  The responses represent the membership that is engaged enough with the organization to respond given the opportunity.  In particular, the age and sex distributions are probably not representative of the full membership.  Females submitted 66% of responses, males 34%.  We don’t know the corresponding distribution of the full membership, but the 2016 census of Canmore shows that for persons age 55 and older, 50.4% are males (2055), and 49.6% are females (2020), a different split from the survey respondents.  The situation is similar with the age distribution, in that we don’t know it for the membership, but compared with the census the survey distribution under-represents the youngest and oldest age groups, as shown in this table.  (But note that our survey breakpoints were not identical to those in the census.)

Census Census CSA survey CSA survey
age groups percentages percentages age groups
55-59 28.3 7.72 55-60
60-64 26.8 27.6 61-65
65-69 19.0 21.3 66-70
70-74 10.8 22.1 71-75
75-79 6.6 12.1 76-80
80-84 4.0 5.9 81-85
>84 4.4 3.3 >85

 

Responses to open-ended questions

Five questions in the survey allowed for open-ended responses.  This section of the report lists those questions, provides an attempt to summarize or categorize the most frequent ideas for each, and then has a link to a page with the full set of responses to that question.  On those pages the responses have been copied in bulk from the survey results, so an item is occasionally outlined in gray for reasons that have to do with SurveyMonkey, not with the CSA.  Spelling and word choice are exactly as provided by the respondent.  The date and time of the response are as provided by SurveyMonkey.

 

Q 1: Where did you learn of the CSA?

27 responses here.

There was very little in common among the answers, other than it was usually word of mouth from another person.  Three mentioned Meanderthals; two mentioned bridge.

 

Q 2: Why did you originally join the CSA?

23 responses here.

Eleven mentioned Meanderthals or hiking

 

Q 8: Are there any other activities, programs or social events you would like the CSA to consider   offering?  If so, please name it or them here.

51 answers in full here.

Those with two or more mentions are shown in slide 9 of the Powerpoint deck; most others are shown in short form in slide 10. The two that tied for top spot with seven each were bridge and book club.

 

Q 17: Where do you live?

There were nine answers provided by those responding ‘other’, which can be found here.

 

Q 19: Is there anything else you want to tell us?

83 responses are shown here.

Twelve referred to the importance of LifeLong Learning, and remarked on it’s absence from the list.  We have apologized to the LLL committee for that omission.  Its absence was noticed in the pre-test, and we thought it had been inserted, but apparently one can’t make changes to the survey questions after there has been even one response to the survey.

Fifteen responses complimented CSA, the Board, or volunteers.  Seven complained of unfriendly or unwelcoming people at events they attended.   Four referred to costs being high, or to a board focus on raising money or fees

 

Q 20: If you would like us to be able to contact you about some of your comments, please provide your name and contact information.  Otherwise, no answer is needed here.

Fifteen respondents provided their name and contact information.  The first nine of these received a reply in mid-July. The last six were replied to August 7, after the survey closed.  Needless to say, these responses are not included in this report!